Traveling the Tibetan Plateau

Traveling the Tibetan Plateau

From January 12th to 14th, 2015, I traveled on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway again, with a friend and his son who I have been tutoring. This year there was more snow (yeh!) but fewer animals (boo!). The windows were also a little dirtier, or maybe it was my poor aim with my new camera.....
Enjoy our trip!

Passengers ranged from Chinese businessmen with Italian shoes to Tibetan farmers. I wish I could have taken photos of a colourful family from the countryside, in a line holding on to parent's sashes, some carrying a trunk or huge sack on their backs.

Typical farmhouse with piles of cow patties to burn; kitchen across the courtyard from the main house, and probably no inside stairs.

We left the skyline of Lhasa on a sunny morning.

The moon hung in the beautiful blue sky.

Urban sprawl turned into small groups of houses.

Small villages nestled between mountains (do you remember some of those villages in my aerial shots from planes?)

Another village

And another

Until the mountains turned white

And the yaks were not bred with cows.

 Police are sent to stand guard in lonely outposts (I'm getting better at following with my zoom in a moving train!):

Note the solar panel and the stove pipe - but little else!

Pilgrims on their way to the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa

Couldn't get a shot of them prostrating, but they will do this all the way to Lhasa.

The year before we passed by frozen, greeny-blue Lake Cumo. This time it looks just like a snow-covered plain.

We awoke to dry mountains of Qinghai Province, after passing the largest lake in China during the night.

These buildings beside the train station in Xining were being built last year!

These cuties came from a car 3 back just to visit - often!