Train travel is the way to go. We went to Florence, Venice and Milan (for getting to the airport) and took the "slow" train each time. Don't bother with the awkward online interface. Go to the train station and use the ticket kiosk. Click on the Union Jack (if you speak English) and then search for your destination. What you'll find first are all the bullet train fares which are Very Expensive! but click on "search other options" and you'll see the 1st and 2nd class fares and the slower, regional trains. Going from Bologna to Florence takes about an hour and a half (on the regional train). Why would you need to get there any faster? Plus, the price of a regional train ticket is not that low when you factor in a family of four. The stops are always announced and the trains are very clean and comfortable, not at all like our Metro North or Amtrak trains in the US.
The electronic board at the station tells you the track numbers. Before boarding, validate your ticket at the machine located at each of the gates. But don't freak out if a conductor never comes by and takes your ticket. We could have saved even more money if we had just skipped the ticket purchase altogether, if we had only known when we'd get asked for the ticket and when we wouldn't. But you didn't hear this advice from me!
We got on the train bound for Xining in the Qinghai Province at 11:20am, July 9. We will get into Xining, which is out of Tibet, by 11 or 12 noon tomorrow. A 24 hour train ride. The Lhasa train station is beautiful.
It was sad to say so long to our Young Tour Guide. He was terrific, so knowledgeable and nice. He seemed to know everything and could answer any question. And he didn’t seem like he was making it up!
The train ride is fun and comfortable. We are in a soft sleeper (four people) and we are all just kind of wandering in and out of people’s cabins, visiting. The scenery is great. We’ve seen wild donkeys, loads of yaks, and what we thought were antelopes but turned out to be gazelles. The geology is beautiful. We are going slow enough that the pictures are coming out pretty good, I think.
One group of four had some collective spatial challenges as they tried to squeeze all of their luggage into the small spaces available in the soft sleeper. Here’s Anthropology Professor making it work for them and all of the interest this scene created.
The highest elevation on the train trip (not standing on the ground) was when we were on the train. We were at 5,240 m high (17,190 feet). There was a platform outside that stated this information as we whizzed by, I think it will someday be a tourist stop on the rail. An informative LCD display kept us up to date with all sort of useful information like how cold it was outside and velocity. Our ears popped in the middle of the night, and our water bottles caved in, as we descended into a moderate altitude.
LATITUDE LONGITUDE JFK International Airport (40.643532, -73.789168)
I left Poughkeepsie on Metro North at 6:43am to Grand Central Station. I didn’t need to leave this early. I caught the New York Airport bus at 9:10am ($15US). I arrived at Terminal 1 at JFK International Airport by about 10:15am, checked in like a breeze. I wondered aloud to the Japan Airlines staff if I really needed to be three hours early. My flight was not until 1:30pm. He said ‘no,’ and that sometimes all you need is an hour. So, live and learn. The security check-point was much longer, but still within reason in terms of amount of time it took me to get through.
I bought two bottles of water and exchanged $100US (600 yuan) once I got through the check point. I also bought a small bottle of rum at the duty free ($7US) as a sleep aid. I won’t drink the rum with the Benadryl I brought.
I’ve been advised by an airline pilot friend to start to sleep on China time. China is exactly 12 hours different than we are in New York, so it’s a little hard to think about it being 1:00am at the place that I’m getting ready to go to. Airline Pilot said to ‘drink lots of water; suck it up and buy two bottles after you get through the security check point and then drink it all flight long, even after the flight attendants go to sleep; get up and stretch, not just walk, but do knee bends, and legs stretches, especially the legs; take a sleep aid to sleep when China is sleeping (Tylenol PM or Benadryl).’ I’ll let you know how that goes.
So far, this is very exciting and going smooth, but I’m just at the beginning of the trip and have yet to get out of the country. Next stop is Narita Airport in Tokyo Japan.
On the plane (13 plus hours) I saw a lot of movies. I’ll start with the best: “Vantage Point.” I really liked this thriller; right up my alley. If you don’t know what it’s about, you can look it up, but the premise is that we see an assassination attempt from many different vantage points. This was the highlight for a geospatial technologist: the assassin used a geolocated weapon and a mobile pen-based device to 1) anonymously shoot the designated assassinated person, and 2) detonate a bomb on a suicide bomber.
Do not see: “10,000 BC.” Wow! What a dog of a movie. It was incredibly stupid and very poorly acted. Who wants to see a bunch of guys running around with very little clothing and shaking spears at each other? Don’t answer that. I wanted way more of the mastodons and maybe even some saber tooth tigers.
Ditto: “Fools Golds.” Ugho! This was another lame, poorly acted, dumb movie that was all about cutesy flirtatious talk between two fairly attractive people. They talk in that way that real life people think they talk like and don’t and it just sounds so disgusting.
I saw others but they were films I’d seen before. I played a lot of Tetris. Read an Annie Proulx short story in the New Yorker.
My flight was on Japan Airlines. I highly recommend this carrier. Accept for the fact that there was an obvious hierarchy between the poor-folks in the back of the bus and the fancy folks in First Class, I liked everything about this flight. I got up, walked around, didn’t need a sleep aid, got free alcohol. Did all the stretches that Airline Pilot suggested doing.
By the way, the free alcohol is a good thing because when I got to Narita Airport, they took my duty free rum that I bought at the JFK airport AFTER I went through the security check point. Can someone please explain how that is possible?! I kept my receipt so if I have the energy, I can try to get back my seven smackers, but is it worth it?
LATITUDE LONGITUDE at Tokyo Narita Airport (35.777463, 140.39085)
Still Day 1 – now it’s June 27: Connecting flight to Beijing left a little late so I got into Beijing at about 10:00pm. Took a cab from the airport. I had a piece of paper with the name of the hotel (Beijing International Hotel) with the address both in English and in Chinese. First thing you should do is have confidence that the driver knows where he or she is going and how much it will cost you. My driver got lost. The highways, just like the airport, are new and I think confusing to everyone. I saw a lot of cars stopping on the highway leading out of the airport and going into reverse to make an exit. Seemed pretty dangerous. I didn’t think too much of it until my own driver seemed to miss an exit. He told me at the beginning that it would be $100yuan. He got so lost though that I made me pay $200yuan (about $30US). I hope the drivers figure out how to get around before the Olympics start up!
I made it to my hotel, though, and that’s what matters! Very nice room. More later or on Tripadvisor.
Check out the Google Earth file for a blow by blow of where I’ve been to get to Beijing.
