Day 06 – Qingchengshan and 44hrs Train Ride to Lhasa

For my friends’ entire stay in China, today was the only day where we had a self-organised trip.   The Tibetan tour, Sichuan Opera, Panda Conservatory and even the train and bus tickets were arranged by Sim’s Cozy.  Even though I usually avoided organised tours, I felt it’s a better choice when you have a group of people traveling together.  By joining an organised tour, the whole group can relax and need not worry about logistic details.  People have different preferences and not everyone thinks that finding one’s way around is fun.  If anything does go wrong with the organised tour, instead of blaming (silently or not) each other for poor organisation, the group can just place the responsibility on the tour agent and probably laughed it off as bad luck.  I think it makes for a happier travel group.

So why did I decide to visit Qingchengshan on our own instead of arranging one from Sim’s Cozy?  Well, I researched and found that visiting Qingchengshan is pretty straightforward.  I also thought my friends would find it fun.  There were a few other reasons for choosing Qingchengshan.  Even though I have used the term friends to describe our relationship, we didn’t really know each other well.  One can say that it was a travel group formed simply because the stars were aligned.  A self-organised trip to climb a physically demanding mountain with various uncertainties look like a good ice-breaking activity, a way to know each other better.  Oh, I also thought that it’s good exercise to prepare us for the higher altitudes.  We have a long train journey to ride out any sole muscles.  Okay, maybe I just want to find reasons for my hobby of mountain peaks collection.

So in the morning 650am, we boarded bus 27 to the train station.  Actually a staff at Sim’s Cozy told me to take another bus number but at the bus stop, I saw that bus 27 seemed to be going to the train station as well.  Since bus 27 arrived first, I told my friends that it’s the bus.  If it’s the wrong bus and we missed our train.. well, it turned out right and we reached the train station early.

At the train station, I distributed our train tickets.  These train tickets had our passport numbers on them.  After passing through the ticket checking and luggage scanners to the body frisking area, a great thing happened.  CC lost her train ticket.  She checked her pockets and bags but couldn’t find it.  There was a mass of bodies at the ticket checking and luggage scanners.  We weren’t sure if the ticket had dropped there.  Since the ticket was only 15RMB, we decided to just buy another ticket.  We headed to the ticketing office which was another building away and joined the long queues.  Time was tight but if necessary, we did not mind buying fresh tickets at a later timing for all four of us.  But China train system had some other ideas.  We cannot purchase another ticket in the same day for the same direction under the same passport.  We cannot request for a reissue of the ticket.  We cannot purchase a ticket less than 30 minutes before departure.  It’s all very complicated.  CC was very apologetic and asked us to go ahead without her.  Of course, we wouldn’t hear of it.  I really thought it’s fun to have such disruptions.  That’s why I said it’s a great thing to happen.

There were probably other ways to settle the problem but we decided to take the long distance bus from Xinnanmen station to Qingchengshan instead.  We didn’t know the bus schedule but we did know it will double the journey time.   Finding a cab that’s willing to go on the meter proved to be our next problem.  We tried 5 cabs before succeeding.   At Xinnanmen, we managed to purchase 4 tickets for the 915am bus to Qingchengshan.  See, things turned out okay even if we were slightly delayed.  Because of it, we even have time for some breakfast.  CC gave us a treat.

In the bus, a lady offered us a bypass route up Qingchengshan without the need to purchase the 90RMB entrance tickets.  She would charge us a small fee.  I have seen this happening in quite a few tourist spots around China.  I took up such offers when I was a poor student and it always turned out fine.  But we weren’t doing it today.

We reached Qingchengshan at around 11am. Qingchengshan is a Taoist mountain while the houshan (back mountain) is a Buddhist mountain.  I thought that’s pretty interesting.

I used to aspire climbing all the five great Taoist mountains (五岳) and the four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism (四大佛教名山).  But so far, I have only visited Tai Shan, Hua Shan, Heng Shan (Beiyue) and Emei Shan.

Taken from Wikipedia:

1 The Five Great Mountains

    1.1 East Great Mountain (Dōngyuè): Tài Shān
    1.2 West Great Mountain (Xīyuè): Huà Shān
    1.3 South Great Mountain (Nányuè): Héng Shān (Hunan)
    1.4 North Great Mountain (Běiyuè): Héng Shān
    1.5 Center Great Mountain (Zhōngyuè): Sōng Shān

2 The Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism

    2.1 Wǔtái Shān
    2.2 Éméi Shān
    2.3 Jiǔhuá Shān
    2.4 Pǔtuó Shān

Qingchengshan is also listed under another set of 4 Taoist Mountains.  So, another mountain off my list.

As the climb was not very easy on the legs and we were tight on time, we decided to take the cable cars.  But we also did not want to miss out the scenery on the walking trail.  So J the photographer hiked while the rest of us took the cable cars.

A couple seeking advice from the wise.

Dao or Tao represents Taoism.

Late autumn colours.

The temple at the peak

Guess what are they looking at?

We managed to catch the 445pm fast train back from Qingchengshan to Chengdu.  Sim’s Cozy had allowed us for a late check-out as our Lhasa train departs at 8:59pm.

Back at Chengdu train station, we took a pedicab back to Sim’s Cozy.  The ride was exciting in heavy Chengdu traffic.  We can smell the smoke and touch the vehicles beside us.

Sim’s Cozy provided a free taxi ride to the train station.  Before departing, they even gave us 2 bags of Beijing confectionary for the 44-hour journey.

It’s really nice to have 4 people traveling together as we can occupy a whole soft sleeper cabin.  Although Sim’s Cozy couldn’t make any promise, the fact that they delivered was what mattered.

Bought KFC for dinner on the train.  You didn’t know there is a KFC cabin on the Chengdu to Lhasa train?

While having our dinner, J played a video documentary of Qinghai-Tibet railway on his iPad.  It was very informative and  make the ride more interesting as we can understand the problems and appreciate the efforts that went into the construction of the railway line.

After the dinner, we played cards until 1130pm when it’s time for bed.  But before we, or rather I, snored the night away, we popped our acclimatization pills.  These are Acetazolamide tablets which would assist to speed up altitude acclimatization and relieve symptoms.  What it does is to force our kidneys to excrete bicarbonate, making our blood more acidic which in turn increases the oxygen level in the blood.

If I was traveling alone, I might not take the pills as I prefer natural acclimatization whatever that means.  But traveling with others, you have a responsibility to the group.  If I did not take any pills and suffered from altitude sickness later, it would affect my fellow travelers.  So I couldn’t really take such risks.  See, I am not quite the anti-social and self-centered loner.

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