In China train travel is the most widely used mode of long distance transportation. It would then stand to reason that this would be an organized experience. The only thing that is organized is the chaos that surrounds the experience. Most train stations have four waiting halls. You walk into a station, find your train number on a massive information board (all in Chinese characters) and proceed to the appropriate waiting hall. There are usually about 5 trains sharing a single hall. You cannot go to the platforms, you must make yourself cozy in these crowded, hot, dirty waiting areas. About 45 minutes prior to the departure time, a surging of energy starts and you notice that your train number is being posted above two gates. I am not talking about gates like you may find in an airport, rather actual gates, that are still locked. Now people start to huddle and merge towards these gates for about 15 or 20 more minutes, until a ticket taker at each gate flings them open. Cue pushing, elbows, trampling and all other activities of this nature as you and your closest couple hundred Chinese travel companions push your way through the gate (no line present). Now it is a mad dash up some stairs and down to the appropriate train. Why a mad dash you ask? Well storage is limited on the train and if you do not want to be sleeping with a portion of your luggage on the bed or seat with you, then you had better get to the train and get it stored. If you can’t read characters you have the added bonus of figuring out which seat/sleeper is in fact yours. Finding the car and compartment easy, after that assistance is needed.
Now the train leaves the station and the next order of business is ramen. Almost immediately after leaving a station do passengers start going up the aisles to the hot water dispenser to get the water for their ramen. SLURP SLURP SLURP. Slurping noodles is an art form in China and the trains are the place to experience this art first hand. After noodles is sunflower seed time in which seeds are eaten and shells thrown on the floor of the train. If you are on a sleeper car the bottom bunk is open territory until the lights go out as long as you do not put your feet on the bed unless it is your bed. Other favorite snacks on the long trains include chicken feet, crackers or cucumbers, but always always noodles!
If you are lucky you will get to meet some people who speak English and you can make friends with these Chinese who always want to know as much as possible about you, your travel plans and inevitably let you know that by not going to their home town you are missing out on the best of what China has to offer. You explain that you would love to go there but you don’t have enough time. This concept is a bit strange to understand and so they continue to tell you to go and finally somehow you are telling them, OK, you will add it just to appease them and move onto a different topic of conversation. Usually these travel companions are very kind and make the trip enjoyable. The best so far have been the 6 Chinese judges who spoke almost no English but wanted to hang out with us. Thankfully the other girl in the compartment was traveling alone, and spoke amazing English. She befriends us and them and becomes translator. In all they were a blast!
Finally exhausted, and sleep evading you the night on the train you pull into a new town. You would love to think that at this point you can go to the hostel check in and start the show. Nope. First you must go to the surging semi-lined up ticket hall and purchase your departure tickets. In China you cannot purchase any sort of train tickets more than 10 days prior to departure date. Further more you can only purchase the tickets in the city of departure. So when we get to the window we have all of the possible trains available listed in a notebook and must hope that there are seats on one of them, as we are usually trying to buy tickets for 3 to 5 days later. You would think that there could be a more effective way to book tickets like say, oh I don’t know, online for the country’s most useful mode of transportation, but no, this is China.
As I have said before though, the sooner one tries to stop figuring out a better more organized way of doing things, and just accept that this is how things are done here, the easier life in China can be. So we don’t fight it we roll with it and play the game by their rules.
The trip to Chengdu was especially rough and arriving this morning I was mentally beat. The solution, read about a ”mexican food” place here that won best Western Restaurant in town, great we think, lunch. With a slushy like drink pretending to be a margarita I ate a “burritos” for lunch. That out of my system it was comforting but not satisfying and I will be returning to my Chinese diet, which is fine, I am in Sichuan Providence now, home of the spicy food!
Tomorrow we are going to the Panda Research Center and day after that out to Leshan mountain, to see China’s largest Buddha carved into a mountain and do a bit of hiking around there. Also, crazy preachers from Florida have made international news.
