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Published: December 12th 2005
Hong Kong Park
Behind the waterfall Zoe and I are in the midst of planning our adventure into China. She has given me an early birthday present of the China Lonely Planet guide - it’s a huge, weighty thing. Since we don’t have much of an idea of where we want to go, except that the Great Wall is top on her list, it will be helpful in the discovery process. But first, we must get her a China visa in Wan Chai as our departure is going to be next week and we don’t want to incur any expediting fees.
Tony and I have been spending our days being the knowledgeable tour guides for Zoe, taking her to all those places I’ve been blogging about. At night she and I hang out at the apt making fun of the TV commercials: “Ponds Double White! Neutrogena Fine Fairness, L’Oreal White Perfect, blocks the formation of melanin, FANCL Ha Sek So, Stop!”. Why is it that white folks want to be dark, and
dark folks want to be white? The young women here indulge their beauty budget in skin whitening - do they have a secret obsession for
When in Hong Kong...
Do what HK'ers do - ride the escalators all things Japanese, this being a desire to look like a Geisha?? Now you wouldn’t think there would be any love there, considering the bashing the Japanese received recently from the Chinese regarding their WWII history sanitization.
In between episodes of Desperate Housewives and America’s Next Top Model, we plan the getaway. Our itinerary is taking shape, sort of. At least we decide to leave on the 31st, and give ourselves 10 days, beyond that it’s a mystery. China is massive and it’s difficult to squeeze it into a 10-day tour. I plot out several options:
1. Hong Kong - Guangzhou - Beijing - Jinan/Tai Shan - Xian - Chongqing/Yangtze River - Guilin - Shenzhen - Hong Kong
2. Hong Kong - Guangzhou - Beijing - Xian - Jinan/Tai Shan - Nanjing - Suzhou - Shanghai - Hong Kong
3. Hong Kong - Shenzhen - Beijing - Xian - Shanghai - Hong Kong
4. Hong Kong - Shenzhen - Beijing - Xian - Guilin - Hong Kong
5. And variations of the above…
It becomes obvious pretty fast that option 1 and 2 are just too ambitious. Why? Well mainly because of the time it would take
Guangdong Landscape
Zooming through farmland to get from one place to the next. Like 24hrs between cities! We want to take the train as much as possible as it is less expensive than flying, but it will eat up too much time going to multiple destinations. So, we pare it down to option 3 or 4, still we’d like to see as much of the countryside as possible, and what better form of transport than a train? Besides it sounds like fun. Famous last words.
The web, my research resource, has yielded good leads and useless crap. Here are the best sites:
General travel info:
Travel China Guide Train schedules:
Train schedules More about train travel:
The Man in Seat 61 China’s official tourism bureau:
CNTA China government info:
China Today All sorts of China info:
Govt’s on the WWW Excellent hotel reservation site:
Sino Hotels If you want to leave 90%!o(MISSING)f the planning to someone else yet feel like you are not with a large tour group:
Intrepid Traveler Another semi-official site:
China Internet Information Center The train schedules from HK to Beijing are quite confusing, to the best of my ability here they are unraveled:
A HK departure leaves from the Hung Hom KCR station every other day on
Guangdong Landscape
Zooming through yet more farmland odd days of the week during certain months, and even days during the others. It is called a “fast” train, is routed through Guangzhou, takes about 24 hours, and costs $934HK ($119US) for a soft sleeper. All immigration formalities are taken care of in Hung Hom. With this service you can book a return ticket. KCR offers a new
online booking service where you can buy your ticket up to 14 days in advance. This one sounds the easiest, but I’ll betcha easy doesn’t come cheap.
Leaving from Shenzhen, just over the border, there are two classes of trains - T & K, the difference? - unsure except that one is faster than the other by about 5 hours. I can’t be certain, but they might leave daily. No online booking available, so the choices are a travel service, or chancing it at the station. The supposed price buying them at the station is $670HK ($86US). Since we have little time to spare and don’t know what to expect at the Shenzhen station, we go with the travel service - besides it is becoming clear that it is all unclear.
We locate the nearest
China Travel Service (at 77 Queens Rd Central),
only because that’s what was recommended by the LP guide - I’m sure it’s not the only place to book train travel. The decision is that we will get ourselves to Beijing, and wing it from there on, though it’s not my favorite plan we find out that you simply can’t book trains except from the city your are in. China doesn’t have a centralized system.
Somewhat prepared, we know the types of long distance trains, T, Z & K, and the different classes: hard sleeper/seat, soft sleeper/seat. The Z trains are the newest, the T and Z trains have soft sleepers that offer 4 berths per compartment for a bit of privacy. It is said that the Z trains have a luxury 2 berth option…
The girl at CTS speaks a little English and she is able to understand what we want: soft sleeper, fast train to Beijing on 5/31. A “T” train is booked & we pay $719 plus a $38 service fee = $757HK each. Now that works out to $92US without the fee, $97US with, so not sure where the $86US shown on one web site comes from. Of course we have to get
Jiangxi Landscape
Hills and valleys to Shenzhen via a taxi, the MTR, and KCR - that brings up the price tag up $25, $7.9 & $36.50 = $69.40HK, total transportation cost from home to Beijing = $826.40HK each ($106US). So, did we save any money by not taking the easy option above? Yes we did, a whopping $13US!
We have transport, now we need a place to stay. Find a fantastic site,
Sino Hotels, with thousands of options in hundreds of Chinese cities. It’s very easy to navigate and pretty easy to book, plus it is free - they only confirm and hold the reservation, no online payment. Find a
cool looking place that’s reasonable at $60US/night - a Qing dynasty courtyard style building in one of central Beijing’s hutongs.
Well at least we have the important stuff done - we’ll get there & have a place to stay.
What to pack? Go lightly, yeah right. Each: 1 pr jeans & capris, sandals, sneakers, several shirts, 1 sweater, jammies, undies, toiletries, snacks, water, guidebook, phrasebook, meds, cameras, batteries, hat, daypack - and it won’t all fit! What a surprise. We have to drape extra bags on the suitcase handles. How did this happen? Oh
It's Anhui
More farms... yeah, we’re girls and we play the “what if” scenario when we pack.
May 31st Take off for Beijing about 10am, catch a readily available taxi, right out front on Hollywood, to the Central MTR, alight at the Tsim Sha Tsui stop and make the very long trek underground to the KCR. I’m already sorry about how over-packed my bag is, the handle is short, the wheels too small, it’s lopsided and keeps tipping over - what a pain in the butt! We hop on the east line to the last stop at Lo Wu, the border crossing to Shenzhen. The trip from home to Shenzhen takes about an hour and a half. Through immigration easily enough - plenty of signs in English. Notice a change in the immigration officials from HK China to Mainland China, just a few yards apart, but light years distance in demeanor - decades of repression is ingrained in their somber faces. We ignore the touts and beggars in the exit hall.
Altogether, the cheeriness of HK is gone as we make our way outside the station, gloomy and worn. Now there is nothing written in English, or so we think. After wandering
Shandong
And more farms... around and down to the level below we see tiny signs indicating the way. However it is still confusing - we enter the most likely doorway on the 2nd level and inside there is finally a sign we can read: Long Distance Waiting Area, with an arrow pointing the way. Follow the signs and identify the departure area. What a mess! In all fairness it does appear they are remodeling the station - some of which is complete on the exterior - but far from being done inside.
We want to shop a little in the mall just across from the station, but can’t find any lockers to stow our bags. Oh well, we have lunch at one of the station restaurants lined up along the 2nd level. They are all exactly alike - large, pleasant, overstaffed, with the customary hovering service. We have a bite of spring rolls, dumplings and lovely tasting floral tea, all for only $21RMB (which I pay for in HKD - allowed in Shenzhen and Macau).
Is this the time I should bring up cute? Did you all know just how darn cute everything and everyone is here in Asia? They all have
Hey Zoe...
Good morning and Happy Birthday! a thing for what we would consider little girl stuff, that includes adults, teens, & kids of both sexes. It is a weird cultural aberration that I don’t get. Reason I bring this up now is the packet of paper napkins we received at the restaurant - they came in a plastic folder decorated with cutesy Hello Kitty characters. It is common to see, dangling from a backpack or purse, a colorful trinket or two. Truck drivers line up stuffed critters and toys on their dashboards. Good luck charms dangle from rear view mirrors. T-shirts abound decorated with spangles and ever so sweet sayings. Squeaky shoes for toddlers are hip. Restaurants have whimsical names like Dumbo or The Hystevical Wave or The Happiness Cafe.
Are Westerners just too serious? Did the Puritans strip away our fun loving souls? I think I wear too much black.
Huge waiting room for all the long distance trains, annoying din of echo-y jabbering from the hundreds of waiting passengers competes with the racket of jackhammers at one end of the building. There are two very generic “Party” stores, exactly the same, selling snacks, bakery, and reading material. When we nab the two
Shandong
Where exactly are these 1.5 billion people? remaining seats, we see lockers. Too late! We are the only non-Asians and have become a featured attraction. A featured attraction for Zoe becomes the diaper-less baby bottoms, we wile away the next hour discussing the logistics of managing elimination time with a toddler in tow. Psychologically, how does having your bum exposed to the world affect you later in life?
There are a few guys with yellow jackets pushing metal carts up and down the aisles - it appears to be a service to haul your bags to the train - is it a pre-boarding service? How much is it? Why would you do it? Who knows? The loud speakers can’t compete with the noise level as the departures are announced in both Chinese and Engrish, so when we see people stacking up at the far end of the room we figure it’s time to go. Chaos ensues as the hundreds converge upon two small entryways, and a stairway down. Stairs? No escalators? Boy, I miss Hong Kong already. It is clear now that the bag hauling service is preferable.
Through the ticket checker and down the stairs, we quickly find our car and compartment. Yes, the
train is all booked up and we do have roommates, darn. They are a nice young Chinese couple who know as much English as we do Putonghua and we’ll be spending the next 24 hours with them. It is roomy enough. Zoe takes the upper.
Just as we settle in some guy stops by our cabin to ask if we would switch with him. In excellent English, his woe is that he has a baby with him and he has two upper berths and will find it difficult - he wants our upper & lower berths so we can share with the two smelly old ladies in his cabin. I’m so shocked I can’t respond. Like we are supposed to jump up and change cabins! He is giving us incentive by waiving several hundred Yuan… Uh, no thanks buddy. Sorry. The young couple finds this event hilarious.
As we play a goofy game of …uh, I forgot the name, it’s something like Pictionary, and snack on our snacks, the couple goes in, goes out, goes in, goes out, sleeps, reads, and drinks green tea …buckets of green tea. Find out later the in and out was about smoking,
The party
Does that say happy or nappy? along with 67% of Chinese men (and only 4% of women) who smoke. 100% of them are on this train. Maybe the green tea purges the free radicals from the Communists?
The sleepers are OK, but not too comfortable during the sitting up time, which is two thirds of the trip, that’ll be over 16 hours! A skimpy cushion serves as the backrest, but to make up for that there are two pillows and a blankie to curl up with.
Pleasant scenery drifts by as we clip along through Guangdong and the southern part of Jiangxi provinces. Deep green landscape, lush low mountains, clusters of shanties line the tracks. Dug into hillsides are family graves of arched brick or concrete, some plots are dug out & not yet built. Alas, we miss the best scenery during the night as we pass through northern Jiangxi where the Yangtze River crosses - I’m sure we’d have caught a glimpse of Lu Shan, some say the most beautiful mountain in China.
Zoe and I talk the evening away and tuck in about 10:30. I see that there are no curtains on our berths - no privacy at all. Under the cozy comforter, I wriggle out of my jeans and snuggle up. The rocking motion of the train so soothing, the clickety clack, clickety CRASH! We are jarred awake about every 15 minutes by some banging and slamming. Each time I think it won’t happen again, it happens. Is it the tracks, or the switches? What gives? It’s the bumpiest train ride I’ve ever taken. (Note:
landslides wiped out part of the tracks in this area during torrential rains in June - is there a connection?)
June 1st - Happy Birthday Zoe! Grouchy we all get up early. Wriggle back into my clothes under the cover - a wise thing would have been to wear some sort of anti-wrinkle sportswear. Next time.
The western style bathroom has not fared well overnight, I roll up my pants and tiptoe through the sludge to the potty. The oversized wooden seat, presumably outfitted to accommodate those who use the western toilet as an eastern toilet, meaning they perch on it and squat, has, under the stress, split in two. The TP is all gone, no water or soap left. Zoe chastises the attendant for hiding the TP. Our roommate meets me outside the washroom and she squirts my hands with anti-bacterial gel. Smart girl!!
Spitting. Is it necessary? Every man and old lady in this car has been herky-ing and hacking away in the washroom the whole trip. Where could all this phlegm come from? Why does it have to be spit out? Stop it! Stop making me want to puke my guts out in front of you!!
Daylight shows us flat featureless farm fields of Anhui, Shandong, and Hebei - though there is no colonial influence whatsoever, one section is reminiscent of Northern Illinois - vistas to the horizon and a huge nuclear power plant. The train rolls by large production farms, workers bend over the crops, kids skip around like kids anywhere, and teens zoom down the dirt roads on vespas. Lots of duck farms in manmade square ponds. Can you say Peking Duck? Whoops, excusez mon erreur, that’s called Beijing Duck on the Mainland!
There are many small villages along the vast expanses of
red earth. The villages are made up of red brick houses which are cookie cutter, plain, square one story structures with peaked roofs of clay tile, in similar style to the
old walled villages. Small vegetable gardens are scraped out amid the blocks of government subsidized wheat fields. Every square inch of land is used - nothing is fallow and it is all tilled right up to the fencing. Excepting subtle differences, if you replaced their single story red brick homes with Victorian farmhouses and barns, you’d have America’s breadbasket.
Not all of the landscape is lovely, garbage is dumped next to irrigation canals and brick making factories are numerous. This might be a good investment were one to emigrate to rural China as EVERYTHING is made of brick. The larger cities look just like any other U.S. Midwestern burg, farms dot the scene, the landscape gradually transitions to a main city street with a new Toyota dealership - spread out and new on one end, and dilapidated at the other. Here is a
utopian ideal for a rural community.
Yippie, we arrive at Beijing West station and right on time, about half past three. All in all, it was fun trip! Easy enough getting out of the station - there are gigantic signs pointing the way to the taxis. We get to the taxi queue, wait in line, hop in the next available one. I say the name of the hotel & street name. We don’t move. I enunciate the name, I even say the area it is near, Tiananmen, everything I can think of. We don’t move. I must be real bad at it. Much commotion and gesticulations & we are escorted out of the taxi and into the taxi stand booth. I show a guy the hotel phone number, he calls for directions, writes it all down and waves the next taxi down. Another guy pipes up and says “dollar, dollar” - ok, so that’s the only English word they know. Happen to have a few Yuan handy and give him a tip.
Fairly long drive from the station to the
Haoyuan Hotel, taxi costs $31RMB ($3.74US). Thank heavens the front desk folks speak English! They are all very nice but reserved. We do what everyone does when you first get to your room - check for all the free stuff! Two pair of terry cloth slippers, shampoo, toothbrush/paste, comb, lotion, stationery, packet of postcards. For a 2 star hotel, it is great - more like a 3 star in the states. It’s clean & well run with all the amenities, including TV and mini fridge, plus an on site restaurant (free b’fast), Internet access, tour, train & flight booking service. We clean up and head directly to their restaurant - Zoe orders a pork sauté & I a soup, both taste great - more than enough food for both of us and only $70RMB (a little over eight bucks).
Only about 8pm, so we decide to explore the area. The hotel is in a
hutong called Shija in the Dongcheng district. This area is central, and some of it very old, the street nearest us is Dongsi Nandajie or Dongdan Beidajie depending on whether you turn, north or south out of Shija. Between the official city map and LP guide map there are discrepancies - but given their sources I forgive Lonely Planet this one instance, only this one.
The evening is warm, the street is lined with shops all still open for business. There are people out, couples arm in arm, groups of girls, strolling and shopping. We stop at nearly every clothing and shoe store up and down both sides of the streets. Shops run the gamut of retailing from boutiques, to discount, upscale, and cut tag with hair salons interspersed. Feel welcome in some, not at all in others. Happiness seems as illusive here as it is natural in Hong Kong. Not many smiles, excepting the rogue males on the prowl doing the typical catcall & stare routine. Each hair salon we pass we become an easy walking target for touting haircuts. Actually, take away the “we”, because it ain’t me those boys are courting, it’s Zoe cuz she’s so cute.
Come upon the big one, THE mall of all malls, the
Oriental Plaza, which stretches from Dongsi Nandajie to Wangfujing Dajie, or Dongdan street depending on what map you are looking at, with the main entrance on Dongchang an Jie (the one the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Sq. are on). Of course, the same old stores you’d find at any high end mall except there is 120,000 sq meters of it. We’re looking for a restaurant or bar where we can sit down and relax with a glass of wine. The mall is so huge that we can’t find one, but we do spot a grocery store.
The CRC is akin to the western grocery stores in HK, lots of brand name junk food and shrink-wrapped produce. We’re planning a mini birthday celebration so we grab a few expensive snacks, a couple of beers, and a piece of birthday cake. The loudspeaker repeats a message in Chinese and English, ..”thank you for your patronage, please continue to take your time shopping…”. I take that to mean I can take my time shopping, so I do. However, when we ask for help with the cake the request is taken almost as an insult. Zoe tries to tell them which hunk she wants but they ignore her, pick the wrong one, wrap it and shove it at us. The manager eyes us and starts herding us to the checkout (all the while the loudspeaker keeps repeating the same message), but I haven’t found the chips I want yet, I take evasive action, make a sharp right turn onto the chip aisle, he is stunned, Zoe finds a bag, then we are given the bum's rush to the checkout. I look at my watch, and it is 9:58pm. These people are STRICT about closing time!
Back at the hotel we prepare our party. The piece of cake has writing on it: happy…no, not happy. nappy.
Well - nappy birthday Zoe!!
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Sam
non-member comment
Train Ride
Hi! I chanced upon your blog and found this entry interesting. My mom will go to Shenzhen for a week-long business trip and I was planning on tagging along. Do you have an idea how long it's gonna take if I take a train from Shenzhen to Beijing and how much it's gonna cost? Is it safe coz I'm gonna travel alone. Thanks!