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A Trainride In China
Datong, 11th of August 1991, 5.15pm
They are opening the gates! In 15 minutes the train will leave
the station to Xian, punctually as all chinese trains. So there's no
time to loose, all the travellers take their luggage and fight to get
through the narrow gate at once. I'm caught in this explosion of
mayhem - it's pushing and fighting all the way to the platform.
In China there are four classes on the trains:
-Soft Sleeper, two or four beds in a closed compartment, very plush
-Hard Sleeper, six beds in a compartment that is open to the corridor
-Soft Seat, nice, airconditioned, with numbered, cushioned seats
-Hard Seat, dirt cheap, cramped, no air, no space - my personal guess
is about a 100 seats usually filled by about 150-250 persons per
carriage. Since most Chinese can only afford Hard Seat there's always
revolutionary fervour in the air when they storm the train to get a
decent seat. Often enough the last to enter the Hard Seat carriages
have to climb through the windows...
I usually try to get Hard Sleeper tickets for all trips above four
hours and this time it was more of a problem because the train
doesn't start in Datong, but I made it. There's three berths above
each other and I even got the middle one - considered to be the most
convenient. The upper one is either very hot or extremely draughty and
it's quite a climb to get into it, and the lower one is used as seats
during the day.
Of course I'm not alone in the compartment. A very old chinese
woman is putting her luggage into the other middle berth, and a
couple in their thirties has the upper berths. Only seconds before
the train leaves the station another backpacker slumps into the berth
below mine, panting heavily.
I conquer one of the seats in the corridor which fold up when you
leave them and enjoy the fresh breeze that comes through the open
window. The diesel powered train slowly moves out of the city and it
feels good to be on the road again. The other backpacker finally
recovers and we start the old 'where from - where to' ritual.
His name is Yuchi, he's from Japan, about my age, and still fairly
seldom with Japanese - he's travelling alone. He is also going to
Xian, so we'll probably team up to split costs for the taxi and maybe
also the room there.
Meanwhile the chinese couple starts their dinner, sitting on the
unoccupied lower berth, filling the table with fresh and dried
fruits, cookies, fried breadsticks, eggs cooked in tea and the
obligatory jar, filled to about a third with tea leaves. There are
two thermos flasks full with boiling hot water under the table and
they can be refilled at the boiler at the end of the carriage, so
there's always hot water to refill the jar.
Suddenly the man joins our conversation in perfect English. He and
his wive ar both language teachers at the Xian Mining Institute and
they were on an offical visit to Datong - usually the only way for
nonmembers of the party to travel Hard Sleeper. They invite us to
join their feast, which is cheerfully accepted by both of us - we
probably both escape another dry-cracker-and-tea dinner.
10pm. On the way back from the toilet the light was switched off,
so I have to prepare my berth in semi-darkness. The cushion is filled
with something grainy like sand or rice, so it gives a perfect mould
for the head to rest in. The slow chaka-di-chak chaka-di-chak of the
wheels lulls me to sleep...
6am. AAAHHHHRG! They've switched on the loudspeakers and we're
getting a heavy dose of Beijing Opera. There's no volume control in
the Hard Sleeper compartments, so we'll have to endure this.
10.30am. We're crossing the valley of the Huang He, the Yellow
River. Two years ago at the same spot I was looking at a half a mile
wide yellow stream running through a green valley. But now there has
been a drought for the last half year in Shaanxi province and also
further upstream. Now the river is only about a fifth as wide, dark
brown mud in a bright brown valley. An eight hour train ride to the
east people are still fighting the worst flooding of a decade...
An hour before we arrive in Xian the two teachers ask us where we
will stay there. The Shengli Hotel is the place in Xian where
backpackers usually end up. It's a state-owned hotel and it looks
that way: Dirty, run-down and the personnel has never heard of the
concept of service. Our new friends invite us spontaneously to stay
at the guest house of the Xian Mining Institute...
This travelogue is (c) by Thomas Sturm.
The author allows non-commercial publication of this text in electronic form,
as long as this paragraph is added to the end of the text.
For publication in any other form, please
write to: t_sturm@pacbell.net
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