On top of the world

DNA travels on the railway line to the rooftop of the world.

LHASA: Travel writer Paul Theroux once prophesied that the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom of Tibet would remain protected from Han Chinese influence owing to an accident of geography.

The formidable Kunlun Range that divides Tibet from the rest of China, he wrote, would guarantee that a train to Lhasa – which Communist Chine has dreamed of ever since the 1950s – would never go all the way. "That," he had said, "is probably a good thing: I thought I liked railways until I saw Tibet, and then I realised I liked the wilderness much more."

On Saturday and Sunday, this correspondent, invited to be a member of the first Indian media delegation to travel in western China, bore witness to the fact that Theroux’s prophesy has been proved spectacularly wrong by the Chinese.

For 29 hours, we travelled on the newly inaugurated Qinghai-Tibet railway, in such extravagant comfort that would have done a Qing dynasty emperor proud, and marvelling in equal measure at both the surreal beauty of the landscape we were rushing through and the unsurpassed engineering feat that had made this journey possible. 

For nearly a week before we boarded the train, we had been shepherded around in other Tibetan areas of northwestern China as the local governments showcased the work they have been doing to bring this relatively backward region back on the economic map while also preserving the Tibetan way of life. Enchanting as that experience was, for most of us the high point was the experience of being on the train to the rooftop of the world, which was inaugurated on July 1 this year.

We boarded the train – one of three that ferries passengers to and from Lhasa – at Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in northwestern China, at 4.45 pm Beijing time (2.15 pm) on Saturday. Golmud, the garrison town from where the new line begins, was an overnight journey away. The remainder of that evening was therefore given over to the unalloyed admiration of the lunar landscape all around us. Over endless rounds of beer (trains in China aren’t alcohol-free) and a steady stream of food from the live kitchen, we drank in the sights. 

We weren’t the only ones getting high on the view. The train was packed with tourists from across the world wanting to glimpse the delights of Shangri La that had been "liberated" (as the Chinese say) in the 1950s. Most of the tickets are booked for up to a year ahead, but invocation of authority can still get you on board at short notice.

A university teacher from Harbin in Heilongjiang province in China’s northeast, who was travelling with her family for the first time to Tibet, said she had used her guangxi (network of contacts) to get some tickets. A Polish couple who spoke no Chinese and very little English had stumbled their way aboard because they – and a Chinese travel agent – were adequately proficient in the language of money. 

Next morning, at Golmud, where a new diesel engine was coupled in preparation for the steep climb ahead, I jogged up to the head of the train and watched the shunting process. A Chinese linesman asked me where I was from, and upon being told, said with disarming candour that I resembled the comical character Mr Bean, and had a photograph taken with me. 

From Golmud, the train was depressurised and flooded with oxygen in order to pre-empt any high-altitude sickness. This also meant that passengers couldn’t smoke for the remainder of the journey – except at the few wayside halts, when an army of the nicotine-starved rushed out to get their fix. We rolled past the bewitching terrain of the Gobi desert, past grasslands where yaks, wild donkey and the chiru (the Tibetan antelope) grazed placidly, and past snow-capped peaks that shimmered in the August sun.

At 2.45 pm on Sunday, we reached the highest point on the plateau – Tangula, at 5,072 m; a quiver of excitement ran through the train as passengers posed against the live ticker that periodically displays the time, speed and altitude in three languages – Tibetan, Chinese and English.

From then on, it was downhill all the way. By nightfall, we rolled into Lhasa, a city that stands at the crossroads of a cultural transformation, and straddles several centuries. Religiosity oozes through every pore of the town; and yet there are signs of economic progress and modernity all around. 

Theroux – and many other critics of the railway line to Tibet – fear that the opening up of the unspoilt region will destroy the Tibetan way of life. It could well, but it’s worth remembering that the railway line runs two-ways, and so too do cultural influences.

It is far more likely that the rest of China, including the swarms of Han Chinese who are descending on Lhasa, will be profoundly changed by the Tibetan Buddhist teachings and practices they encounter there. Spiritualism could well take the train and spread out to larger parts of China.