Gama Chilai has taken his extended family of 12, including his 73-year-old grandmother and his 3-year-old son, by train to Lhasa this summer.

"For many Tibetans, a pilgrimage to Lhasa's monasteries is a lifelong dream," says the young man from Yushu, in Northwest China's Qinghai Province.

Yushu is about 2,000 kilometers from Lhasa. Before the Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened, local Tibetans could only take buses to Lhasa. The journey over the zigzagging mountain road was tiring, dangerous and by no means cheap, says Chilai.

The railway has carried trainloads of pilgrims like him into Tibet over the past year.

Last year, 328,000 pilgrims visited the Potala Palace, Norbulingka and Jokhang Monastery, the top three religious sites in Lhasa, an increase of 62,000 from the previous year, Tibet's regional government says.

During this year's week-long May Day holiday, more than 73,000 people visited the Norbulingka, the summer resort of all the Dalai Lamas. At least 40,000 were pilgrims.

Many travel by train. Pilgrims wearing Tibetan costume and bringing articles of tribute and lamas in crimson cassocks make the train journey to Tibet unique.

In the meantime, many Tibetans have taken the train on pilgrimages elsewhere, to the Ta'er Monastery in Qinghai and the Lama Temple in Beijing.

The railway has also promoted Tibetan culture and arts in the rest of China. Tibetan theme bars, restaurants and souvenir stores are found in many big cities.

"Tibetan adornments have become fashionable almost overnight. They're beautiful," says Wang Yanwen, whose store on Zhangye Road in downtown Lanzhou, capital city of Northwest China's Gansu Province, sells everything to do with Tibetan Buddhism, ranging from beads and prayer wheels to necklaces and bracelets ingrained with totems.

Editor: Cindy