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Beijing train arrives in Lhasa
03/07/2006 18:50 - (SA)
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| A passenger uses the oxygen supply as he snoozes aboard the Beijing-Lhasa express, China's train to Tibet. (Elizabeth Dalziel, AP |
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Lhasa - China's first train from Beijing to Tibet arrived in the Tibetan capital on Monday at the end of a two-day journey on the world's highest railway.
Girls in track suits and traditional Tibetan robes draped white scarves, a customary gift of greeting, on arriving passengers in the newly built Lhasa railway station.
Monday's leg of the trip was arduous as the train climbed to its highest point, the 5 072-metre Tanggula Pass.
Altitude sickness
Some passengers vomited, while others had headaches - symptoms of altitude sickness.
About a third breathed piped-in oxygen from tubes, though many said they did so out of curiosity, not discomfort.
The $4.2bn railway is part of efforts to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it more closely to the booming east. Chinese leaders hope greater prosperity will help to still calls by Tibetans and other ethnic minorities for independence from the communist Beijing government.
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