You have to make the trip to Tibet at some point. — Princess Wencheng
2023.1.25
I came back from my evening walk by the sea; it was already dark, Rushan’s coldest day (yesterday, the 24th, -13 to -8) had passed too, and the New Year was almost over (today is the fourth day). I thought: since I’ve lived through Rushan’s coldest day, and I was here in Rushan on New Year’s Eve, I can state with perfect rigor that “I spent the winter in Rushan.” Winter is quietly leaving; spring is quietly drawing near.
From October 26, 2022, to January 25, 2023, I’d spent a full three months at Rushan Silver Beach. In those three months I went nowhere — I hadn’t even been to Rushan proper. I stayed here at this little seaside spot the whole time. Sunbathing at home, going down to the sea to look at the ocean and the sunset, wandering the streets, going to market once every five days — those few things and nothing more. I thought: it’s time to get out and see the wider world. When I first decided to lie flat, I’d considered that, while I had no job and no ties, I could travel wherever I pleased.
So — off to Tibet! I opened my phone and scrolled through train tickets; tomorrow there happened to be a suitable schedule, from Weihai via Taiyuan to Lhasa. I was overjoyed — what a coincidence, just when I wanted to go out. But I couldn’t book right away, because I still had to make sure there was a coach from Rushan Silver Beach to Weihai proper. I hurried to call the coach driver to confirm whether it would run tomorrow. The driver gave me a yes. I immediately reserved a coach ticket from Rushan Silver Beach to Weihai proper, then quickly ordered the train tickets from Weihai to Taiyuan South and from Taiyuan to Lhasa — and with that the transport was sorted. Then I packed a few things: a power bank, some food, a change of underwear. And so I was sure the preparations for this trip were all in order.
The exact times and prices of the tickets, listed here: Rushan Silver Beach to Weihai proper, 9:30 in the morning, the driver would come to the gate of my compound to pick me up, arriving at Weihai Railway Station at 11:10, RMB 30; Weihai to Taiyuan South, 13:31 to 21:18, bullet train, RMB 384.5; Taiyuan to Lhasa, 00:28 to 12:29 (plus one day), hard seat, RMB 323 (as soon as I boarded I upgraded to a sleeper, paying the difference of RMB 337). A taxi from Taiyuan South Station to Taiyuan Station, fairly close, is just RMB 20.
That day the temperature in Rushan was -8 to -2, and in Lhasa -1 to 15 — clearly Lhasa wasn’t cold at all, compared with Shandong.
2023.1.26
I woke at 4:30 in the morning — I’d set an alarm, but I woke early anyway. Once awake I couldn’t sleep, and lay in bed playing with my phone until 7:30. Because yesterday the coach driver had told me to call him again at 8:30 this morning to confirm. So I got up, washed, checked the luggage I’d be taking, and the living room was so cold in the morning. I waited until 8:30, called the driver, and confirmed he’d come to the gate of my compound for me at 9:30. So I waited a long while more, and at nine I put on my backpack, went out, and waited at the gate of the compound.
There were quite a lot of people on the coach. I’d thought that, being only the fifth day of the New Year, it wouldn’t be crowded — but I guessed wrong; only a few seats were left. The whole way went smoothly. From Rushan Silver Beach to Weihai proper the snow piled up more and more along the road, and the buildings grew denser and taller. I hadn’t come to a big city in a long time, and I felt a little afraid. Weihai’s snow was much heavier than Rushan’s; a thick layer lay on the ground, unlike Rushan, where it never settled and soon melted. And Weihai’s snow was trampled dirty, which showed there were plenty of people too. The scene reminded me of the Northeast — I felt as if I’d come to the Northeast in winter. I’ve always felt that Weihai is like the Northeast, and not a Shandong city.
There were still two hours before the high-speed train left. I’d meant to go to the seaside to look at Weihai’s snow and ice — I often see videos online showing Weihai’s coast looking like the North in A Song of Ice and Fire — but with a backpack and bags in hand it was really inconvenient to walk to the shore, and I was starting to feel cold; Weihai really was like the Northeast, and there wasn’t enough time either, so I had no choice but to go to Hanlefang instead. Last time I came to Weihai I hadn’t gone to Hanlefang, because I don’t like crowds. This time I did, and the shops there weren’t even open yet; there were pitifully few people. I finally managed to find a stall selling grilled cold noodles, and ate a portion of them — I’ll count that as having been to Hanlefang.
At 1:30 in the afternoon I boarded the high-speed train, from Weihai to Taiyuan. On the way from Weihai to Yantai I saw scenery of breathtaking snow. Weihai and Yantai well deserve to be called two “snow nests” — they get so much snow. And the moment you leave Yantai and enter the Shandong interior, the snow is gone. The people of Weihai and Yantai are truly lucky. Snow covered the slopes, covered the fields, covered the single-story houses; it fell by the riverbanks, by the ponds, by the sea — so vast, so crisp, so plain, like a poem by Liu Zongyuan. And standing in the fast-moving train, with the quiet scene outside flying past, I was like a high-speed camera, capturing these images that moved me almost to tears.
This bullet train stopped at every little county town, so it was extremely slow; it took eight hours to reach Taiyuan. A little after five in the afternoon, we finally entered the territory of Hebei, and then I could see the setting sun. The train was heading west too, as if chasing the sunset. The sun set by the hillsides, the sun set over the plains, and on the plains were many electricity pylons; the pylons flew backwards, and the setting sun threaded its way among them.
I reached Taiyuan a little after nine at night. I have a friend in Taiyuan; she was home for the New Year, so we could meet up. Unfortunately, during the first days of the New Year there was no night market in Taiyuan, so we just went together from Taiyuan South Station to Taiyuan Station and reminisced for a while at the station. The moon in Taiyuan was plainly much bigger than in Rushan. Taiyuan Station had only slow trains, and the station was very shabby; deep in the night it was full of weary people waiting for their trains, and I was terribly sleepy too. My train was at 12:30; there were still two hours to go, and I could only fight off the drowsiness as my eyelids kept drooping, not knowing what lay ahead on this journey.
2023.1.27
At 12:30 I boarded without trouble the ordinary train to Lhasa, the Z21 (a through train from Beijing to Lhasa). I’d bought a hard seat (I booked too late). The moment I stepped into the carriage I was appalled by the crude seats — I couldn’t stand it, to sit in a seat like that for thirty-six hours and pass two nights. I’m not young anymore; my body can’t take it, and neither can my spirit. I had to switch to a sleeper, no question. The moment I got on the train I went to find the conductor and asked whether there were sleeper tickets. The conductor said yes. Of course there were — it wasn’t peak season, they just weren’t offered online, and you could buy one in person. I hurriedly paid for an upper berth in a sleeper carriage. Thank heaven.
I slept straight through until a little after six in the morning, got up and washed, to make myself a bit clean and fresh. Outside it wasn’t light yet; here it’s an hour later than Weihai. Soon we reached Zhongwei, which belongs to Ningxia. I’d never been to Ningxia and knew nothing about it. A little after seven, nearing eight, it gradually grew light outside, and only then could I see the terrain clearly: all loess, all slopes, and not especially high ones — “the transitional zone from the Ningxia Plain to the Loess Plateau.” At first the slopes were fairly flat, but later they became more and more peculiar. It was the first time I’d seen such distinctive slopes — exactly like Goose Mountain in “Goose Mountain” from Yao-Chinese Folktales; even the colors were similar: very smooth, rounded ridges, like steamed buns, like breasts; mostly a barren gray, with an occasional reddish brown, like Danxia, the red sandstone landforms. In short, the terrain over those four or five midday hours from Zhongwei to Lanzhou is well worth lingering over in memory.
People traveling to Tibet often say the stretch from Xining to Lhasa is the most beautiful, but no one ever says the stretch from Zhongwei to Lanzhou is also utterly strange and wonderful. I find that a shame, so I must point it out here, so that those with an eye for it will remember.
When we reached Lanzhou the sky turned a murky gray, like the smog of a silver age. I said to a friend who works in Lanzhou that the haze in Lanzhou was terrible. My friend said the dust in Lanzhou has always been terrible. I thought, maybe I’d put it too gently. Thinking back to the pandemic, when Lanzhou was locked down for so long, I felt a little sad again. Lanzhou, oh Lanzhou, where are you headed? From Lanzhou to Xining takes only a little over two hours, and yet there’s hardly any scenery to speak of on this stretch — no pretty mountains, no pretty rivers — which left me somewhat disappointed.
When we reached Xining, the attendant handed each of us going on to Lhasa a “Passenger Health Registration Card” — the equivalent of a letter of commitment, saying that I could adapt to the plateau climate and wouldn’t have health problems. Some people call it a life-or-death waiver; I think that’s an exaggeration.
From Xining to Golmud, before we saw Qinghai Lake the mountains were fairly gentle; after Qinghai Lake the slopes climbed steeply. At 4:20 in the afternoon we saw Qinghai Lake — unfortunately it was backlit, so I couldn’t take a good photo. At 6:30 in the afternoon I began to see snow mountains; there wasn’t much snow here — a dusting of loose, scattered snow on the black mountain bodies, the snow like a scattering of decoration. But it was enough to fill me with wonder. Here the sun set at seven, two hours later than in Weihai. After dark I couldn’t see the snow mountains outside anymore and could only imagine them. A little after ten at night we reached Golmud, and at night there was nothing to do but sleep. The train slipped quietly over the Tanggula Pass at the highest point (the Tanggula is the dividing line between Qinghai and Tibet, 5,231 meters above sea level, the source of the Yangtze), and began to slide downward, heading for Nagqu, and then on to Lhasa.
On the train were quite a few young people traveling to Lhasa; some were traveling alone, others in groups. Those in groups chattered; those alone silently watched the scenery. I was one of those alone, and the person on the berth below mine was alone too — a young woman. So I struck up a conversation with her, chatting about light topics. People who travel alone are rather solitary and don’t care for company, so once we got off the train we went our separate ways.
2023.1.28
I woke a little after six in the morning. Sleeping on a train isn’t comfortable — the berth was narrow and cramped, awkward to climb in and out of, and you can’t take off all your clothes; I only dared remove my jacket and slept in everything else. I got up, brushed my teeth and washed my face, then sat in the dark waiting for dawn. The next stop was Nagqu. “The city of Nagqu is Tibet’s 'north gate,' an important part of one of the country’s five great pastoral regions, and has long enjoyed the reputation of 'the source of rivers’ and 'China’s water tower.' It lies between the Tanggula Mountains, the Nyainqentanglha Mountains, and the Gangdise Mountains in northern Tibet. Its central part is plateau hill country; the northwest is higher in elevation; the north belongs to the Tanggula range; the east is plateau mountain country; and the south is where the northern Tibetan plateau meets the deep gorges of eastern Tibet.” We’d already left Qinghai and entered Tibet, and the altitude was quite high too. I saw the scrolling text on the electronic display board: “Altitude: 4,851.5 meters.” Past the Tanggula Pass at the highest point, we slid southward and downward.
By eight o’clock the edge of the sky was just beginning to lighten — black mountain ranges, orange glow, a blue-green sky, and some little wind turbines on the mountains. I got off at the Nagqu station and looked at the blue sky for a while; the sky was so blue, and outside it was so cold. The next stop was Lhasa.
Toward nine o’clock the sun had come out, and the snow mountains to the west grew clear and drew nearer and nearer: white snow on top of earth-colored high slopes, blue sky above the white snow, flat ground up close, and the train running over the flat land while I watched the snow mountains from the train. The unbroken, winding snow ranges stretched all the way to the outskirts of Lhasa; more cars appeared on the road, the houses grew denser — we were about to enter a “city.”
At 12:30 I finally reached Lhasa, and could breathe a sigh of relief. Riding the train had been truly awful; I had to get off and walk a bit and breathe fresh air. I had no altitude sickness at all, no feeling of breathlessness — just like on the plains. Only, Lhasa’s sunlight was especially harsh; the ultraviolet was clearly strong, and the temperature was high too. Going from subzero Weihai to Lhasa at fifteen-odd degrees, I felt a bit hot in my bulky clothes. There was a bus from Lhasa Railway Station to near the hostel where I was staying, but the bus didn’t come for ages (the online guides never mention this), so I had to share a car with the young woman I’d met on the train, RMB 20 each. Once in the car I found there were two other passengers as well.
As an unemployed poor man, I’d never dreamed of staying in some big hotel or luxury hotel — I only wanted a youth hostel. Youth hostels are the cheapest, after all. Only, I’d left in a hurry and booked too late, so the five-bed men’s dorm I got cost RMB 101 a night, and I booked two nights. If I stayed longer, I’d just extend. It wasn’t check-in time yet, so I left my luggage at the front desk and went out to find something to eat. There was no small eatery nearby, so I had to eat at KFC. Later, back at the hostel, I asked at the front desk, and the front desk said Lhasa’s food costs were indeed high, but the hostel had a canteen where the prices were all right. I thought: Lhasa sits on a plateau, there’s less variety of food, and most vegetables have to be transported in from the interior, so prices must go up. Luckily my desire for good food is extremely low.
Once I’d put down my luggage, I went out to the square in front of the Potala Palace. The hostel was very close to the Potala Palace, about a twenty-minute walk. There was no way I could go into the Potala Palace today, because you have to book a day in advance; I’d booked for tomorrow morning. Today I’d just go and look at the square. Like Tiananmen Square, it had a security check. Many people had stopped wearing masks, or wore them without covering their mouths, pulled down to their chins. On the train it was the same — many people weren’t masking. I thought: one day everyone will be able to stop wearing masks, and be free.
The solemn, towering sight I saw in the square before the Potala Palace I won’t describe here. Only, as I sat in the square looking at the view and feeling the wind, a Tibetan woman came over to sell me prayer beads. I turned her down, but she wasn’t upset — she even struck up a conversation with me. She told me that earlier Lhasa had been locked down for three months, and she could only stay at home with no income at all; not only did she have rent to pay (she wasn’t from Lhasa, but from Chamdo), she also had a child to look after — I can’t imagine how hard it was. What could I say? I just agreed with her: “Yes — all this endless messing about, everyone’s struggling. I’ve lost my job too, so I came out to take my mind off things.”
Afterward I went to Yaowang Mountain (the Medicine King Hill, right beside the square) to see the scene pictured on the RMB 50 note. In winter, many sights in Tibet don’t charge admission — even the Potala Palace is free. For a budget traveler that’s good news. I stood on the mountain looking for a while, then went down and walked on foot to Barkhor Street (the Jokhang Temple is there; you could say Barkhor Street formed around the Jokhang Temple). The Jokhang Temple I don’t need to describe here either. I’ll just say that there — and indeed all over Lhasa — there were an enormous number of shops selling Tibetan clothing. Yet I rarely saw any little convenience stores: I couldn’t find anywhere to buy a bottle of Coke, and small eateries were hard to spot — I had no idea where they were hiding.
After walking all afternoon, the sun had tanned me much darker again. Back at the hostel I just wanted to sleep. The other guests in the room were all very young fellows, surely much younger than me, in their twenties. I felt I was getting a bit old — I shouldn’t be staying in a youth hostel, mixing with young people. They probably didn’t like me either. Still, young people are all rather silly, treating smoking and swearing as if they were cool.
At night I slept with my head under the covers, and the young fellow in the next bunk patted me awake. Solemnly and urgently he told me, “You can’t sleep with your head covered — you’ll suffocate.” He said it’s too dry here and you’ll have trouble breathing. I got a real fright and poked my head out, sleeping with it uncovered. I woke up several more times in the night, and my throat was indeed dry as sandpaper; I gulped down a lot of bottled water. The humidifier was on the whole time.
2023.1.29
Lhasa’s time zone is two hours behind Beijing: at eight in the morning it’s not yet light, and work doesn’t start until ten. I got up in the morning and had breakfast at the hostel (buffet, RMB 15), then set out for the Potala Palace. The security check hadn’t started yet, so I waited outside a while. Because it was the off-season, you didn’t have to go in at the exact time you’d booked. I didn’t need a guide either — I just looked around on my own. If you don’t know much about Tibetan history and the lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, it’s actually very hard to understand the relics inside — the Tibetan-style architecture, carvings, murals, Buddha statues, ornaments, ritual implements, and so on; the culture they contain is far too rich. I just gave it a passing glance and couldn’t remember any of it. Still, standing up high, looking down over the city of Lhasa and out at the high mountains that ring it on every side, feeling the wind — I felt it was worth it.
Afterward I set off for the Tibet Museum, walking there on foot. I really do love walking; walking is the freest way to get around, and you can observe the households and shops along the road. The Tibet Museum is a very small museum, with only two permanent exhibitions — one on Tibetan history and culture, one on Tibetan folk culture — both about Tibet; there were no exhibits from elsewhere or from outside. These two exhibitions really are distinctive, and if you looked at them carefully you could learn a great deal. What stuck with me most was the introduction to Tibetan opera.
Right beside the Tibet Museum is Norbulingka, said to be Lhasa’s Summer Palace — their summer palace in the past. Of course that’s a bit of an exaggeration; it can’t compare with the Summer Palace — and the Summer Palace itself imitates West Lake, and can’t compare with West Lake either. Thinking of the Summer Palace, I no longer felt any attachment to it. As for what Norbulingka has going for it, there are many “phodrang” (that is, palaces) inside, which you might take to be their summer offices; small, but with Tibetan character. In winter the park was rather bleak and deserted.
I walked another whole day, and by evening I really couldn’t walk any further. So I scanned the code to unlock an electric moped and rode it back to where I was staying. Lhasa has no shared bikes, only shared e-bikes. I thought: on the plateau you probably can’t ride a bicycle, or you’d be dead tired and gasping for breath.
In the evening I went to see the film The Wandering Earth II — last night I’d also seen Full River Red — because alone in the evening I had nothing to do. Both films peddled grand lessons, which was really quite dull. I remember someone saying that sketch comedy is meant to bring people happiness, not to lecture anyone. Films should be the same, and so should all art. We’ve heard enough preaching; we don’t want to hear more of it in films.
2023.1.30
At the youth hostel they recommend lots of tours and itineraries, and I thought I ought to get out of Lhasa and see something. But I didn’t want to go far: first, I’d been too tired these past few days; second, I’d come in a hurry and hadn’t planned well. So I don’t recommend just taking off without preparation. If you want to go far — to Nyingchi, Everest, or Ngari — you must leave enough time and prepare thoroughly. I could only pick a day tour, and planned to go to Yamdrok Lake and Puma Yumco. In Tibetan, “tso” means lake — or “co.”
Early in the morning a car came to pick us up — fourteen of us tourists plus the driver, fifteen in all, in a small minivan. Among the tourists only four were men; the rest were women. It seems women love to travel more, and men are too much homebodies, preferring to stay home playing video games. The driver went to get a border permit, which took an hour. Because Yamdrok is in Shannan, and to go to Shannan you must have a border permit; there’d be a border check on the way.
We drove south along the Lhasa River, crossed the Yarlung Tsangpo, passed through Qushui County and Nagarze County, and finally reached Yamdrok. Along the way there were many switchback mountain roads — “a mountain road with eighteen bends,” swinging left and right, quite hair-raising, demanding superb driving skill; ordinary people shouldn’t try driving it themselves. At the top the altitude was probably 1,000 meters higher than Lhasa, the oxygen even thinner, and I was short of breath and had a headache. On the mountain road you could see the snow mountains and Yamdrok, and the view down was very beautiful. Then we went back down and drove to a viewing platform by the shore of Yamdrok.
The water of Yamdrok was very blue, very deep-toned, and very clear, rippling with light. In some places there was a thin layer of fine ice — no one could possibly stand on it, only birds, probably wild ducks and wild geese. These past few days the temperature had been a bit high, up to fifteen degrees, and much of the ice must have melted. Earlier in the season you might have seen more and thicker ice, thick enough to stand on. By the shore of Yamdrok there were herders leading Tibetan mastiffs and yaks, calling out to tourists to take photos with them. The two mastiffs were huge, with thick coats, but both were docile, even a little listless — probably they don’t like this job of posing for people’s photos, and prefer to run free on the plateau, chasing cattle and sheep. The yaks, too, were decked out prettily, draped with blankets and hung with colored cloth — except that yak dung was also dropped by the shore, and no one cleaned it up.
Puma Yumco is not far from Yamdrok (unlike Yamdrok, it has no short form). The difference between it and Yamdrok is that Puma Yumco is frozen — the ice hasn’t melted yet, it’s still thick, and people can walk on it. On the way there, the police at the border check warned us to be very careful on the lake, because the high temperatures had melted a lot of the ice, and people had fallen through before. By the lakeside I found that in some places the ice really had melted — toss a chunk of ice down and it hit water. But people could still go on it. We all walked out onto the ice cautiously. Two of the men slipped and fell; they probably didn’t have my experience of living in the ice and snow of the Northeast — there was no way I’d slip.
At Puma Yumco the sunlight was fierce and the wind strong, blowing so cold that after walking on the ice a while I couldn’t bear the chill. My head began to ache, I couldn’t catch my breath, and I had no choice but to go back to the car. In Lhasa I’d had no altitude sickness at all, nor at Yamdrok; only here did I finally get it. On the way back I hadn’t recovered either, and felt very unwell. It was only back in Lhasa that I gradually improved and the symptoms faded. Lhasa sits at only 3,600 meters, Yamdrok at 4,400, Puma Yumco at 5,000 — no wonder I felt so awful at Puma Yumco.
2023.1.31
To catch a flight you should arrive two hours early — everyone knows that. But I was five hours early. I got up at 5:30 in the morning, packed my luggage, checked out, and went to catch the airport bus (at the Civil Aviation Bureau stop, very close to the Potala Palace; fare RMB 30, ride 70 minutes, very frequent). I’m too cautious a person, and these past few days I’d been truly exhausted; I wanted to hurry home and rest and recover.
I’d thought that once I got to the airport the trip would be over, but while checking in and choosing a seat I realized a big problem. Flying out of Lhasa, you’re bound to see snow mountains from high up. So which seat should I pick to see them? My mind raced: the flight from Lhasa to Wuhan goes from west to east, and we all know the Himalayas lie further south, so I should choose a south-facing window seat. Hey — I hurriedly picked my seat and waited happily for the plane to take off.
Sure enough, not long after the plane climbed, I saw a range of snow peaks that was utterly breathtaking. I don’t know their names, but they were to the south of the plane. At first they were far away, and close in there were still high mountains without snowcaps. Later the snow mountains drew nearer and nearer, more and more of them, right beneath the plane, rolling on and on and spread far and wide, stretching away into the distance. Sometimes mist and cloud wreathed below the peaks, like a fairyland. The summits were sheer and jagged, range upon range, one pointed peak beside another, and on the pointed peaks lay white ice and snow, like a surging ocean. Sometimes a lake formed between the peaks, its surface frozen solid, reflecting a white light. These majestic, spectacular, indescribable sights went on for a long time, and all I could do was take a great many wow-worthy photos with my phone.
Only when the snow mountains disappeared, turning into ordinary high mountains, and the high mountains turned into plains, did I know the trip was truly over.