But in the gleaming, chandelier-lit hotel lobby it is easy to forget the scenery outside.
"When you're in contention," Chamblee said, "images fly past you like the scenery outside a bullet train".
But it is a land that is being transformed.As the train descends towards Lhasa, the scenery outside the window changes.
The scenery outside the truck window is not especially lovely (although the cinematography frequently is); the dialogue is devoid of drama; and the characters travel mostly in silence.
It's as if you were hovering in some strange interstitial zone, between the banal urban scenery outside and the focused atmosphere of a concert.
Getting the right exposure can be difficult because in daytime the interior of the car will be darker than the scenery outside.
On the brief downtime between meals and on- and off-board activities, my planned reading is constantly interrupted by the changing scenery outside.
Sometimes it's the train that shifts -- 20 feet in either direction -- and sometimes it's the scenery outside the train windows.
Meanwhile, the scenery outside the windows is filled with strange juxtapositions — natural beauty and suburban tranquility, pockets of fresh economic activity and an awful lot of dramatic post-industrial carnage.
It's just that in one of them they project movies of aerial scenery outside the windows, and once in a while a burly stagehand bounces the room on the director's cue of "Looks like we're gonna have a little turbulence, here, folks".
