I am now officially trained in the methodologies, procedures, and the culture of Chinese trains.
Before this last weekend, I had ridden on a train in China once-- a high speed bullet train to Tianjin, which is only 30 minutes each way. The train ride was smoother, easier, and cheaper than the cab ride from my house to the train station. This last week, however, I spent 3 of 4 nights on 11-12 hour overnight train rides. Slightly different experience.
I wanted to see some new cities and provinces before going home in December, so I conned Sixiao into taking a last minute trip with me. [Being unemployed and being my best friend, she really had no choice in the matter]. We decided upon going to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors, but my wise hao pengyou (best friend) felt that a trip to Xi'an only would be a bit of a waste-- we should try to see more on our way back. After consulting maps, the internet, and friends who have traveled these places before, we added a city called Pingyao to our itinerary. Pingyao is an ancient city, better preserved than most of its kind. Its city wall is still fully in tact and the houses and buildings and streets have, for the most part, been left unchanged for years. [I just sounded like a travel brochure. Sorry].
Anyway, to get to Xi'an from Beijing, we would take an 11 hour overnight train. The choices for tickets are "standing tickets" (yes, people stand for 11+ hours on trains), "hard seats," "hard sleepers," and "soft sleepers." Sleeper tickets are beds that you can lie down in, the difference between "hard" and "soft" being minimal-- or so we thought.
The hard sleeper trains are made up of many chambers, each housing 6 beds each-- one bottom, middle and top bunk on two opposing walls. The beds are smaller and bit more uncomfortable than a soft sleeper. Soft sleepers only have 4 bunks per chamber and they are private-- you have a door that locks and closes, you can control your own lighting (hard sleepers are "lights out" at 10 pm), and you have more room to lay down, more room for your belongings and less strangers to share your space with.
Sho and I boarded our train at 9:30 pm, with the estimated arrival in Xi'an being 8:30 am. We figured we'd get settled, shoot the breeze for an hour or so, get a full night's rest, wake up fresh and ready in Xi'an.
We poked our head into our chamber. Two men were already lying on the bottom bunks. Sho had booked us the middle bunks. We kept our fingers crossed that the tops would stay open. It is slightly awkward in the middle bunk before you are ready to lay down because there isn't enough room to sit up. After arranging our belongings (place them above your head, away from the door and potential thieves) we half-lay, half-arched awkwardly as we talked and waited for lights out. The ticket collector came by and one of the men on the bottom bunks asked if he could upgrade to a soft sleeper. Sweet! Only one random man in our sleeping quarters!
Lights went out, we laid down. A few minutes later, we see shadows in our doorway. One man climbed into the remaining bottom bunk, another climbed his way to an empty top bunk. Damn! Now we had three lao tous (old men) to deal with. Sho's voice pipes up from the dark, "Dude. I bet they're gonna snore."
"Nooo! I really hope they don't."
"They will."
Within ten minutes, the snoring had begun.
It began with the man above Sho. Not so bad at first, but growing louder and louder as the man fell deeper and deeper asleep. Then he stopped. Yes! I sighed with relief at the thought of getting a possible 8 hours of sleep still.
The relief was short lived-- the snoring began again. This time, however, it came from the man in the bunk below Sho. Different kind of snoring, not as loud, but just as annoying.
"Are you awake?" Sho asked.
"Yes. How could I not be?"
"This sucks!"
"I know."
Soon, the man above Sho started to snore again. They sawed away like lumberjacks, cutting through the dark room with their awful sounds.
Just when I didn't think things could get any worse, the man below me joined as well. We lay, wide awake, listening to a snoring chorus (or what I like to call a "snorus") of three Chinese lao tous.
A few hours later, as I tossed and turned, I swore I heard a 4th person snoring. Traitor! I thought to myself. Sho passed out on me and joined them! I couldn't believe it.
However, Sho's voice spoke up again, "UGH! Shut up!"
"You're awake?" I asked rhetorically.
"Yeah! I thought you were asleep though-- I coulda sworn I heard a fourth person snoring!" she laughed.
"I thought that was YOU!" We both laughed despite our misery. We decided to put in our MP3 players and come to terms with the fact that the next day was going to be a looonnnggg day.
After getting about 3 hours of sleep, we waited in line for the train "bathrooms" to freshen up. Imagine squatting to pee in a hole on a moving train. Imagine doing this over a hole that a whole lot of people have also used on this moving train. Yeah. Bu hao.
Splashing a bit of cold water on our faces & brushing our teeth in the small metal sinks was about all we could do to wake up. Before setting out on out Xi'an tour, we made sure we booked our ticket to Pingyao for later that night-- SOFT sleepers this time.
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Train ride number two--bound to Pingyao--was bound to be better. We had soft sleepers with top bunks and high hopes that the remaining two passengers would not be snoring lao tous. On top of that, we were absolutely exhausted from our lack of sleep and long day. We thought we could sleep through anything.
One chamber mate was already there when we arrived-- an interesting older Chinese woman who was very interested in us. Not to be stereotypical, but she was a typical nosey lao tai tai (old lady) who wanted to know all about me and all about Sho... from everything from family details to our salaries. Sho kindly answered as many questions as she felt comfortable answering. As we got ready for bed, we again kept our fingers crossed that no one else would join our chamber. This time, our finger crossing worked. As we pulled out of the station with just the three of us in the room, Sho explained to the woman how glad we were to not be sharing with any lao tous, due to the night before. The woman laughed and said, "Oh I snore, too!" Of course she did.
And, of course, at the next major stop, a lao tou joined our chamber. However, the gods smiled upon us and neither of our chamber mates snored... too loudly. We managed a good 6 hours of sleep.
----
After two relaxing days in the quaint town of Pingyao (I think Sho calculated that we slept for about 20 hours of our time there) we were ready for the last train ride of the trip. We were lucky enough to score two limited tickets direct from Pingyao to Beijing. Unluckily, they were hard sleeper tickets.
The train was smaller and older than the last two. It was crowded and hot. We located our beds. We realized that although we were in row 8 and row 9, our bunks weren't actually facing each other, but were in neighboring chambers. We didn't want to be in a situation where we couldn't see each other or talk, so Sho decided to ask someone if they were willing to switch. As I watched her ask a young Chinese guy, I could tell he was hesitant. The bed Sho was assigned to had 3 people sitting on it at the moment-- they apparently didn't care it didn't belong to them. Two beds above, a young girl was chain smoking, despite the complete lack of ventilation. In short: this chamber was not desirable. However, Sho was able to work her magic and I watched the guy change tickets with her. I gave him a big smile and said xiexie ni, and he returned with a gracious mei wenti.
After we got settled in our beds, I asked her what she had said to get him to switch. "I told him that this was your first train ride and you are in a strange country and you are afraid to sleep alone," she smiled.
"Thanks! Did you also tell him I wet the bed??" No wonder his "mei wenti" sounded so heartfelt. [Oh well. I knew I'd never see these people again and it's true that I would have rather not slept "alone."]
The poor soul who traded to beds for the scaredy laowai had to sit in the aisle, his eyes nearly shutting with exhaustion, as an obnoxious couple continued to chill and chat away on his bed. The rude randoms finally got up... and came to our room. Even after lights out they continued to talk away. They finally passed out and we were able to get some sleep.
Around 5 am, the couple woke up and started to talk again.
"Shh!" Sho hissed at them.
They were undeterred.
"SHHH!" She hissed louder. I giggled at the ferocity of her hushing.
Still, they talked.
Pissed, Sho spouted off something in Chinese. I was hoping she was telling them to shut the hell up. Whatever it was, they got quiet.
About 30 seconds later, the silence was broken: bvwwwrrrppp!
I guess the man decided if he couldn't make noise with his mouth, he'd make noise with his bowels. He kindly repeated this action at set intervals until we arrived in Beijing. I would have rather listened to his mouth.
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For those of you who haven't been trained in Chinese trains, I hope my experiences don't deter you. I don't by any means recommend NOT taking the train, but I do recommend paying extra for soft sleepers, whenever possible. I will also recommend that you don't do back to back nights on trains-- it is always good to shower, rest, and refresh in a hotel before getting back on a sleeper train.
I must say, if nothing else, taking the train adds adventure to Chinese travel. And adventure, like pizza, is always good... even when it is bad.
