From the International Herald Tribune:
By the time the great railroad reaches this town from the east, it has already traversed more than half of China, past the high desert of Qinghai, around one of the world’s great salt lakes, through the arid fastness of Gansu, and then over and around mountain ranges arrayed like endless sets of waves all the way to Beijing.
But the biggest challenges lie in another direction altogether, when the line heads south from here for an 1,100-kilometer, or 685-mile, run to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, over what is often called the roof of the world.
