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Published: November 11th 2005
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After a last dinner with the Ambassador, I made my fond goodbyes and left the french residence, leaving behind all this luxury with a slight pinch of the heart but generally very happy to leave Beijing and head for my dream of Lhassa. I met up with Bene. We embarked joyfully on the train heading to Chengdu.
The train journey Beijing-Chengdu lasts about 40 hours and is non stop, 2 nights and 1 day. For the fun of the experience (and because it was cheaper), we booked tickets in third class (hard sleeper). The third class is little more then a large dormitory: there are compartments of 6 beds with no doors. We had 8 people in our 6 beds but it worked fine. As long as I did not have to share my bunk, I was happy.
Bene and I were lucky in getting the top bunks. The train, for the Chinese, is much like a extention of their home: business is conducted on board, the wife cooks, the kids run around and generally make a nuisance of themselves, the grandfather and grandmother look after the kids, the husbands play majong or cards, swear loudly, spit on the
floor and drink happily. The carriage is rather noisy at all times, with cresendos before the meals, just like in the mad house, even the ear splitting music, played 24/7 hours, does little to help the general chaotic noise. There is a happy cacophony at all times in the train. In our compartment, we had grandma and grandpa who looked after the two kids, two large and rather loud women who enjoyed gossiping very loudly and eating sunflower seeds (leaving all the remains on the floor). There was also a husband but he was only seen at meal times, as he had rather important card and majhong games going on.
The first night was spent peacfully, watching life take its course on the train. The families quickly spread out and claimed parts of the corridor as their own, messing it up to show their territory. The most common way to do so is to spit sunflower seeds in a radius around your chosen spot or just spit, for that matter.
The two gossipy's enjoyed drinking their tea while making loud slurping sounds. Rather entertaining at first but we quickly seeked other forms of amusement. We were lucky in
having our own little world at the top; we ate the pic-nic very kindly given to us by the wife of the ambassador, discussed the merits of greek and latin philosophy and generally broadened our minds by some serious reading on the habits of tibetan tribes. In reality, this was the plan which was quickly given up, as every mother in the train insisted on taking their small ones to see the foreigners. The local gangs of kids even took us as a target and would regularily pop in, shout hello and run out screaming, only to do the same again five minutes later. The price to pay for fame I guess: we were just about the only foreigners in a very large train.
With the help of my trusted Leatherman, we sabotaged the light system (stays on all night) and the music system of our carriage. The two gossipy's weren't happy about the sudden decline in the decibel competition but we gave them little choice in the matter.
The following day went by fairly uneventfully. It consisted primarily of watching our Chinese friends from above and grinning at grandmother (grandfather was keen on his sleep). For me
there was the usual rise in anticipation as, at 09 o'clock, I made to the washroom to have my daily activity level. My efforts were first hindered by the large amount of people doing Tai-Chi in the corridor and were finally given up as I witnessed the rather off putting sight of the toilet. It consisted of little more then a hole in the floor with no handles, nor any support (and of course no toilet paper). This resulted in many "customers" sadly missing their aim all too regularily. I retreated amongst the Tai-Chi and, for the first time in a night train since the begining of the journey, did not wash during the day but was haunted by the sliding sight (and smells) of the toilets.
At lunch, we ate the leftovers of last night's pic-nic and quickly resumed our people-watching activities.
In the evening, the gossip levels became unbearable as a few other families got drawn into the argument and so we promptly made our way to the restaurant car.
We were early. The staff of the train was eating its dinner and the kitchen was not yet opened to outside guests. There were about
20 staff, all smoking and spitting everywhere (principally under the no-smoking and no-spitting sign). They ate with the rice bowls up to their noses shovelling in large amounts of food at olympic speed. They had clearly not yet discovered the joys of conversation at the dinner table.
The festivities were sternly and severely overlooked by a strong women of both character and mind who was clearly the boss. Also member of the party (red badges on uniform), she gave out her instructions and comments in a sharp dry voice, allowing no reply (not that any was likely to come, as everyone was too busy to eat). Walking up and down the restaurant with her fists firmly lodged on her hips, moving her entire body at once like a scary ogre, looking down onto the mere dirt that were the employees.
Suddenly, with no warning, she burst out screaming and charged a young girl, trying to make her way from the hard seaters to the hard sleepers. We know not the reason for such an outburst but can only imagine that the poor girl is trying to find a spare bed to lie down. She stood her ground and
the chef started pounding and shoving her, right in front of our table. Not one of the employees even looked above the rim of the bowl to see what was happening. They were munching away. A few fellow passengers took to the defence of the young girl. The chef summond her slaves to the rescue and soon, to my greatest pleasure and entertainment, there was an all-out war between the ogre chef and the paupers of the hard seats.
Sadly, the ogre and her gang soon won the fight, and the paupers where pushed back into their compartment, screaming an kicking. The gang returned hastily to munching, while all of us lucky passengers still in the restaurant car, got a serious talk about the incident, all in Chinese of course, with much gesturing, spitting and foul language. I imagined she attempted to justify herself. What a lady and what fun.
To celebrate the event, Bene and I ordered a bottle of local brew. The bottle cost 28 yuans (2.8 euros, about 2 pound sterling) and was 55% proof. I told Bene, very confident in my abilities to drink Chinese alcohol, that nothing could possibly be worse than Mao-Tai.
Well, this was ! We drunk about 5cls each of it and felt violently sick. A truly horrible experience, no words can describe it, just the though of it is enough to send a chill down my spine. We turned from pretty pink to green, yellow, blue and white pale in the space of seconds and promptly repaired with our tails between our legs, admist the laughter of the ogre and the other passengers and crew. In shame, we went directly to bed feeling rather the worse for wear. This method had the only advantage that we cared no more about the noise level in our carriage.
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