By staff reporter SHEN HONGLEI

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway, currently under construction.

QINGHAI Province, on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is to many people a remote and mysterious place. This reporter recently traveled with the 2002 Qinghai in Focus Photographers Group on their trip from the Qinghai hinterland on the northern part of the plateau to Golmud, the Kunlun Mountains, and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway construction site.

Golmud, Born with the Highway

It took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to fly the 1,150 kilometer distance from Beijing to Xining, capital city of Qinghai Province. From there we boarded a train that went directly west to Golmud.

At sunset as I looked out of the train window, my immediate field of vision was filled with expanses of dark-green steppe girded by silver rivers, and mountains in the distance glowing under the sun's last rays. The eastern part of Qinghai has a gentle terrain which, when travelling west, gradually elevates to high mountain ranges. After an eight-hour train journey, we arrived at Golmud on the southern edge of the Qaidam Basin.

The Golmud Oil Refinery.

In 1954, when construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway began, a massive influx of people, generally road builders, came from all over the country to the wilderness that was Golmud. It was then that this desolate outpost heard for the first time the cry of vendors hawking goods and materials that had been transported onto the plateau. The growth of Golmud as a young industrial city did not, however, start until the early 1980s. Since then, several large industrial projects, including the Sebei Gas Field, Golmud Oil Refinery, and China's largest potash fertilizer plant, have been built in the city, and now constitute its economic backbone.

The camel caravans traveling along the Silk Road from central to western China have long been supplanted by trains, trucks and airplanes. In common with other rapidly developing places in China, Golmud now aims to transform itself into a modern city. Smooth, surfaced roads, supermarkets, bars, and overseas tourists are a common sight. At the Golmud Hotel I met four German tourists who had just flown in from Qingdao. When the tour guide asked them if they were experiencing any reaction to the altitude, they laughed, telling her, "If we do then we're in trouble -- our destination is the very roof of the world - Tibet."

Kunlun Mountain Pass

Our first stop was at the Kunlun Mountain Pass, on whose other side is Tibet.

Travelling from Xining to the Kunlun Mountain Pass, and then on to Lhasa meant covering a distance of over 800 kilometers through the 4,500-meter-above-sea-level "Restricted Life Zone."

The Kunlun Mountains originate in the Pamirs of western China. The ranges extend a distance of 2,500 kilometers at an altitude of between 5,500 and 6,000 meters above sea level. The Kunlun peaks are perennially snow-covered, and within the mountains are springs that flow all year round. The pass, 4,767 meters above sea level, is in the middle section of the mountain range. It is an obligatory section of the route between Qinghai and Tibet, and one of the most critical points along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway.

Melons and fruits produced in Golmud.

Over the past 1,300 years, several major endeavors have been made to cross this mountain pass. The first was 1,300 years ago, when Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty and her entourage traveled from central China to Lhasa, where she was to marry the Tubo King, Songtsan Gampo. According to historic records, this journey took three years. Centuries later, the pass became a vital thoroughfare on which the central government transported aid materials to Tibet.

In 1951, the central government dispatched caravans comprising 4,000 camels to Tibet. Harsh natural conditions caused the death, on average, of 12 camels for each kilometer of the journey. To ameliorate this situation, the government mobilized a further 100,000 service men and civilians who spent the following five years constructing 4,360 kilometers of roads from Sichuan and Qinghai to Tibet, at an altitude of over 4,000 meters. Today, the 1,948-km Qinghai-Tibet Highway still carries 90 percent of all goods and materials going to Tibet.

In 1977, in order to solve Tibet's oil supply problem, the state invested in the construction of an oil pipeline from Golmud to Lhasa. The pipeline is 1,080 kilometers long and traverses the Kunlun Mountains. It is the energy artery of the plateau.

In 1997 the first national public telecommunications optical cable network was built and extended into Tibet. It starts in Gansu's Lanzhou and extends to Lhasa via Xining -- a total length of 2,739 kilometers. Since completion of the cable project, Tibet no longer relies exclusively on satellite links for long-distance communications. Jiang Haitao, a fellow reporter on our trip, told us of a young soldier who caught a cold while laying cable. A helicopter was immediately dispatched to take him to a hospital, but the young man's illness developed so quickly that he died on the way there from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by emphysema. A tablet in memory of those who died now stands at the mountain pass. The names on it recall how this place was once a "Restricted Life Zone."

On December 24, 2001 the first Qinghai-Tibet Railway tunnel was cut.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway

German tourists travelling from Golmud to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

"Altitude" is a word often heard on the plateau. Railway construction workers need to spend a set period of time on adaptation training in Golmud before going out to the construction site. Altitude reactions are generally experienced on arrival in Nachitai, just a few dozen kilometers from Golmud. Those with a serious reaction need to stop and catch their breath every few steps. All 18 camping vehicles on the construction site carry enough oxygen cylinders to supply an average one to every three workers.

Railway construction goes forward daily. Before getting out of their vehicles each morning, workers carefully apply sunblock to areas of exposed skin, and cover their heads and faces with hats and muslin scarves. One construction team leader told us that his responsibility was to lead his workers in the sound construction of the railway, but also to make sure that they all return safely each day from the construction site. Lack of oxygen has eradicated all signs of life from the Kunlun Mountains, and any relaxation of vigilance as regards human safety would threaten the lives of the workers.

This project is now a focus of concern for the Chinese people. At the China Railway No.1 Engineering Bureau office, I noticed a pile of letters. One of them, written by a retired worker named Yin Yuliang, said: "I am proud of the railway construction workers. Their work on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will bring the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau closer to us all."