All aboard...

This is a bit delayed but still wanted to post it... Sean and I decided that with some extra time on our hands we would go to Beijing for the Chinese New Year and see what all the hubbub was all about. Train travel is crazy right now for anyone, but especially if you don’t know the language or the procedures. We booked ourselves two “hard sleeper” one-way tickets. You can only purchase tickets at the train station that you are leaving from so there is no such thing as buying round trip tickets.

Our first overnight train ride was not too bad. Most people stare at us and some even try to have a conversation. I met another school teacher (who insisted I take one of his beers) and then a girl (she called herself Amanda) who actually spoke very good English. I brought her back to our bunks and we chatted for awhile. It was nice to talk to someone else other than Sean and I am sure he felt the same. We shared our space with four other people. I was just glad to have the bottom bunks. We brought along some DVD’s to kill the time and at 10pm, the lights went out. I had read about how terrible the bathrooms are on the train and they were right…that is all I will say about that. I slept like a baby, unfortunately, Sean found himself awakened by every creak of the train.

When we arrived in Beijing it was 6am and freezing cold. Beijing is much more spread out than Shanghai which meant that we needed to take a taxi to most places. We took in the Forbidden City, Tian'an Men Square and some temples. We were quite disturbed by the crooked taxi drivers in Beijing who I guess they feel that a tour of the city should be included with every trip. It only took us a day to figure out the scam and from that point forward we didn’t get in a taxi without first discussing the fare. Sean and I agreed that we liked Shanghai more than Beijing. It is said that most people do favor one over the other. I guess it would be like comparing New York City to Indianapolis. We like the crowds of people and the hustle and bustle of the condensed city so I guess that is why we prefer Shanghai.

After seeing as much of Beijing as we cared to, we still had a good week before we had to go back to DanYang. So of course we hopped on another train and headed to Xi’an which is smack dab in the center of China. We were traveling in luxury this time as we did not have “bunkmates” to share our tiny 6’ x 8” compartment. I actually was able to hang a comforter from the upper bunk to give us some privacy from the people that walk down the aisles at all hours of the night. I think we both slept through the night and as our train pulled into the station, we were refreshed and ready for our day.

This is of course when Sean discovered that we had lost the camera and his separate adventure began. A few hours and taxi drivers later, we arrived at the HQ Guesthouse (hostel) and were able to start our adventure in Xi’an. We traveled by bus to see the Terra Cotta Warriors (the reason for this 14 hour side trip) and rode bicycles on the Xi’an wall while the constant barrage of firecrackers continued to scare away the demons for the Chinese New Year. (Yes, 15 days of firecrackers!)

I stated before that you cannot purchase round trip tickets so you can imagine our surprise when the lady at the ticket counter at the railway station said that there were no tickets to Shanghai for at least 3 days. Seasoned travelers such as ourselves knew there must be a way around this situation. We opened our handy China book and found a few big cities located close to where we needed to go and took a chance that we would be able to catch another train from that city to our final destination.

As our luck (karma) would have it, we were able to leave the following day at 10pm and arrive in Nanjing at 12 noon and then take another train into DanYang. Unfortunately, this train was booked beyond capacity. Sean had the middle bunk, I had the upper bunk (which had about 3 feet of headroom) and there was another 6 people sharing the remaining 4 bunks. I am sure it could have been much worse… I just limited my intake so that I did not have to come down from my bunk and use what they call toilets. Again, keeping my comments to a minimum, I could actually see the railroad tracks as I flushed the trough. I miss western toilets!

It was an amazing trip and even more amazing is the fact that two Americans were able to navigate their way through the sea of Chinese people during the busiest time of the year, purchase tickets to the correct places, board the right trains, find the right bunks, find something to fill our bellies, locate
hotels, tell taxi drivers where we need to go, and make it back home safely. Every once in awhile, I turn to Sean and say “Hey, we are in China and we are doing it”…. Yes it is even hard for us to believe it sometimes too. We are so fortunate.