Train Travel

We left Beijing on Thurs morning headed deep into the interior of China and the outskirts of Inner Mongolia and the Tenneger Desert (or the edges of the famous Gobi desert). To get there we had to endure a 22 hour train ride in an overnight "hard" sleeper car. I had done several overnights when I was in Europe but was not sure what to expect in China. Ended up that our "seats" on the train were in fact the six person sleepers. Our group of five got a "room" about the size of a king bed (really) with three berths on the left side stacked to the ceiling and three to the right side also stacked to the ceiling and a tiny aisleway in the middle about about two feet wide. There was a tiny compartment for luggage under one bed (about a foot and another tiny compartment near the ceiling. That was it! We were to spend the next 22 hours together in this room with our luggage starting at noon and going until 10a the next day. Just be thankful you were the lucky #6 that got to share the room with us on the trip, which a couple of fortunate souls got to do on a couple six hours shifts. The train had an aisleway outside of our room that ran the length of the train car and was about 30" wide...that was the loitering area outside of the room unless you wanted to go visit the dining car or the haze-filled smoking area between cars. I was very thankful that the interior of the cars themselves were non-smoking. Consider that China inhales 1/3 of the entire cigarette consumption in the world and you can imagine what the streets and restaurants are like.



Oh, and let's not forget that we have restrooms too. Each railcar had a bank of three sinks in a room where the sink drains inexplicable drained right into the floor at your feet. So if you stood to closely while washing your hands or brushing your teeth, you went back to your sleeper with sopping wet shoes. The Chinese find Western toilets a foreign concept. I've been told they see them as unsanitary because they are used to not find the restrooms cleaned frequently. You can understand that you would would not want to use a infrequently cleaned toilet seat either. Of course, the alternative is the "squat toilet". They are not as widespread in China in the tourist zones since the Olympics came about but they can frequently be found in almost all other areas. Trains are heavily used by the locals and by few tourists, so we were fortunate to be served 22 hours with the squat toilets. Thankfully I took care of pressing needs before the train. A squat toilet is nothing more than a hole in the ground emptying out onto the tracks. Don't cringe too much at that. Eastern Europe trains do the same with their wastes. You just aren't allowed to visit the potty when you are approaching a station. If you have riden a train with any frequency you can imagine the difficulties of performing the squat while the train is in motion. Good luck indeed. Oh, and when you are done, there is a bucket of fresh water to wash away any of those who didn't quite hit the target precisely.



Our group did quite well surviving our 22-hour ordeal. We had a few informal Mandarian Chinese lessons along the way. I read about 150 pages of a book (Bill Bryson type travel adventure) about Chinese culture and travel as well. We rolled into the next part of our adventure in the town of Zhongwei the next morning. You'll have to look really hard on your map to find Zhongwei. Maybe a better search would be to Google "Yinchuan, China" and that will give you an idea of the location. So that is part I of China train travel down. We have three more overnight adventures still yet to come.


Pumpkin soup