Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations

Fast Track to Oblivion in Tibet

There has been a lot of media coverage the past couple of weeks over the new railway in Tibet. It is interesting to watch media outlets wrangle with the moral issues of the whole affair while also (rightfully) admiring the engineering marvel the train to Lhasa represents. Richard Gere even piped in with an editorial for the New York Times this past Sunday.

I guess our timing was spot on in this month’s Perceptive Travel, with Michael Buckley’s story A Railway Runs Through It. Buckley is the author of both a guidebook and a narrative travel collection on Tibet, so it is a well-researched look at what happens when Lhasa hooks up to the rest of China. Lhasa will probably now turn into a Tibetan-hued version of the other Chinese cities. Any hopes of an autonomous Tibet have probably left the station now, unfortunately…