MaryAnne feels a much stronger emotional connection to blogging than I do, but I may post from time to time as a guest writer. MaryAnne wanted me to post about our train excursion over the China National Holiday (first week in October) 2007. We had a week off of school, and were looking to go somewhere to escape the melting heat of Nanjing (they don't call it one of China's 4 ovens for nothing). MaryAnne served her mission in Sydney, and at the end of her mission she trained a sister missionary from Chengdu, which is located in the Sichuan province. I just looked it up on the train schedule, and it's about 1275 miles from Nanjing, which is the equivalent of taking a train from Salt Lake City to Dallas. In a car, it takes about 18 hours to make the trip; but, on a China train, it takes 36 hours. As fun as it is to ride on top of a cot where you can't sit up for 1 1/2 days (see picture below), we decided to break up the trip with a day and a half stop in Xi'an (home of the terra cotta warriors).
In China, you can't buy train tickets more than 10 days in advance (unless you have friends in government positions. I once tried to order some tickets 10 days in advance for a bullet train only to find out that the train had been reserved for people much redder than me). I went to the local store that sold tickets and was told that I could buy tickets for the first leg of the journey to Xi'an, but that I would have to buy tickets in Xi'an for the final leg to Chengdu. Knowing that the ENTIRE population, 1.6 billion, gets the week off, I was scared about being Shanghaied (pun intended) in Xi'an with sold-out trains. I shared my feelings of anxiety with one of my Chinese classmates who told me that if I went to the train station, I could buy tickets for any station in China. However, there were now only 2 days before we left for Xi'an.
I rocked up to the station later that night (about 10:00 PM) and had to stand in line for over an hour to get to the ticket window (more on Chinese horizontally forming lines in another post). I found out that all trains were sold out for the day after we arrived in Xi'an, but we could get on a train at 6:00 PM for the day we arrived. That meant we'd have about 8 hours in Xi'an. We'd lose our money for the hotel room we'd booked, but that was only $10, so I purchased the tickets. Whenever we purchased overnight train tickets, we'd buy "hard sleeper" tickets which meant that we sat/slept/ate/you name it on bunks stacked 3 high in groups of 2. It's a good way to travel and half the price of the "soft sleeper" beds which are just as hard but have a door you can close. Either way, we were confronted with strangers, so we usually went the cheap route. I felt relieved that not all tickets were sold out and noticed that the tickets were about $20 less than I thought they'd be. I was stoked. Then I looked at the ticket and noticed that I had purchased a "hard seat" instead of a hard sleeper. Picture the comfort of the wood benches in the tabernacle. That is what I'd just bought. I quickly jumped in the ticket exhange line and found that all hard sleepers were sold out. Crap.
This is a picture taken from my first train ride in China. I am located in the "hard seat" section with a "standing" ticket. This is not a picture of people getting on or off the train. This is a picture 2 hours into my 5 hour ride from Shanghai to Nanjing. I vowed I'd never ride in that section of the train again. Well, it was China: 1, Brad and MaryAnne: 0. We decided to not think about it and just enjoy the overnight beds on our way to Xi'an. We loved Xi'an. It is thousands of years old and the terra cotta warriors were amazing. MaryAnne got sick and the hotel let us make the best use of our 10 bucks and stay there for 2 hours. I had my first experience running through the rainy streets of Xi'an looking for remedies for MaryAnne's sickness and MaryAnne had her first experience using a squatter toilet. Then came the long walk to the train station to wait for our one-way ticket to hell. Here is a copy of the email I sent home once we arrived in Chengdu at Sister Yin's house.
Hello Mom and Dad!
We are in Chengdu and being treated like royalty. However, the road here was a bit of different story. We couldn't get sleeper car tickets because they were all sold out (the entire country has the next 7 days off and the trains are going nuts). We do have sleeper car tickets for the way back, and we had sleepers from Nanjing to Xi'an. But, from Xi'an to Chengdu, we had to buy "hard seat" tickets. The bright side was that the were more than half the price of the sleeper car trains, and we soon found out why.
Last night was definitely one of the worst three nights of my life. I've read horror story after horror story on the internet about luggage being stolen in the "hard seat" cars, and so I didn't want to take an Ambien and have us both knocked out cold waiting to be ripped off. So, I thought I'd catch some Z's now and then during the trip. Let me paint the scenario of the evening.
Imagine, if you will, a cattle car. Cowboys, on horseback, are working their cattle prods on the herd, forcing them into the corral. You now know how we entered the train station, the platform, and then the train. The goal was not to get sucked into the middle and squished on all sides by people who hadn't showered in days. Once we go on the train, we sat three in a row, with three people opposite us. Knees were touching. Imagine how much leg room you get on an airplane, and then divide that by two people facing each other. Since we are fat by Chinese standards, we could barely squish with a random Chinese dude into the space allotted us. Now, coming out of the wall is a small table which makes it nearly impossible to lie down without hitting your head on it. So, that option was out. I was in the middle with MaryAnne against the wall with a window seat (we originally weren't sitting together, and we tricked a student into trading with us and sitting next to a mom who draped her kid's dirty legs over first MaryAnne's body, and then over the new kid's. Also, kids in China until they are about 5 wear a one piece outfit with bum flaps in the back that are often open, so imagine that draped across your legs and having MaryAnne's aversion to "germs"), and a random Chinese middle-aged man on my right. In front of me are two really dirty gunny-sack-packing farmers who's shirts were handwashed in grime, and then across from MaryAnne is a student who's already been on the train over 36 hours.
Next, you've got my friend, here after dubbed Mr. Entitled, who was sleeping in my seat when we got on the train. I had to wake him up and he got upset with me wondering why I woke him up. Well, we bought seats and there was no way I was going to stand for 19 hours. He then proceeded to pull out his blanket and sleep in the aisle. Every time the snack cart came though, he refused to move and made them try to work around him. Also, muddy feet have been all over the aisle, and people are constantly spitting in the aisle (so much that it is constantly slippery). If that wasn't gross enough, our other friend, who we called "grossest man alive" crawls underneath the seat in front of us and begins to sleep. Every time I tried to stretch my legs out of the sitting straight up position, he would grab my feet and throw them back at me. He had not showered for a long time and it was apparent both visually and olifactorily. It is "illegal" to smoke in the train car, and it is only allowed in the space between cars, but that doesn't stop almost 20 percent of the passengers from lighting up sometime during the night without leaving their seat.
I had to convince MaryAnne to take an Ambien, but she finally did, and then the circus began. While we are sitting, there are close to 40 people in the aisle who have "stand-only" tickets who are hovering all over us. It's hot, the air conditioning has gone out and the train keeps stopping every hour for about 30-45 minutes and no one knows or cares why. I went to go see if we could upgrade our tickets to the sleeper car, but since it is a national holiday this week, we were told there would be no upgrades allowed all week. I came back and tried to get at least a little sleep between stops, and then inspect our luggage while people were getting on and off the train.
At first, the main thing keeping me from sleeping was the card game going on directly in front of me. There were 6 active players, who were drinking and having a great time. There were also about 10-15 observers who hovered around the game, and therefore around me. The card game was in the row in front of our row (each row has 6 people facing each other on one side, and 4 people facing each other on the other side). The card game started at 10:00 and didn't end until after 2:00 AM. Then, Mr. Entitled and grossest man alive were snoring up a storm beneath me. The guy in front of me kept spitting on the floor (and therefore my feet) and wiping it around the floor with his shoe. He kept touching all parts of his body, and then starting rummaging through the fruit in his gunny sack. He offered me one of his pears, which was a nice gesture, but made me want to hurl. He wouldn't take no for an answer, and placed in my hand. I immediately put it on the table, and luckily, he ate it the next morning. Soon, the floor was so wet with his spit and his buddy's spit who sat next to him, that the floor was slippery and black.
Next, his spitting partner wanted to eat. He dove into a plastic garbage bag full of assorted duck and chicken parts which were smothered in hot sauce. My favorite were the duck necks which he nibbled and then slurped in his mouth before spitting out the esophogus on the table in front of me. He was also leaning over to eat which put his mouth 8 inches from my face. He ate stomach and intestine, and the smell was fantastic. He washed it all down with some strong alcohol which turned off any desire I had for food. After a few floor spits himself, he turned over and went to sleep. His legs were facing towards me, while the student across from MaryAnne had his legs turned towards me from the other side, leaving me only able to sit straight up or risk the wrath of the crazy hands of grossest man alive. I opted for sitting straight up.
The mothers sitting behind me missed the cues from their kids and tried to make their way to the squatter with feces coming out of the bum flaps of the one pieces. That added to both the visual and aromatic collage that I was receiving during the night. Did they turn the lights down at all during the night? You bet they didn't. I told myself that if I could make it to 6 AM, no matter what I'd run to the dinner car for some breakfast and space. Luckily, Mars woke up at about 5:45, which made the morning more bareable. I did sleep for about 1.5 hours from about 7:30 to 9:00 which was a big help. The train stayed pretty crowded and was due to arrive in Chengdu at 12:35, but due to all the random stops on the tracks actually arrived after 3:30. Lesson to be learned? Do not take the hard seat car if you are going to be on the train over 5 hours, and especially 19 hours. Either wait a few days for better tickets, or fork out the dough and fly if you have it. It was an experience Mars and I both don't want to relive. I actually feel pretty good now that I've eaten a great meal (Sister Yin's mom is a fantastic cook), taken a hot shower and brushed my teeth. I don't hate life or the world, but I did while I was on the train. I was figuring out ways to break the window and escape when the train stopped, or ways to put a hole in the wall where people could blow their cigarette smoke. Life is good now. I hope what I wrote recreated the trip for you, because it was quite unbelievable. Wow. Never again, but a great story now that it's over. :)
That took too long to write, and now MaryAnne is taking a nap. She said she will write her story to you after we get back from dinner. We love you and miss you! We are safe and pampered here by Sister Yin's family. Talk to you soon!
- Brad and Mars
This place was MUCH nicer than the train. Home, sweet home. Needless to say, we elected to bite the bullet and take the 36 hour ride back without a stop-over, but we did guarantee that we had beds for the whole ride. If you ever go to China, shoot us a line before you decide to take a train. We recommend it, but only if you do it right.
