Beijing - Lhasa train

Post dated entry due to blog being blocked in China:

May 31st, 2010

I am currently writing this entry as I ride through almost the entire length of China on a train. (See the route below in black and white striped line)

This train, from Beijing to Lhasa Tibet was opened in 2006 so it is really new. Most of this trip entails me sitting on my bed staring out the window. Within the past two days we have gone through so many different terrains. We started from Beijing, rode through lush green hills and lakes which turned into stone mountains which then turned into what looks like red clay mountains.

I was surprised at how many crops were being grown in this mountainous region. A lot of the crops looked like tobacco but I’m sure a lot of other crops look big, leafy and green. When I pointed out the window my “Chinese roommate” for the trip said “wheat.”

During the second night of our train ride I woke up feeling cold with the white reflection of snow covered mountains. During breakfast it looked like we were riding through a cold tundra.

Now we are nearing the Tibetan border where it is flat and muddy. Some areas remind me of a beach where the tide has gone back out to the ocean, leaving little streams of water through dark colored sand.

I have spotted a couple animals which look like sheep, antelope and yaks. Currently, as we get closer to our destination it seems to get warmer and greener although there are still patches of snow. Small and isolated groups of local people wave as we pass by.

Our tour guide in Lhasa wasn't able to get 5 of us girls into one cabin so we had to split up. Dee and I chose to pay more for the “soft sleepers” while Cecilia, Katie, and Kim took the “hard sleepers.” The soft sleepers have 4 people to a cabin so Dee and I are rooming with two older Chinese men. One of them has an online translator on his computer so through technology we were able to communicate. (See pic below)

We found out that one of them is an engineer at the Chinese Academy of Science and the other is a civil servant. This really intrigued me—here I am sitting, sleeping, and spending 2.5 days with a government official who works for communist China. I am dying to talk politics with this man. But all Dee and I could really ask is whether they have one child (ie. the one child policy) which they in fact did only have one child – both men having sons as well. Hmmm…sons, eh? They went on to say that those in the rural countryside can only have two children. I wonder how Chinese people feel about this policy and if they think it has had any positive effects. Most non-Chinese people would argue that the one child policy has been a failure - population growth usually coorelates with income. The more income a family makes, the less children they have. And furthermore, since we are all on a train to “tour” Lhasa, I would like to get their opinion on how they feel about the struggle for Tibet's autonomy. But for now I can just smile and say “knee how” to them...