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Published: April 6th 2010
Firstly, thanks to all our followers who were lighting candles, crossing fingers and saying prayers, because we got our Russian visas! Once we found out the good news, we booked the final leg of our travels and will leave Beijing in the middle of May. From now until then we have over a month to discover China. So, armed with our visas, we secured train tickets to Guangzhou (pronounced Gwang-joe) across the border on Mainland China. By all accounts Guangzhou is not a nice place to stay overnight in, so we arranged our tickets so that we could arrive there and leave for Xi'an (Shee-ann) on the same day.
Getting to Guangzhou Main Railway Station demanded a sense of humour. We left our hostel in Hong Kong early on Saturday morning. We caught the metro to Hung Hom train station and tried to figure out where to board the train. We joined a melee that looked vaguely like an Asian queue and waited for something to happen. We had to pass security and immigration to leave Hong Kong, and then were funnelled into a waiting area until our train was ready to board. Someone opened a gate and we joined
the throng, adopting a fish-like approach, just riding the wave of people. Eventually the wave petered out on the platform and we found our coach number and a kind attendant checked our tickets while smiling at us.
The train was plush and the seat was so comfortable that I slept for the entire hour and forty five minutes it took us to get to Guangzhou. We were aware that we would arrive in a different train station in Guangzhou than the one we had to leave from, so it was with some trepidation that we stepped off the train and put our first foot on Chinese soil.
We joined the wave of people and found ourselves again in an immigration hall. It was all very modern, and thankfully had English translations for the most important signs. We were both stamped into China with no problems, and then the true adventure began.
We walked out of the immigration hall and started that wide eyed 360 degree stare that is common among travellers (usually followed by a big gulp). Internally I was thinking 'please let there be English, please let there be English'. Just as I thought that, we
spotted a large yellow sign that said 'METRO' and had a large arrow. Grand so, we'll just follow that.
We did follow the sign, but then there were no more signs! There was nothing written around us that was even mildly recognisable. A kind Chinese lady approached us and babbled off a few rounds of Chinese at us, but our efforts at 'Metro', 'Subway', 'Guangzhou Main Train Station' with a big shrug (for the question mark!) were completely lost on her. The question was lost on her, but in the larger scale of things, we were the lost ones. We approached a guy sitting at a table that appeared to be advertising a hotel. We tried our simple question on him and got a "Aaahh...Tickets." back from him. Sadly he thought we wanted train tickets for a normal train.
Frustration turned to laughter and laughter grew to hysterical grinning. We were standing there, lost without a clue of where to go, and with about two hours to cross town. It was absolutely hilarious. Eventually we calmed ourselves enough to make a decision. I opted for checking outside for a metro stairs. Philippe eventually spotted them. We again followed
the crowd and found ourselves in a standard metro station central area.
Instinctively we made our way to the ticket machines. Sadly, after pressing many buttons, and coming up with not much, we accepted defeat and leaving me guarding the bags, Philippe braved the queue to try his luck with the customer service guy. After a comical conversation with the guy, he returned, holding two plastic coin-like tokens with a questioning look in his eye. "This is what he gave me". Ok, then, we'll see how it goes. We found our colour line, descended the stairs, copied what everyone else did with the coins (swiped them over the scanner) and then hopped on board. Once aboard, the metro was just like every other metro line we've been on. We counted our stops and swapped at the appropriate station and about fifteen minutes later emerged at Guangzhou Main Railway Station.
Any feelings of elation or pride soon gave way to the familiar feeling of bewilderment as we found ourselves staring at long queues of people trying to enter the main train station. With a shrug towards each other we just joined a queue and edged towards the main door.
After a ticket check and a luggage scan, we were standing in the centre of Guangzhou train station gazing up at a huge screen.
We both went through the same thought process: 'Ah, there's our train number. Great. Oh, what does all that mean'. Following our train number was a sequence of Chinese symbols that meant absolutely nothing to us. I was struggling to control another dose of the giggles. It was truly one of those, if I don't laugh I'll cry moments. There was no indication of a platform number - which is the minimum we were hoping for. We stared at each other, looking for inspiration on how to resolve our quandary, when suddenly it was resolved for us.
By an Angel - albeit a very modern angel (listening to an ipod!) A young man emerged from underneath the sign, removed his earphones and inquired "Hello, can I help you?". Yes!!! He looked at our tickets, looked at the screen, said 'you need to wait on the second floor in waiting room 4' and then the earphones were back in and he was gone! Just like that. It was over so quickly that it took us
a while to register. Once we did, we again shrugged at each other, and headed for the escalator.
We were, of course, ages ahead of schedule. But so were many, many, other Chinese people. There wasn't a seat spare so, using the bags as seats, we sat in the middle of the floor and settled in to wait. For the first time I became aware of my oddness. In a room filled with Chinese people, we were anomalies. Yes, there was staring, but it was casual and inoffensive - nothing like what we had experienced in India. After a while we went and bought some KFC and as we were wiping our mouth I became aware of the lady holding a hovering child about two metres to my left. The child looked fully clothed, but on closer inspection, the seam of the rear of his trousers was open. The trickle flowing from said opening explained the hovering nature of the child. It also made me all the more grateful that we had stocked up on hand sanitiser before we left Hong Kong!
Not long after a train official came into the packed waiting room and hollered something through
a megaphone. The jostling that ensued was enough to tell Philippe and I that we were moving. We joined the queue near the door to see what was going on. They were buying something. We decided to buy them too and Philippe joined the crush to conduct the transaction. He emerged with two white stubs of paper, having handed over about 20yuan for them. We again followed the flow of the crowd and were relieved of the stubs as we were moved to a different waiting room. We stood there for a further twenty minutes until another train official arrived. This time it was a lady that was in charge of the megaphone.
She barked out some more instructions. Philippe went up to her, smiled, showed her our ticket and she responded by shaking her head, saying 'one min ute', and waved us to the side. We figured it was something to do with loading according to carriages. So we waited and watched our new Chinese mama until she gave us the nod. She even managed to say "Plate form four" as she tenderly tapped my shoulder as we bustled past her. We were delighted and had to restrain
ourselves from hugging her!
We followed the crowd and found our carriage. At the doorway an attendant swapped our paper tickets for plastic credit card sized one. It was a clever system, it meant she knew where everyone was getting off and could remind them before their stop. We found our beds in the carriage and claimed our bunks. We had booked the bottom and middle bunk, and having learned our lesson in India, we quickly spread ourselves across the bottom bunk. Chinese trains have 6 bunk compartments with two pull down chairs by the opposite window. The person from the top bunk can sit there.
It was all very civilised. We stored our luggage, smiled at our compartment 'roomies' and waited for the train to move. The man that would be sleeping above me introduced himself as being from Kyrgyzstan. He had limited English but seemed friendly. It was frustrating, because he seemed like someone with an interesting story to tell. It is the first time we have been truly stumped by language on the trip. The rest of our roomies were non-English speaking Chinese people. We smiled and hoped they were friendly.
The journey was
a short 26 hours long. During that time we provided in-train entertainment by eating sandwiches (instead of noodles!). While no one was rudely staring at us, we could tell that the concept of slathering Nutella on white bread was new to them! At 10pm the lights were turned out and everyone turned in for the night. I was surprised by the silence on the train. The next morning we were both amazed at the good nights rest we had had. It was better than the previous weeks in the dorm in Hong Kong!
Over the course of the morning the train attendant returned to relieve us of our credit card tickets and return our paper ones to us. Time passed easily, and soon we were pulling into Xi'an train station!
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Eileen
non-member comment
Just as well ye had practice in France with the toilets.