Join us as we go by rail from Beijing to Lhasa.
We're in Beijing about to get on our first train towards Tibet.
And before we do, we're going to head to the business lounge, kick our feet up and relax.
Very exciting for our trip out to Lhasa tibet. We're starting in Beijing.
From here we're going to Lanzhou. From Lanzhou we're going to Xining.
From Xining we will take a train to Lhasa.
They just called our train to Lanzhou. It's an eight hour bullet train so let's get going.
I'm so excited! I've only riden the bullet train once. That was from here to Shanghai.
[Joe] That was the last time we were in China together. A long time ago.
This bullet train is supposed to go 300 kilometers an hour.
It's so fancy!
I've never ridden a business class bullet train before.
[Joe] I didn't even know they existed.
Look, they have slippers.
Hold on.
This is nice.
[Joe] I think it goes flat.
This is so nice.
[Joe] Alright, I'm going to settle down, grab my Kindle and then enjoy the ride.
Sounds good.
They say that you can put a coin on the window there and it doesn't even move.
I believe it because I didn't even feel this thing start moving.
Train has been really nice so far. I mean you can't complain about the seats.
I got to lay flat, go to sleep for a while.
Food was good. Unlimited water, drinks, snacks, coffee.
Okay so here's the thing. All the coffee is instant.
Another tunnel.
Every time we go into these tunnels since we're going so fast my ears start popping
This has been a great trip so far, but it's only the first eight hours.
After this we still have another twenty-eight to go.
It's going to be a long trip.
But the one I'm looking forward to the most is the final one into Lhasa, into Tibet.
That railroad was specially designed by the Chinese government
and I've heard a lot of things about it so I'm excited to take it.
Now it's sleep time.
Just made it on to the second train of our journey.
And the accommodations on this one are quite a bit different than the last train.
There's actually a fairly good legroom here. It's comfortable.
Announcements I don't understand what so ever.
[Kait] That's why you have me.
We made it to Xining.
Now we're waiting for our final train to arrive so we can head to Lhasa.
It is packed at this train station and it's very cold.
Glad I brought my warm winter gear.
So it's kind of funny I'm walking around and I'm pretty much the only white person here.
And I get a lot of stares from people
Some people just love to stare at you and follow you
So whenever they do, I look at them give them a little wink and a nod.
And this one guy just winked at gave me the biggest smile.
It's like I made his day.
Well, it is almost time the board. We've got to get ready.
We have a twenty one hour, twenty one hour train ride ahead of us.
Should be interesting.
We're moving. Off to Lhasa.
21 hour journey in our soft sleeper.
It's fairly comfortable.
Joe and I will have to play rock paper scissor to see who gets top bunk or bottom bunk.
I feel like bottom bunk is the better bunk.
Kait and I decided that we'd both take the top bunks.
Our bunk mates are older so they weren't really able to get up here.
So we just decided to take them and I'm glad we did.
It's nice it's comfy up here. Plenty of room to store the luggage.
Huge comforters and there's good reason for that.
We are going up I believe over 16,000 feet on a few of these passes.
And it is going to get really cold outside.
There's a heater in here that I think we can control.
TVs, nightlight. The bed, it's a little hard but comfortable.
And I've also heard that once we start getting up into some really high elevation over 10,000 feet
they're going to start pumping oxygen into the cars help mitigate altitude sickness.
Alright, well I'm gonna go to sleep so good night. See you tomorrow.
Good morning.
[Kait] Good morning. How did you sleep?
Good. I was able to get some sleep.
It is completely covered in snow out there.
Kait asked the attendants what our current altitude is
and they said over 12,000 feet right now.
Last night when I went to bed I had some altitude sickness.
It's common for me.
Whenever I get over five six thousand feet I'll start to get a really bad headache.
Well, I went to sleep and you could hear the oxygen kick on.
As soon as it kicked on I felt like a million bucks.
No more headache, nothing.
So I'm wondering how we're going to feel when we finally get to Lhasa.
Because I think Lhasa is over 11,000 feet in altitude.
Alright, I think it's time for coffee.
Wish me luck.
[Kait] Good luck.
There are little footholds here.
I hope I don't slip. If I do make sure you get it on camera.
Got my coffee made.
I picked up a bunch of these little Nescafe instant coffee packets
and they come in handy because all of these trains have pots of boiling water
that you can go fill up your coffee cup, make your coffee.
You can also make those cups of noodles.
So a lot of people are getting on the train with those and that becomes their meal.
But there is a dining car if you want something else besides noodles
or whatever other food you brought with you.
[Kait] Ready to eat?
Yeah.
And here is a tip for all of you who will be taking this train.
There are two types of bathrooms.
One is your standard Western toilet that has a sit on top toilet.
The other is the hole in the ground where you squat to go to the bathroom.
And you have to bring your own toilet paper on to the train.
I also noticed that there is no toilet paper in a lot of the train stations.
So make sure you keep a roll on you and I'm very happy we grab some before we got on the train.
I'm going in.
Yeah, I don't know about that.
The elevation is really starting to get to me.
I think we were coming over one of the highest passes
and I just started feeling it in my head, all this pressure on my nasal passages.
Kind of like I just wanted to crawl in bed and pass out for a few hours.
So there was an announcement earlier
and they said this whole plateau region
the average elevation is 4,000 meters.
When we get on the train yesterday we had to fill out a declaration of our health
and it went through all these different things about
the fact that if you have asthma or any sort of respiratory disease
and you basically had to check the box to say if anything happened it's my own fault.
Here's another tip.
You have to have a special permit to go from China into Tibet if you are a foreigner.
There are people that have gotten on this train, they don't have their permit
and they get kicked off.
I actually had my permit checked twice getting on the train.
And Kait had gone ahead of me.
She had the permit they wouldn't even let me on the train.
Finally I got someone to interpret the fact that Kait had my permit.
So I was allowed to chase after her and grab it and show it to them.
So they're really serious about this stuff.
Twenty-one hours later. We just arrived in Lhasa, Tibet.
It was a great train trip.
And best of all, we even saw one of the Tibetan Mastiffs that we've read all about.
If you are coming to Lhasa, Tibet I highly recommend taking the train.
It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and you see some amazing scenery, animals, everything along the way.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you enjoyed this, head over to weretherussos.com
for a lot more videos and content about travel.
And we will see you next time. Bye!
What happened?
I got on the slow escalator.
It's really, really slow.
[Joe] You picked a losing horse babe.
hey victory