Ailsa at Where’s My Backpack? urges us to show something of Height. My entry is taken from the train ride to Tibet over the great plateau in the Himalayas. For more about Height – click here.
The Tang Gu La or Tanggu Pass is a wide mountain pass over 5000 metres elevation used by the Quinghai – Tibet Railway to cross the Tanggula Mountains. On August 24, 2005, rail track for the Qinghai–Tibet Railway was completed 28 kilometres to the WNW of the highway, reaching 5072 meters (16,640 feet)—the world’s highest, 255 m higher than Cóndor station, Peru.
We travelled Peru 1987 and Tibet 2009 – both fantastic adventures. I had the great luck of catching this sign, Tang Gu La, from the train window. We were never allowed to go outside for photos, and the train rarely stopped anywhere. The compartments all had extra oxygen. The feeling is not possible to describe or explain.

What an amazing train ride that must have been! Great pic for the challenge. 🙂
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I can well understand not wanting to miss a thing. I am also the one with my nose to the glass when I am on train rides in foreign countries. Shame that you could not get out on this ride, but it was still a unique memory nonetheless! Certainly exemplifies ‘height’
I don’t know why, really, but I guess they didn’t want us to take any too clearly compromizing photos…There were sometimes many Chinese military vehicles on the road close by – the Tibetans are very much controlled…
Of course, this would also explain it.
Wow, what a great adventure you had!
Indeed. I don’t think I will have the opportunity again…so I made the most of it.
What trips Ann Christine ! I do admire your skill in getting that photo 😉
It really looks like you are just stood on the platform Lol
He, he, yes…In fact I almost never slept on that train. I sat by the windows – didn’t want to miss Anything on the trip. Realizing I will probably never get the chance again.
Your photo says it all … and I can truly image what a fantastic adventure both experience must have been. I haven’t been that high, expect on my pain killers … the highest I been must be Sear’s tower in Chicago .. does it count ??? *smile
Everything counts!
Thank you very much *smile
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rather thrilling and exciting, just to be that high, and be so totally controlled … quite an experience!
Thank you, yes, it was. I guess i will never go by that train again…
So, is that a railway station in the middle of ‘nowhere’? What a fantastic adventure. It was fascinating to learn about the extra oxygen in the train carriages. Imagine what it was like for the people who built the railway; did they need extra oxygen I wonder?
I don’t know if it was anything but a platform. The train never stopped….What I do know is that thousands of workers died during the railway construction. They had to run down poles into the permafrost to make it stable enough for the trains. Of course the Chinese used labourers from Tibet who could stand the thin air better, but severe cold and thin air together isn’t good for anyone.
How sad! A lot of the great structures of the world have come about with a great human cost.
True. In many countries human lives are of no value at all.
Wow, this sounds like such an amazing and surreal experience Anna-Christine. So wonderful that you visited twice 🙂
It might have to do with not enough oxygen in the thin air too…