The Gassed, Robbed and Looted Train...Or...Eastern Europe By Rail

Traveling always has its hiccups, especially when it comes to planes, trains and overnight buses. Having survived the TransSiberian, however, I really felt that anything - literally anything - would pail in comparison. We had wanted to take an overnight bus from Krakow to Budapest, spend a night in Budapest then carry on into Romania by bus from there. Apparently, however, people only need to travel from Krakow to Budapest on Wednesdays and Saturdays because these are the only two cities relatively close to each other that have TERRIBLE transportation links. Because of this bizarre anomaly we were all but forced to travel by rail (which - while more expensive, meant a good night of sleep and lots of fun compartments, buttons and gizmos to fiddle with).



It all seemed well and good until people started telling me about how this route Krakow to Budapest) and our next route (Budapest to Bucharest) are “the most dangerous train routes in the world.” Stories like “yeah, my friend was robbed at knife point” and “first they put sleeping gas through the window then came inside and stole $400 from my money belt, which I was wearing at time. WHAT? A quick google search confirmed these stories and with that, I became incredibly paranoid. Not wanting to be alone in this paranoia I decided to share it with Matt, who really really appreciated it (read: sarcasm).



How did we overcome this fear? Oh well, that’s easy! I’m writing this on the top bunk. The window is closed despite the radiator having created a Sahara Desert environment inside. We’ve frenetically sealed the window with duck tape, committed to not using the toilet at all, locked both deadbolts and strung a bike lock around the handle and through a D-ring that’s hanging from the wall (for this purpose, perhaps?). I’ve evenly distributed my cash and credit cards among all of shoes, pants and coats and am wearing my passport in my money belt with is secured just below my neck around my chest.

I’m sure everything is going to be totally fine, right? Right?

--

Kyle Taylor

It’s 6 O’Clock Moscow Time, Which Means It’s...I Have NO IDEA.

I came across a travel article prior to this trip with the tag line “lose all sense of time and space on the TransSiberian.” While I now completely agree, it is for a very different reason. The article suggests you just get wrapped up in the scenery, the ride and the adventure to really understand where you are. It’s much simpler than that: While the rest of the world sticks to time zones, Russia keeps all eight of theirs intact but runs all the trains on Moscow time. That is, it may be 6pm in Irkutsk, but that’s 1pm in Moscow and our train might leave at 7pm, but that’s Moscow time - so midnight in Irkutsk. So while the local citizens have their clocks set to local time, all the train stations house enormous clocks displaying Moscow time. Meanwhile, my watch is set to London time with the dual clock set to Pacific Standard Time. Follow me?

This has provided hours of conversation on the train. It goes something like this: “What time is it here? Okay, it’s 5pm Yekaterinburg which is three hours ahead of Irkutsk, which is one behind Beijing. Now, we leave at noon Moscow time on Wednesday - what day is it? - Tuesday, okay. So we leave at noon Moscow time on Wednesday which means it’s now 4am in Los Angeles on Monday and noon in London, so with the stars in the third quadrant of the Milky Way and our having just passed the sixty first parallel, I think it’s time for lunch!”

Meals seem to happen whenever your body feels like it and once it’s dark outside, all bets are off as to what you should be doing. Sleeping? Reading? Eating? Drinking? NO CLUE.

As we cruise tomorrow Moscow on this - our final leg of the “official” TransSiberian journey - I’m getting slightly confused. Will my legs work? What will I do with all this time that will no doubt begin to appear? How will I know when to eat and sleep? What does a shower feel like? If there are any “take-aways” from this journey, I think they have to begin with a new-found appreciation for hot good, cold beverages and showers.

Oh, and give gifts to the women in charge of your train. For whatever reason, they’re all incredibly mean (minus our current chief, who has smiled at me. TWICE). The last one was wearing black leather lace-up thigh boots and an entire stick of lipstick. Upon coming to collect our sheets, she proceeded to throw a tantrum in Russian because a wash-cloth was missing. After pointing to our bags in an apparent attempt to pin us as a vicious Siberian ring of face towel thieves, we were booted from the cabin so she could look in every nook and cranny, eventually finding said wash-cloth under the seat. She held it up in our faces, shook it violently then stormed off. I looked at Matt and asked, “what just happened?”

Just as we have no doubt lost all sense of time and space, so too has this blog post. I have no idea what’s going on right now. Should I stop? Is there more to say? Maybe a snack break or an exciting trip to the dining car? Well, according to my watch and reading the path of the sun, it appears it is time to close. I shall now return to staring out the window.

--

Kyle Taylor

Caroline, Queen of Siberia

My watch reads 8:23pm as our train pulls into the Ulaanbaatar platform. We’re standing in the blustery cold under nearly 2 inches of snow thanks to a fluke snowstorm that forced the temperature down 35 degrees in twelve hours. Matt is to my right attempting to dodge the sways and dips of a very drunk Mongolian man. To my left is a dapper American fellow named Chris. Chris is a missionary from the Mormon church, which I identify from the universal name tag that all missionaries seem to wear.

He asks me where I’m from which is followed up with: “so, have you heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?” While I award an A for effort all I can think is, “does this really seem like the right moment to pitch the church? I’m wearing a 40-pound backpack on my back and a 20-pound pack on my front standing in two inches of snow on a train platform in Mongolia.” The whistle sounds and I excuse myself, apologizing for needing to hop aboard.



We are joined by Andy and Charlotte in our 4-person, 4-bed, microscopic cabin. It appears that - once again - all the foreigners have been placed in the same coach. We begin to chat our plan our coordinated attack on arranging our berths. “Okay, if you put your right foot here then I can put my left arm there and pull down this bunk. Good. Now, if you suspend your body from that rail I can do a front somersault vaulted twist into my bed. Ready, steady...”

Conversation on travel, work, school and home (they’re both UK residents and London-bound!) shifts abruptly as Caroline bursts into the cabin. We first met Caroline in Beijing, as she and her partner were on our group tour to the Great Wall. They miraculously reappeared on our train to Mongolia, where we brushed shoulders and spoke of our epic adventures. While we stayed in different places in Ulaanbaatar, both of us took overnight trips to the National Park (though we did not see each other). Then, while standing in the snow and chatting with the Mormon missionary, I caught her gaze across the platform.

Caroline seems to know everyone on the train, including the staff, border guards and customs officials. Austrian, she lives in London and “take one major trip every year.” You can hear her bubbly, enthusiastic laugh from six cabins down and whenever she shows up you can be sure there is some new train-wide news or gossip to be disseminated. She is the foreign traveler’s matriarch on our train journey through Siberia and thanks to her precise smoking schedule, I could set my watch by her movements.

She offers us Vodka all around which the four of us politely decline. This is followed by a number of hilarious anecdotes including a profile of her new Mongolian friend, her love of feeding dogs and how she made friends with our on-board cabin matron. The conversation carries on for several more highly entertaining hours before the four of us are sufficiently tired. Matt and Charlotte both accidentally stumble into the matron’s berth whilst looking for the bathroom and get a stern gaze for interrupting a frantically paced session of needlepointing. With that, we drift off to sleep...

--

Kyle Taylor

First Class Is Actually Second Class & Other First-Day Musings

We arrived at the station a good hour pre-departure and boarded to find that we were - in fact - two of only four people on the entire car of the train which is meant to sleep forty. In turns out that there are a total of 26 people on the entire 18-car train and we are in fact outnumbered by porters, cooks and conductors. What’s even more hilarious is that all the foreigners are bunched into the back three cars, which the rest of the folks enjoying the others. To top it all off, some Australians we just met are the only four people in their car as well. What makes this amusing is that there are all in THE SAME CABIN and were told that spreading out is “impossible.”

It seems that the food is country-specific, with different food cars being attached at border crossings. Speaking of border crossings, after a day of napping, reading, blogging, staring out the window, movie watching and game playing we were welcomed to the Sino-Mongolian border by an enormous Chinese army brigade marching ominously along the platform to a German symphony blasting from the speakers. We were then invited to “detrain and shop a little” while the wheels were being swapped (while the entire planet runs on the same size tracks, only Mongolia and Russia continue to use a network that is 3.5 inches wider than EVERYWHERE ELSE (naturally). This means the train cars have to have all their wheels swapped out at the border.



Fortunately, there was an extensive selection of “duty free” to explore that included some fabulous options like “Absolute” Vodka, “Jieku Hueihai” Whisky and “John Work Song” Black Strap Whisky. Note the remarkably similar names and labels, despite being roughly 20% of the cost. It was the perfect farewell to China. Well, that and being allowed to roam freely through the customs area despite having our passports confiscated, left to wait aimlessly on the platform for “two to six hours” with knock-off liquor and an enormous group of foreigners.

Moments later at the Mongolian border we were treated to a form written entirely in Mongolian script and told to “fill it out.” Ten minutes later the border agent reappeared and as I was attempting to mime my illiteracy she nabbed the incomplete forms from my hand, stuck then in her pocket, stuck her tongue out and blew. Where, exactly have I taken this train?

--

Kyle Taylor

Mongolia Or Bust. Okay, Bust...Almost

Following four days of almost solely touring, seeing and coordinating my life was in need of a major catch-up that just happened to have to take place the night before our Trans-Mongolian adventure began. Needless to say, a 3am bedtime did no wonders for my 5am wake-up call, though it did add yet one more tier of hilarity to our train station taxi ride.

For whatever reason, Shifu our driver was feeling particularly chatty (and vocal); I can only assume this remarkable interest was fueled by his being on hour 17 of what is surely one of the longest work shifts in history. Should people really be operating motor vehicles for 17 hours at a time? I’d have to go with no.

After offering up this this nugget of information, the driver proceeded to play twenty questions. It went something like this:

Driver: So, where are you going?
Me: Mongolia. Have you been there?
Driver: No. First, I have no money. Second, who wants to go there?
Me: Oh, um, I hear it’s very pretty.
Driver: Yeah, if you like that sort of thing.
Me: Do you...
Driver: I have no money.
Me; Oh, um, okay, well...
Driver: Where are you from?
Me: The United States.
Driver: What is your job?
Me: I was just a student but before that I was an English teacher in Shanghai.
Driver: Oh, Shanghai is crap too. Beijing is the best.
Me: Uh huh, okay. Well...
Driver: Does your friend understand Chinese?
Me: No, he doesn’t.
Driver: [Laughing] Well then, lets talk about him in front of him.
Me: Oh, um, I’d rather not.
Driver: Boring! Do you like karaoke?
Me: Yeah, it’s great fun.
Driver: [Puts fist to mouth and proceeds to sing into it] Shenme shenme shenme shi hao (What what what is good...}
Me: Well done. You’re very talented.
Driver: Thank you. Thank you very much.

We’re now on the train and I’m contemplating what just happened. Either way, it makes for a fantastic story.

--

Kyle Taylor

Overnight Trains Go “Choo! Choo!”

Alyson and I decided to decrease our carbon footprint, resist the temptation to fly discount and travel old-school on the choo-choo train. BEST. DECISION. EVER. In doing the math (which I inevitably do) I added up not just the flight but the cost of checking luggage (they do that on discount airlines), the cost of getting to and from the airport, the cost of eating over-priced airport food since you have to be there days before you leave and the cost of a hotel (when traveling overnight by train). When you add all of those pieces together, the train is either cheaper or marginally more expensive. Of course, there is no way to really quantify overall happiness and enjoyment, but that easily pushes the value of train travel. I mean, it’s just great.




We took the high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid (city center to city center), traveling at 220 miles an hour through gorgeous countryside and covering 500 miles in just under three hours. Perfect, no?





Then we engaged in a much more serious journey - Madrid to Lisbon. This was overnight and while I had done the same in China and Tibet, it was Alyson’s first full-throttle train experience. It could not have been more perfect. For just over $100 each we had our own two-person cabin complete with two beds that converted to proper chairs for day-time travel, a sink complete with privacy curtain and little stairs that led up to the top bunk. Our train commander took our tickets to “deal with the border so we could sleep” and offered a wake-up call in the morning so we could enjoy our free breakfast in the dining car before arriving in Lisbon. Yes please. And what was this journey called? The “Train Hotel.”



We enjoyed a nightcap in the bar car before bed, were whisked to sleep but the rhythmic vibrations of the train, awoke to a gentle tap on the door and dined on fresh bread, eggs, bacon, fruit, yogurt, fresh orange juice and coffee while watching the sun rise over the grape fields of northern Portugal. Can I please go again like, RIGHT NOW?

--

Kyle Taylor

6 Trains, 2 SkyCars, A Taxi & A Flight Later…Getting To SA

It all started in Brussels at 12:30pm when I left the Decrop’s house for the train station. I had to get to Dusseldorf to fly to Frankfurt and then on to Joburg in South Africa. My plans had changed somewhat and I wasn’t in Dusseldorf (obviously), so I had hoped to skip the flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt and go straight from Brussels to Frankfurt by train, thus cutting out about 6 hours of pointless travel. “That’s impossible,” the Lufthansa woman told me, when I called the reservation line. “You must start your flight at point of purchase, and Dusseldorf is your point of purchase. I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do unless you want to pay $150 change fee.” Mind you, I didn’t want to “change” anything. I just wanted to skip a flight, empty a seat, give them a chance to make more money. Not an option.

So I took the train from Brussels to Koln, then Koln to Dusseldorf then Dusseldorf to Dusseldorf Airport. From there, I took the “SkyCar” to Terminal A, walked a half-mile to the Economy class check-in, and dropped my baggage. “You have a middle seat,” Elsa told me. “46E.” I showed her my confirmation, which said I had a window, 50A. “That seats taken.” Sorry. Super. Then it was through security, where I had my water bottle confiscated again while my bag was being checked for bomb residue. From there, I went to my gate. Because of the train situation I was 3 hours early but already, my flight was delayed 2 hours, which meant I was going to miss a dinner date with my friend Lori, who is working for Commerzbank in Frankfurt. She didn’t have a cell phone and the Internet station was down, so I decided to text Ben in DC to email her in Frankfurt and explain. No immediate reply and Lori and I are supposed to meet in an hour, so I text Kyle. He replies, letting me know he is at work (a restaurant, so no computer). Then I decide to text Dana (also in DC) who doesn’t know Lori but can get her info on Facebook and send a message to her for me. She replies with “will do.” Success! Then she replies again, letting me know her info is set to “private” on Facebook, but that she sent her a Facebook message. Good enough.

Another hour passes and the flight is further-delayed due to bad weather in Frankfurt. Now it’s looking like I’m going to miss my connection, so I head to the ticket counter. “Not a chance that you’re getting to South Africa tonight,” Freida tells me. “No way, but I will confirm you for tomorrow.” Well that’s good enough, I decide. As this airport stuff happens to me quite often, I was marginally un-phased. That meant I needed a place to crash in Frankfurt, which meant I needed to get a hold of Lori! Now in crisis mode, I decided to spend the $18 to use the airport’s wireless network.


I get on G-chat. Luckily, Lori is online. I explain everything and she says I can stay with her. Glorious! Then she types, “my address is” and at that moment, Gmail goes ballistic and our chat is cancelled. So, I have a confirmation that I can stay but I have NO IDEA where she lives. Being resourceful, I get on AOL Instant Messenger, find Ben online and ask for Lori’s screenname. “She’s on gchat. I’ll ask,” he tells me. Meanwhile, I am on Facebook posting on Lori’s “wall” explaining what happened. A few minutes pass. “Her Instant Messenger isn’t working. What’s up? I’ll tell her.” So I proceed to ask Ben (who is in DC simultaneously hosting a conference call at work and updating the Alpha Phi Omega website) to get Lori’s address, as well as a phone number. He begins acting as middleman and I get what I need. Then he offers to get a map online for me, which he sends via iChat. By now, Lori’s Instant Messenger has decided to start working once again, and we’re chatting directly, though I continue to chat with Ben.

We both decide a phone call would work better, so I Skype her from my computer in the Dusseldorf airport. We finalize the plans and I hang up. Then I call the office in DC to explain that I’m going to be a day late to South Africa. Right in the middle of our conversation they announce that my flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt is now CANCELLED, which means I’m back at zero. I quickly hang up with the office and ask the woman what to do. She explains that I need to get my luggage then go to “Re-ticketing” to find a solution.

I go to the baggage carousel. It spins and spins with lots of bags, but not mine. 15 minutes pass and I ask an attendant what to do. He says “I don’t know.” Now, he works at the airport. Shouldn’t he have just the slightest idea what I should do? I head to lost luggage, wait in line with the other 50 people and discover that my bag was “flagged” as unattended (probably because I was supposed to be getting on plane) and put into quarantine. Another 30 minutes and they produce it, wrapped in an air-tight black bag. Hmmm…

So it’s now 10pm (I started this game at 12:30pm) and I’m running to “Re-ticketing,” where I have a lovely discussion with an Australian and South African who explain how they never lock their doors because their countries are so safe, “not like America.” Then it’s my turn and I explain that I’d like to get to Frankfurt tonight, so as not to spend a fortune on a hotel room. Linda (lovely woman) gets me on the next train out of Dusseldorf, so I scurry with all my luggage to the “SkyCar,” which takes me to the Dusseldorf Airport train station, where I attempt to log on to the wireless and email Lori with my updated plan. The network is (shockingly) down, so I decide to use my cell phone, only to discover the cell network is also down! No email, no internet, no phone. Can it get any worse? Obviously, yes.

I get the next train from Dusseldorf Airport to Dusseldorf Main, only to find that my connecting train (from Dusseldforf to Koln) is 15 minutes late, which means I am going to miss my last train from Koln to Frankfurt, and the next one isn’t until 1am! By now I’m starving, as all I had eaten was a croissant and a waffle when I was still in Belgium. My choices are McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. I choose Pizza Hut and decide (why, I do not know) to go with something new and get a slice of Indian Tandoori Chicken Pizza. I take a big bite and within seconds my mouth is ON FIRE from the spices. I reach to the side of my bag to get my water bottle, but there is nothing there. It was confiscated when I went through airport security. I dart to the vending machine (backpack on, suitcase rolling behind me) and stuff my money into the coin slot, pounding on the water button. The machine is broken, and it won’t return my $2! My lips are now numb and I have no control of my tongue. Remembering that bread actually cools the burn, I turn to the snack machine and cram more money into the slot, pressing “1-6” to get some crackers. The little sprockets spin to release the bag and right as it’s about to drop, the bag gets lodged into the spiral. I dig through my pocket looking for more change. I need 1 euro and I have 95 euro-cents. No crackers for me. At this point my train pulls up and I have to board, eyes watering, nose running.


Because this train was late it was also very full. Knowing that I was going to miss my connection from Koln to Frankfurt anyway, all sense of urgency had left my system. I sauntered in to find that the only seat left was in the SMOKING CAR. Again, perfect. The ticket agent came through to stamp tickets. I handed him my plane ticket stub, on which the flight attendant had scribbled in pen, “Good for the train” and initialed it. VERY OFFICIAL. The train attendant looked at me like I was crazy. I began to explain the last 11 hours to him, my eyes still watering from the pizza of death. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll figure this out,” thinking my tears were tears of sadness. I was totally fine with this confusion. I hadn’t lied about anything and hopefully something good was going to happen.


He picked up his walkie-talkie and started speaking in lightning-fast German to someone, then he disappeared into the next car. He reappeared five minutes later to let me know that he had “phoned ahead and made sure the train would wait for us to arrive. You will need to run though,” he told me; and run I did. Like the wind. And scream. Like a 12-year-old girl. “WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!” I yelled, as the train attendant started to board. I jumped in and within 10 seconds we were moving again. For the first time in nearly 12 hours something had gone right.

From there, everything when smoothly – the train was on time, I got a cab easily and he took me right to Lori’s door. I’m about to drift off into dreamland now, but lets recap:

Train to train to train to train to skycar to middle seat to water confiscated to waiting in the airport to texting America to get a hold of someone in Germany to gchatting to skyping to flight being cancelled to quarantined luggage to skycar to train to train to pizza of death to vending machine of doom to train to smoking car to misinterpreted tears to running to train to train to taxi to bed. NOT TO SOUTH AFRICA, all because Lufthansa didn’t want to let me skip my 20-minute flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt. Thanks Lufthansa. Thanks!

Trains Hate Me

I was up early to catch my train to Germany. Correction: trains. I was going from Brussels to Liege, Liege to Aachan, Aachan to Bochum. Now, when I think of train travel in Europe I think clarity, ease of use and timeliness. Wrong, wrong and wrong. My first train from Brussels to Liege left on time but moved slower than a horse-drawn cart (literally, a horse-drawn cart passed us), meaning I missed my connection in Liege. After checking the big board with train departures I discovered the next train to Aachan didn’t leave for another three hours. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, only the train station in Liege is completely under construction, which meant I got to spend three hours sitting on the curb listening to and watching big cranes build the new “futuristic” station.


When my train finally arrived I was shocked to find that it was full of trash (there was actually a layer of garbage lining the floor). It appeared to be a throw-back from the Soviet block. My third train was commuter rail, which meant we stopped every three minutes for an hour and an a half. The bad luck continued throughout my trip. The next day, when Sophie and I went to visit Germany’s first-ever Youth Venture team, we got on what we thought was our train that was supposed to take 20 minutes to get to our destination. An hour later when we never passed our stop, we got off the train, only to find out that there was an error in the track assignments, meaning we had actually gone an hour in the wrong direction. AWESOME. On the way back from the site visit we took a short train ride to the subway, then got on the subway going the wrong direction. When we finally realized what had happened, we got back on going the other way, only to miss our stop because we were both totally engrossed in our conversation. PERFECT.


Then I had to take a 40-minute train from Bochum to Koln for our big event with Staples. I boarded but had no seat assignment, assuming no one had a seat asssigment. Wrong. Each seat had it’s own little sign for the day that indicated when the seat was reserved. I had no seat assignment, however, I didn’t understand the system in the slightest so whenever we stopped and picked up more people, I was obliged to move to another seat. I moved seats 7 times in 40 minutes and did NOT get a nap, like I had hoped.


Of course, it did not stop there. I had decided to upgrade my return ticket to Brussels from three trains on commuter rail to one high-speed train that would cut two hours off my trip back to Brussels, all for only $5! No-brainer, right? Only if you actually get on the train…I was up at 7AM to catch the 8:14AM train. The board (and my ticket) said track 8, so I went to track 8. The big screen their said “8:14AM – Brussels.” Right place, I thought. Then, 10 minutes later, the sign changed to “8:18AM – Amsterdam.” It was only 8:08AM and my train had yet to arrive, so I asked the very friendly (read sarcasm) train attendant what I should do. “This is the right place. Just board the train at doors D, E or F and you will go to Brussels.” So the train (to Brussels even though it says to Amsterdam) pulls in and I board at door D. 8:14AM comes and goes and we aren’t moving. 8:16AM and I decide to ask once again, as nothing inside the train (signs, etc.) offer any indication that I might be going to Brussels. I step out and ask the attendant. He points to cars E and F, which are now pulling away and says “Oops. I guess it was just cars E and F. Bye bye train. It looks like you aren’t going to Brussels right now! Haha.” Haha? Why, dear German train attendant, is this funny? By now it’s 8:18AM and the doors of the train to Amsterdam begin to close WITH MY BAGS ON BOARD. So my stuff is going to the Netherlands and I am stuck in Germany. I jump back on the train, throw my big backpack in space to stop the door, strap on my little backpack (with my computer inside) jump over my big back and then pull it out of its wedged position in the door, all whilst this train agent stairs and watches me. I ended up having to spend $4 more to get the next high-speed train, which didn’t leave for another 2 hours…thanks Germany, thanks.

Notes For Beijing To Lhasa Train Travelers & Tibet Travel Advise

• Entering Tibet
o My travel agency – CITS. My agent – Peggy Yu (yuyh@scits.com). She speaks perfect English.
o It is next to impossible anymore to enter Tibet as an independent traveler. Most travel books will tell you it’s possible through Chengdu, but that has not been my experience. You can join a tour in Chengdu, which does make it possible, but somewhat stressful.
o You must be part of a tour group (large or private) to get Tibet entrance approval, especially if you plan to take the train from Beijing or Shanghai to Lhasa. It costs 50 kuai (about $7) and MUST be arranged by an approved travel agent. I recommend CITS, China’s “official” travel agency. They are also able to book train tickets departing from multiple locations, as you are restricted at the train station to only tickets departing from that location. Rarely can you buy a return ticket. Also, tickets usually only go on sale three to ten days before departure and they sell out fast. CITS is able to buy tickets before this three to ten day window, which is another bonus.
o Basically, contact a travel agent, give them your preferred dates of travel and a photocopy of your passport and visa and let them take care of everything. Trust me, I spent two weeks speaking with about a dozen different people on how I could organize this trip by myself (I am a very independent traveler) and had no luck.


• For The Train Don’t Forget…
o A Towel – They are not supplied to you, though all linens are.
o Tissues – There are very few in the toilet.
• There are three classes of travel – Soft sleeper, Hard sleeper, and Soft Seat.
o Soft Sleeper is four people sharing one cabin, TVs in every bunk, linens provided, power outlets and room-to-room climate control. There are three sinks (with hot water) in every car, as well as two toilets – one squatter and one western. This option costs 1262 kuai, roughly $161 US.
o Hard Sleeper is six people sharing one cabin (stacked three high with no room to sit up on the second and third bunks). Again, linens are provided but no TVs and no room-to-room climate control. The sink and toilet facilities are the same, but no hot water.
o Soft Seat is comparable to economy class seating on an airplane. People are six to a row, three on each side of the aisle. No lines. No TVs. No climate control. No laying down. People standing in the aisle (they purchased a standing ticket). The sink and toilet facilities are the same, but no hot water and they’re shared by three times as many people.
o All sleepers and seats are equipped with oxygen outlets for when the train begins its accent to 15000 feet.


• In Tibet…
o Make sure to stay in “Old Tibet.” Almost everything happens in this very small part of town. It is home to Jokhang Temple & The Barkhor Market, not to mention countless outdoors shops and backpacker restaurants.
• Accommodation Recommendations:
• Going Cheap – Pentoc Guesthouse
• A Real Hotel – ShangBaLa Hotel or the Yak Hotel.
• Internet Is Readily Available. Try The Yak Hotel For Great Conditions and Dirt Cheap Prices (5 Yuan, or about 60 cents US an hour).
• As far as eating is concerned, there are a number of cheap restaurants that serve Tibetan, Chinese, Indian, & Western cuisine all in the same place. If you buy a package deal, do not include lunch and dinner. Save that money and eat on your own. We included our meals and ended up not using half of them because they were all in our hotel. Where’s the fun in that?
• Restaurant Recommendations:
o New Mandala Restaurant – They serve pretty much anything and everything your heart might desire. Try their Chicken Tikka with Butter Naan.
o Dunya – French cuisine (only open in the spring and summer).
o Tashi #1 – The best Yak burger in town.
o Dicos – Tibetan McDonald’s. Don’t eat a meal here, but at least take a peek. Interesting cultural studies piece.
• Why know detailed location info on these places? As I said, the downtown hotspot area (just go to the Barkhor Market and you’re right in the middle of it) is no more than five blocks long and literally one block wide. You’ll see these places, I promise.


• Note For Winter Travelers – Tibet is really geared for April to October travel. A number of sites and restaurants are closed November to March, particularly around Tibetan New Year. There is a benefit, of course. You get to celebrate with the people in the streets. The fireworks and mayhem were easily one of the ten most incredible events I’ve ever experienced, period.

Come On Ride That Train, That Choo-choo Train

12:53PM, Day One – We’ve moved out of lush green and into rolling brown hills. It looks a lot like eastern California and southern Nevada. Off to lunch.

4:56PM, Day One – After a surprisingly delicious (and incredibly overpriced) lunch in the dining car, we decided to escape with a movie. Our first choice, A Night At The Museum, only lasted 30 minutes and might have been the worst movie I have ever seen (after Wild Wild West, of course). Our second, Trust The Man, was fantastic. The scenery outside is still baron desert, and Robin is wondering where everyone buys their groceries. The western toilet has been locked (and broken) since this morning. The train ran out of paper towels last night, about an hour after we left. I haven’t seen our bunkmates in six hours. They’re still playing music, only now it’s terrible orchestra music. No cabin fever yet. Still enjoying the downtime, as well as the rhythmic sounds of the train car.

6:39PM, Day One – I awoke from a late evening doze just in time to watch the sun set over the hills in the distance. With it goes our first of two full days on the Beijing-Lhasa express train. From what we can tell there are a total of seven foreigners aboard the train – Robin, myself, and the five French people (one of whom is sleeping in our cabin. I’m doing my best to get into this Peter Hessler book but struggling to feel captivated. Wondering why someone doesn’t want to turn this blog into a tell-all tale of China struggle to escape its past with the hope of conquering its future. Maybe the problem is that they have yet to fully embrace their past, both feudal and Communist. The nature that surrounds us is still brown, dark and depressing. It makes me think of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Robin has said more than once that it reminds her of her trip to the USSR in the early 70s.

7:53PM, Day One – Just got back from dinner in the dining car. Robin is peeing again, for the seventh time today. Apparently our altitude medication – Diamox – is supposed to induce the urge quite frequently. I’ve only peed once today. What’s wrong with me? Eggs and Tomatoes for dinner. Delicious! Robin opted for a peanut butter sandwich. Also scrumptious! The French people have been in the dining car all day. Literally since 9am. They’ve passed most of the time playing Tile Rummy, a favorite of my British grandmother. They’ve also been drinking wine non-stop since noon. They’re currently on their sixth bottle amongst five people. About a dozen beer cans are also littering their two tables. I wonder if anyone has explained the increased effects of alcohol when traveling to high altitudes. Maybe they’re Parisian, in which case nothing phases them. I also realized that I’ve walked approximately 200 yards today in total. Because the train is separated into very distinct sections (soft sleeper, hard sleeper and soft seat) we can only traverse a three-car distance.

8:43PM, Day One - We are now rather adjusted to train life, and routines are already emerging. Every two hours or so the French guy comes in, says “hello,” rustles around in his bag, holds some papers in the air, gives us a half smile (which we return) then leaves again. Our Chinese counterpart is far more interesting. His visits are more infrequent and when he leaves, he disappears. We literally cannot find him. When he pops in he waves and shakes and smiles and nods with a certain intensity that I can’t quite explain. Then he hoists himself into his top bunk without using the foot steps and takes a twenty-minute nap. Afterward he climbs (or rather falls) back down, waves and shakes and smiles and nods, then disappears once more. The music in the hallway continues to blast throughout the train. It seems to be about a six-hour loop, which means I’ve heard Jewel’s “Foolish Games” three times now.

10:03PM, Day One – Train official opens our room door and counts us then disappears without saying a word.

11:23PM, Day One – Robin returns from the bathroom, letting me know that once again the western toilet was locked and had to be opened by special request. This has been the case all day. The women then locks the western toilet after Robin leaves. Confusion.

11:58PM, Day One – A different train official opens our room door and counts us once more, then disappears again without saying a word. Apparently it’s really important to keep track of us.

12:07AM, Day Two – Going to bed. Robin & the French guy have been out for a good half hour. The Tibetan above me is still reading his newspaper.

9:06AM, Day Two – Robin woke me up at 8:45AM, just in time to watch the sun rise over the distant mountains. Overnight our landscape changed dramatically. No more brown desert. All I can see now is endless, soft white hills stretching all the way to the horizon. No breaks. No life. This place is completely baron. I can’t even make out any roads. Just snow. I’m having a little shortness of breath, which makes me think we’re elevating. Off for the usual train sink face washing song and dance number.

12:11PM, Day Two – I’ve just spent the past two hours trying to fix my computer. After a solid hour and a half of writing, nothing would save to the hard drive. Then it told me there wasn’t enough memory and completely froze, forcing me to restart, only to lose all the work I had done since last night. Once again, I hate Apple. I have a lemon and there isn’t a chance in hell that I will accept anything less than a complete replacement once I get back to the US. The scenery transitions back and forth between snow and dirt, with a panoramic hillside acting as a permanent frame off in the distance. Our roommates are nowhere to be seen, which has left us with a nearly private compartment for most of the journey. The train attendant also finally opened the western toilet and left it open. We remain confused as to why they keep locking it! It’s nearly 12:30PM now, which means movie time. Oh how quickly routines form!

3:01PM, Day Two – Just woke up from my post-nap movie. I think we’re starting to travel up. My ears keep popping. Also had our first look at Yak. They’re big and hairy. Delicious! I do plan on eating a Yak burger. The halls are empty. Absolutely no people. For whatever reason it seems that most everyone has resigned themselves to sleeping the day away. Music still blasting in the halls though! Time for some cards.

5:20PM, Day Two – We’re up to our noses in Yaks. Yaks, yaks, everywhere! I’m starting to feel some side effects from the Diamox. My fingers and toes are tingling, which feels rather strange. We just passed 15,000 feet and will make a 3,000 foot descent into Lhasa. For the most part, Robin and I are feeling fine, though Robin said her heart is racing a little bit. The toilets and trash cans have officially been abandoned by the train’s staff. The western toilet has been locked for ten hours and apparently the concept of flushing is just too much for most people, which has left the squatter in complete disarray. Water and bodily fluids slushing everywhere. No toilet paper. Our trashcan is chocker-block full. Haven’t seen the French guy in hours either. My bunkmate has been sitting in the hall ALL DAY, minus his brief afternoon nap. Oh, we also made a stop at this rather large train station located IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. All the foreigners got off to take pictures. It was our first time outside in more than a day and a half. A few people actually disembarked here. We’re now moving into hour 44 and all is well. I would be totally fine with another six days of this. No cell phones ringing, no email to check, no people speaking English…heaven on earth for someone like me, though I guess Tibet is often referred to as the closest thing to heaven…on earth.

5:30PM, Day Two – I just realized I have been wearing the same clothes for 44 hours. This includes my socks and underwear. Little motivation to change my clothes. The French guy has also been wearing the same thing but he’s French, so it is to be expected. Oh my god, am I becoming French? I also haven’t shaved. I don’t even have the slightest desire to change my clothes…or shave. This is definitely not my finest moment.

7:15PM, Day Two – We’re now less than two hours away. Despite the late hour, it’s still light outside. This is due in large part to the fact that the entire country is on the same time (Beijing time obviously, since Beijing is at the center of the universe) which means it gets dark on the east coast at 5:15PM while the western half of the country can stay light as late at 9PM. You can sense the anticipation onboard. The Frenchies have been packing for the past six hours in between drinking bottles of French wine that they actually brought with them. This in spite of the multiple warnings against drinking alcohol at our elevation. Neither Robin nor myself have felt the need to pump in extra oxygen, which is lucky, because no one came around with the equipment. My butt hurts. These beds are great for sleeping but terrible for sitting. Looking forward to a hot shower.

7:27PM – My Tibetan bunkmate just told me my sweatshirt is too small, and he’s sorry about that. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

7:48PM – I just ate my fifth PB&J sandwich in two days. OH MY GOD.

8:02PM – I’m getting antsy, which has left me writing more frequently. We keep passing these train stations in the middle of nowhere. Literally, NOTHING around us and then there’s this big glitzy station. Who’s stopping here?

8:39PM – We just left Lhasa West station, which was absolutely full of chaos. As we pulled in everyone started scrambling. I was wondering if we were supposed to be getting off, but I had been told seven times that we would arrive at 9PM! All of a sudden the train attendant swooped into our room, emptied the trash (about fourteen hours too late), and insisted that we close the curtains because, as he told me in Chinese, “We are in a city. Curtains go closed.” Sense? None! We’re all packed, shoes on. Just waiting to get to the ACTUAL Lhasa central train station. This marks the end of our train journey and oh what a journey it was! More soon…

Second Floor, Second Floor!

It is now 11:38am on our first full day of train travel from Beijing, China to Lhasa, Tibet. We’ve been on the train fourteen hours and thirty-eight minutes. I’m sitting on my lower bunk right next to the window, the computer resting on our little table. For the last hour or so we’ve been shifting between tunnel travel and gorgeous stepped landscapes. Small streams weave their way through never-ending fields and mountainsides covered in lush green crops. People are scattered throughout, bobbing up and down as they pick whatever it is they’re growing. An older man is herding three or four buffalo along the main stream. It’s serene, calm and a welcome change of scenery after six months in uber-urban Shanghai. The scene inside the train is much different.

They’re blasting Chinese rock music in the hallway right now. The last song was to the tune of Prayer-a-jaques-a (I know that is spelled wrong). The current “off the heezy” number sounds a lot like “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. Maybe they’re trying to create a mood? The music is a welcome escape from the comedy (I use that word lightly) radio show – laugh track and all – that had been playing non-stop since 8am. The hallway is full of people “listening” while dozing off with their faces plastered up against the window. Mind you, they all have beds. Oh my god, they have just outdone themselves. The music just changed to a Chinese version of Sean Paul’s 2005 smash hit, “We Be Burnin’.” Awesome.

Robin & I were lucky enough to get the two lower bunks of our four-person cabin, and we're fully stocked with snacks! Each space is equipped with a TV offering six (all-Chinese) channels, a hanger for clothes, an oxygen outlet, toiletries cubby, two down pillows, a down comforter, and a power outlet. Space is tight, but not as tight as the people sleeping six to a room (three beds high) in the next car, or the folks in the rest of the train who are riding in seats six-wide for the entire 48-hour journey. We managed to stuff most of our bags under the bunks, which means there is plenty of room to spread out, play cards, and half-offer some sitting space to our cabin mates. Robin’s top-bunker is a French guy whose four friends are in the cabin next door. I cordially greeted him in French, to which he replied: “Hello. You must be American.” I guess I won’t be practicing my French! My top-bunker is Tibetan and barely made it to the train. In fact, he showed up to the room after we had pulled out of Beijing West Station, dripping with sweat. He then explained that he had actually run all the way to the train from his home, about four miles from the station. He spent the next two hours in the hallway trying to air-dry himself.

Thankfully, we left for the station a good two hours before departure, otherwise we would have probably been in the same boat. After loading our bags we slid into the back seat and told the driver our destination, Bejing West Train Station. He pulled out and began driving east. And driving east. And driving east. Ten minutes in I leaned forward to confirm our destination. He assured me that we were indeed going to the WEST train station. Some more time passes and we turn due south, continuing on this trajectory for another ten minutes before finally turning west. At this point we must have back-tracked a good fifteen miles, but at least we were moving in the right direction! Twenty minutes and fifty kuai later we had arrived at what looked like a train service entrance. I hoisted my gigantic backpack onto my shoulders, Robin double-fisted our two rolling suitcases and we charged into the terminal.

Only, it wasn’t a train terminal. It was an underground waiting area for a slew of train numbers, none of which matched our train number. I pulled it over to ask a police officer. Pan to the sea of non-ethnically Han people staring at us. Not a single foreigner in site. I’m guessing we’re in the wrong place. I show the officer our tickets and explain we are lost. He looks them over, says “ar lou” (second floor) and points down the corridor. We continue on. The end of the corridor arrives and there is no second floor in sight. I ask a second police officer. She looks our tickets over, says “ar lou” (second floor) and points further down to what looks like an underground plaza. We continue on. About 500 yards later we come across as escalator, which looks promising.

We get to the top and once again, there is absolutely no signage at all indicating where we should go. Our train number does not appear on any of the signs. I ask a third police officer. He looks our tickets over, says “ar lou” (second floor) and points to the left. We continue on. Another 1000 yards or so (I’m still wearing my over-stuffed backpack) and we are once again in a place with no signs at all. I ask a fourth police officer. He looks our tickets over, says “ar lou” and point to the right. We continue on, and eventually come across another escalator. It has now been twenty minutes. Our train leaves in about forty.

Ok, Jewel (the real Jewel) just came on the radio. Seriously? What’s next? Tony Bennett?

Anyway, we take the escalator up and now find ourselves in front of the train station. There is an enormous sign here that reads “Entrance” and lists several train numbers. Ours is, of course, not there. Super. To the left of this entrance sign is a smaller poster that reads “Ticket Office.” I’m thinking this is our best chance of success. We weav our way through the crowd of what must have been literally 20,000 people and enter the ticket office. I see another police officer (our fifth) and ask him where we should go. He looks the tickets over, says “ar lou” and points to a mob of people in the middle of the room. Actually, he was pointing to the circular desk inside the mob of people, but I didn’t realize that until I was much, much closer. I left the bags with Robin (who was, like me, having hot flashes at this point) and “went native,” diving into the crowd while waving my ticket in the air. A few elbow-throws later and it was my turn. The small woman grabbed my tickets, looked them over and said “ar lou.”

My jaw dropped. Rage began to build inside. I tried to find my words in Chinese but it just wasn’t coming. Whenever you get angry it seems impossible to speak in a foreign language. I am reminded of Desi Arnez as “Ricky” on “I Love Lucy.” Whenever Lucy did something outlandish Ricky would give her a heated, patriarchal talking to, but it would just come out in Spanish. Likewise, I began to spout off in Chinglish, which I didn’t even understand. The woman waved her hand in the air. I assumed she was calling the police over or something to take me away, but instead a lovely woman wearing a very official hat showed up. The lady working behind the counter handed her our tickets and indicated that I should follow her. What happened next is an example of why I continue to be completely and utterly confused by this country. This woman WALKED US ALL THE WAY TO OUR DEPARTURE GATE! On one hand you have five police officers pointing me this way and that, acting totally inconvenienced by my need for assistance and on the other you have this woman personally walking the confused and overwhelmed foreigners all the way to their train.

So now we’re in the waiting lounge and all is well, right? Wrong! We approach the ticket checkpoint, the woman looks at our destination, spouts off at 100 miles an hour in Chinese (I can understand quite well, but at this point I was completely exhausted and doing that thing where you just aren’t paying attention and telling yourself in your head “I’m not listening. I’m not paying attention. Wow, that silver railing is really shiny.” Then she handed me two forms that apparently needed to be filled out before we could board. The only problem was, they were COMPLETELY IN CHINESE. I told the woman I couldn’t read them. She shrugged her shoulders. Enter crisis mode.

I ran back to Robin, explained the situation and began soliciting people in the waiting area for help. “Ni hui shuo Ingu ma?” (Do you speak English?). Again, not a single foreigner in the room. I think my desperation was scaring people, and few even answered my request. Eventually, a man said yes, and kindly talked Robin and I through the entire form, front and back. Relief. Now fifteen minutes until our train is scheduled to depart, we regrouped, loaded up all of our stuff, flashed our Chinese forms (which the woman couldn’t read anyway. In reality, we could have written anything on the forms and she would have let us pass. Note to self for next time) and boarded the train, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. Our tickets were taken and exchanged for a small plastic card that indicates our bed number and must be carried on our person at all times. This card is taken from us before we arrive and our ticket is given back. Why? No idea!

Then passport control came in and reviewed our countless documents, including the flimsy sheet of white paper scribbled with some words in Chinese and stamped with a big red star that serves as our official documentation for entering Tibet. Finally, he asked us for our ID forms (those pesky Chinese-only forms we had frantically filled out in the train station). I handed them over. He laughed to himself, opened his folder and pulled out the same forms, only his were written in English…

GOOD MORNING! GOOD MORNING!

I awoke to these words being yelled at me by the train attendant at 6:30am. Luckily it was actually the morning. You see, no matter what time of day it might be "Good morning" is always the greeting of choice for foreigners and at 6:30am those are two words I just don't want to hear.

For whatever reason train systems worldwide feel the need to wake passengers up an hour before arrival by turning on the lights, loudly emptying the trashcan and yelling "Good Morning! Zaoshang Hao!" What am I going to do on a train in my 4-foot box for an hour at 6:30am? There's no food. There's no movie. All I have are my thoughts and the three other people sharing my cabin who have yet to say a word to me. In fact, no one said a word to anybody for the entire 12 hours. I didn't mind. I mean, I had some work to do, a few episodes of Desperate Housewives to watch and Peter Hessler's newest overdramatic inaccurate account of China to read.

At the minute I'm sitting at an internet cafe on the southeast corner of Tianamen Square. Out the window I can see the Forbidden City, The 25-foot portrait of Mao's head, The Memorial to the People's Heroes of the People's Republic of China, Mao's Mausoleum, and the 5,000 people or so who are currently lined up to see his body. Unfortunately I'm unable to upload pictures at the minute, but just imagine...

My first overwhelming thought upon arrival was "wow, everything is so low." I have yet to see a single building over 10 stories tall, which is exactly opposite of Shanghai, which boasts hundreds of forty and fifty-story skyscrapers! There is a relaxing calmness thus far, and I'm enjoying the enormous boulevards, pristine streets (ready for the Olympics) and different accent. They acentuate the R here in Beijing. For example, in Shanghai "where" is nali. Here, it's nar (with a really really long R).

I have a new friend. Well, I had a new friend until I found out he really just wanted me to buy some calligraphy. "Jack" and I walked and talked (in Chinese) all the way across the square. "Shanghai is exciting, Beijing is beautiful," he said. Then he asked me if I wanted to buy his stuff. I said no, he told me to "have a nice life" and that was that.

Now I'm off to the Friendhsip Store, the only place foreigners could get western goods before 1990. Then to the airport to pick up Robin. She beat the snow in DC by about an hour! Woohoo!

More soon...