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As the Sky Train departs Beijing West Railway Station at 9:30 p.m., there isn't an inch of unclaimed real estate in the train's 16 carriages. Suitcases spill into the aisles, doubling as chairs for passengers without seats.

Boxes of scallion-flavored biscuits and cardboard bowls of instant noodles cover the faux-wood tables in each compartment. Farmers with weather-beaten faces keep watch over bulging bags of produce in the overhead racks, while young men smoke cigarettes and play cards as they squat in the tight spaces between carriages.

It's the night before China's October National Day, and close to 1,000 passengers are on the high-speed train bound for a place that was unreachable by rail until recently: Lhasa, Tibet. In the past seven years, the Chinese government has laid 710 miles of track across the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in Western China, creating the highest elevated railway ever built. At its tallest point, the Tanggula Pass, the Sky Train climbs to 16,640 feet.

The Chinese have been obsessed with building a railroad to Tibet for decades -- Chairman Mao first tried to link the two countries by rail in the 1950s, but the technology wasn't advanced enough to lay train tracks on Tibet's year-round permafrost. By the time the Sky Train finally made its inaugural, 48-hour trip from Beijing to Lhasa in July, China had spent $4.5 billion on rails that can withstand subzero temperatures and cabins that have the capability to pump in additional oxygen at high altitudes.

By midday, the train zips past the ancient city of Xi'an. A group of men in the dining car raise their glasses and toast with shouts of "Ganbei!" In my cabin, passengers crack sunflower seeds to pass the time, their shells spilling onto the carpet. Eventually, I make my way back to the dining car. "My parents forbade me from taking this trip," says a Chinese college student sipping soup across from me. "But I didn't care, because I had to see Tibet."

(The new Sky Train as it crosses the Lhasa River in Tibet)


When the Sky Train reaches Golmud at dawn, I feel dizzy. The atmosphere on the Tibetan plateau has about 50 percent less oxygen than at sea level, and people pop altitude-sickness pills until the extra oxygen kicks in. As the train follows the shores of Qinghai Lake, craggy peaks surface across the vast frozen tundra. Herds of yak, their tails pointing straight out, graze in tall grasses studded with boulders. There are few people, a notable exception being a man who smiles at me as he relieves himself beside the tracks.

An hour before the train pulls into Lhasa, the crew passes through the cabin one last time, their souvenir carts stocked with carved combs and painted chopsticks. A Tibetan monk across the aisle from me pauses from his prayers to peer out the window as the lights of Lhasa finally come into focus.

The Sky Train leaves Beijing daily at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are sold at the Beijing West Railway Station (011-86/10-95-105-105). One-way prices range from $173 for a soft-sleeper ticket to $53 in the seating-only cabins. Booking months in advance is recommended.

The train cabin are pressurized and oxygen can be pumped into the cabins at high altitudes.