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Published: July 10th 2011
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Hard sleeper
I was one of the first on the carriage, so it all looks rather spacious at the moment. After a few train journeys in China now I think it warrants a blog update of my experiences so far and not all of them pleasant ones but regardless for me, it is still a great way to travel.
Since I have been training it in China I have been going for the hard sleeper which is the dorm sleeping of train travel and either end of the carriage are the sections for the ablutions and urn for the hot water. So basically, everybody is thrown together for the duration of the journey and nothing is ever sacred on these journeys, nothing.
My first solo journey was from Beijing to Pingyao, the form you follow is that you give your ticket to the mistress off the carriage and she then gives you a credit card sized card back and she holds onto your ticket so she knows where you need to get off, she will then come around about 30 minutes before your stop hand your ticket back and take the plastic card back. Which is fantastic, as I wouldn’t have a clue as to where I would need to get off.
So my first night solo was
spent on the top bunk, at least I was out of the way but I still needed to bend myself in half to get into the thing but I managed and to top it off I was in the set of beds right at the end which meant I was in very close proximity of the toilets. Brill! In even closer proximity was the Olympic gold medallist of snorers. When he wasn’t snoring he was displaying is other Championship conquest and that was hoicking and spitting, which seems a Chinese pass time here and we are not talking a bit of back of the throat I need to spit. This sounds like grating a rasp on a rock, and they can do it for minutes at a time and they spit clams, every time. Where does it all come from? In fact leave that I really don’t want to know. So this seemed to go on for an eternity and when he could hoick no more he finally climbed back onto his bunk and within minutes he was back in training for the snoring Olympics. Aargh! Give me my ticket back I want to get off!
When I had
finally got over that journey it was time to get back on the train for Xi’an. Whilst waiting for the train I met a Chinese student who was travelling and his English name was Bob (all the younger generation seemed to adopt one, I met one girls and she called herself Taste, I didn’t even try to explain that translation), so Bob and I was chatting away in English and another adolescent joined us and he was transfixed poor boy, I don’t think he could believe he was sitting so close to a westerner. He then told us he liked bet box (whatever that is) and then proceeded to give us a little show. Well, within seconds it had turned into a scene straight out of High School Musical he must have thought he was the Asian version of Zach Effron and it all ended with the whole carriage erupting into a rapturous applause.
So they have been the highs and lows so far and of course the rest will be said by the pictures. I still have a far few miles to cover and hopefully some more tales. Thanks for reading and take care all.
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