Holiday 2015: XI'AN TO LHASA

The Qinghai Tibet train from Xi'an to Lhasa is the world's highest railway, with the highest point, Tangulla Pass, reaching 16,640 ft (5,072m).

The train leaves on time at 10 a.m. We commandeer the whole of the luggage space.

We are booked into a soft sleeper, in a compartment for 4 people as there are no 2 person ones on board, so we are expecting to share.

Our first companions are a youngish couple who appear to be very tired as they sleep for more or less the whole 9 1/2 hours they are with us, before getting off at Lanzhou, the first stop!

We then have the compartment to ourselves until we change at Xining to a special train with oxygen on board for the ascent over the Tibetan plain to Lhasa

This time we are sharing with a single male with a briefcase. He looks pretty angry and has a couple of heated conversations on his mobile phone before settling down to sleep.

We are hopeful that he wouldn't be going too far and thankfully he gets off at the first stop, 6 hours later, much to our relief, and we then have the compartment to ourselves for the rest of the journey.

We are slightly unprepared for the 30 hour train journey. On arrival at the station we see people arriving with carrier bags full of provisions; enormous pot noodles, fruit, veg and confectionery.

We on the other hand have two bottles of water, a small tub of Pringles and 4 small Snicker bars!

Food is served in the buffet car on the train, which we try,

(much to the amusement of the staff & other travellers), but it's not really to our taste.

They also come through the carriages with trolleys of fruit,

so we live off bananas and apples for 2 days.

We sleep quite well, although 'soft sleeper' is something of a misnomer. However, peeping out during the night reveals the starriest sky we've ever seen and as morning begins to dawn we witness mile after mile of stunning scenery and interesting landscape.