We made it to Beijing after a 48 hr train journey over the Tibetan Plateau and through the Chinese countryside. The construction of the railway was only completed last year and demand for tickets on the train (we heard) were difficult to come by, but we got hold of them no problem! Probably just a bit of marketing hype by the Chinese. The train was incredibly comfortable. We even had oxygen ports by our bedsides incase the altitude was causing us problems, but having already spent a week in Tibet it wasn't really an issue. I can easily see the problems that would arise travelling in the opposite direction though. So Reena and I occupied ourselves by sleeping, reading, eating, and creating 'maths homework' for each other...
Homework question 1:
The distance between Lhasa and Beijing is 4000km. Train A leaves Lhasa at 08:00 and travels towards Beijing at a speed of 160km/hr. Train B leaves Beijing at 10:00 and travels towards Lhasa at a speed of 60 km/hr. At what time do the two trains collide?
Homework question 2:
Lhasa is at an altitude of 3680m, Beijing at 40m. Assuming there is a steady slope between the two, at what altitude did the two trains collide?
Send your answers in! Yep Reena and I had quite a few hours to kill.
We arrived to a friendly face. Roberto, a chap we met on the Everest Trek, offered us a place to crash for our stay in Beijing. We arrived at his dorms (he's currently studying Mandarin at a uni in Beijing), and dumped our gear. What we didn't realise was that security at his dorms got pretty tight in the evening. No visitors after 10pm. We got back the first night at about 10:30pm... The lady at the desk was all smiles, but no way was she letting us in. What were we going to do??! Obviously some of the boys at this dorm had figured this would be an issue early on and so moved themselves to the ground floor. The rest went like clockwork... Bryan (one of Roberto's mates) grabbed a French guy who happened to be walking down the corridor... the only word I understood of that conversation was fenetre... that guy slunk off... Reena and I snatched a quick glance at each other... Bryan then turned his attention to the lady at security. While she was being distracted, Roberto swept us off outside where another French bloke was opening his bathroom window. We very ungracefully heaved ourselves through this tiny window, snuck down the corridor and legged it up the stairs! They'd obviously done this before. I felt like some sort of naughty teenager getting up to no good!
Getting into Roberto's dorm was a massive nightmare for me. I'd get so nervous about it I'd start feeling sick at about 7pm every night! For the next couple of nights we were given room numbers of different guys who had agreed to help conspire our stay. They would have security knocking at their door at 10pm asking where we were! They'd let security into their room to prove that we had left... The only person at the desk that didn't mind us staying, and who let us in when we first arrived with all our bags, was a Chinese guy called Alan. I'd get an overwhelming sense of relief when I'd see his face at the counter... We bought him lots of goodies when we left!
So we were in Beijing for a total of four days. We got to see quite a bit of the sights - The Forbidden City, Tinanmen Square, The Summer Palace, The Great Wall of China and the Hutongs, which were all amazing to see. Most of all, I was just sooo glad to be back in civilisation again. There were shops, supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, subways, metros, buses - I didn't realise how much of a city girls I really was! I love Beijing. I could easily live in Beijing. I'd have to learn some Mandarin... but I reckon I could be quite happy there.
One thing I would like to whinge about though is trying to buy a train ticket. You would think it wouldn't take that much effort... You'd walk into a train station, find the ticket counter and buy the ticket. Oh no.... Reena and I wanted to buy a train ticket to Hanoi, Vietnam. We went to the ticket counter at the station. They then sent us to a bank to buy the ticket. We got to the bank... they sent us back to the train station. The train station insisted on the bank, but the bank were having none of it. We were then told to go to a hotel... We got to the 'Railway Hotel'... at this point we were more than a little frustrated having spent a couple of hours trying to buy these tickets. The girls at the hotel reception pointed back outside to an office. We got to the office, and it was padlocked up with a bike chain and no one in sight! We wasted a whole morning trying to buy something as simple as train tickets. In the end we bought tickets to Hong Kong. Communicating what we wanted was so difficult because of the language barrier. Beijing is holding the Olympic games next year... We wondered how many foreigners are going to end up frustrated like us trying to sort out simple things like booking train tickets. It seems Beijing still has some way to go to cope with the demands and strains that the Olympics will bring.
At the Summer Palace we shared a pedalo boat with this old couple and what appeared to be their grandaughter. She was so cute! For 15 minutes while her grandparents were pedaling she sat on my lap, very well behaved and amused herself by talking and singing to herself!
5 comments:
If it's a trick question, then they would not collide, as trains should be on different tracks.. else my guesses are:
1. 02:43:38am next morning
2. 953.3091m
What I should have said was "what time would they pass each other"! I'll have to do my maths homework too now and see if we both agree on the times and altitude... I'll keep you posted.
Where you from eric?
from sydney, living in london now, also planning a big trip this october, to go trans-siberian, through mongolia, china, tibet, the base camp trek, and then go home.. doing my research now, and found you while blog-searching on kathmandu, hehe
Well I got the same answers as you! Either we're both right, or both confused :) How did you work the first part out? We sat there on the train determined to find a formula for it!
We're going to be in Sydney at the end of June. Anything you reckon we should make time for that might not be listed in the lonely planet??
Your trip sounds great. I want to get on that trans-siberian train sometime. well if you have any questions about the route that we've been on, just ask!
it's gotta be right, i've done it on a spreadsheet, guess you wouldn't have that on the train..
workings? take the 320 off the 4000, and see how long it takes for the 2 trains (160+60) to finish the distance of 3680.. add that to the starting time at 10am, no special formula.
anyway, sydney, probably do the bridge climb? i lived there and cross it everyday, so nothing too special for me, you know what i mean. i found that sydney has gone quite expensive, even with your pounds.. but hey, by the time you get there, it's probably warmer here in england :)
thanks for the offer, will surely have some questions later, i'll just follow your blog for now. :)
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