A Train Ride in China

My First Long Haul Train Ride In China

(April 29th - May 7th, 2007)

Travelling in China during a holiday weekend is quite an experience.

There are only two 1-week holidays in China and it seems that most Chinese want to travel during these two weeks. Many chinese work at least 6 days a week and long days without overtime pay or weekends or holidays. So, when they do get a chance to have a holiday, they want to do something fun.

All the transportation routes are packed, and getting tickets can be a nightmare. They schedule extra trains and buses. There are crowds everywhere. I wanted to experience the real china, so I decided to take the train to Shanghai with my friend Qiufeng. I'd heard nightmare stories about the trains, but I wanted to experience it for myself. It wasn't so bad.

At first we were only able to get a hard seat ticket for 24 hours. That would have been torture, but it could be even worse. Some people can only get "standing tickets" which means you don't have a seat at all. You have to stand or sit on the floor or your luggage or stand in the aisles...for 24 hours!!! My friend's Dad works for the train station and helped us get sleeper tickets. There are different levels of sleeper tickets. Cabins with 2 or 4 beds and hard sleepers are with about 60 beds in one cabin.

That's where we ended up. In the hard sleepers there are 3 levels, bottom bunk is the most desirable. No climbing and you can sit up in bed and look out the window. No privacy, but quite convenient. Middle bunks are ok and in the top bunks where we were, you can't really sit up straight.

One interesting thing about the train is that the toilets on the train are the easiest squat toilets to use in China. As my friend Mike pointed out. The secret to squat toilets is "three point stance". In other words, the easiest way to do it is to hold onto or lean on something. Anyway, in the toilets or "closet pots" on the train, they give you a handy handle to hold onto.

But we survived with the help of a good book and lots of junk food.

It was the start of a good chinese adventure.