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Published: August 29th 2010
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Morning melon on the train.
Note the desert out the window. If you have ever traveled by train in China, you know that this "classless society" has four types of train accomodations -- soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, and hard seat. We used hard sleeper for a 24-hour trip our last time here, and it was fine, even though we were packed into bunks three high at much higher densities than North Americans are used to. However, for the 48-hour trip from Chengdu to Turpan station we decided to splurge on soft sleepers where we have a compartment with 4 comfortable berths, two high, pretty clean bathrooms (one each Asian and European style), and basically a high degree of comfort for China.
I do not have enough computer time to do a map of this route, but it basically goaes
noth and slighly east out of Chengdu, though the hills of northern Sichuan province and almost as far east as Xi'an. Then it continues north through Gansu province to the Yellow River. After that crossing, it turns west, past ruins of the Great Wall and eventually past the western end of the Great Wall. It follows the path of the Silk Road between the northern Himalayan plateau to the south and the Gobi Desert to the north, eventually crossing into Xinjiang ("new frontier"). All along this western journey the land get drier and drier. When it looks like Arizona and southern california, you think you've reached the full extent of the desert, but it just keep getting drier, until eventually all vegetation disappears and you really wonder how the Silk Road traders made it though these parts at all.
And 48 hours is a long time, which really gives you a sense of the distance you are covering. Our destination was Turpan, an incredible oasis in the middle of this vast desert, and we reachd the railroad station 55 km from the town in the late afternoon after just about 48 hours and nearly 3000 km on the train.
Our compartment-mate was from Sichuan, and he and one or two others were travelling to Urumqi in connection with their business, which involved food,a nd in particular involved procuring some kind of special pears from Xinjiang. One night we offered him some of our wine, which he took, and pretty soon he and his two buddies were pouring strong home made Sichuan liquor for us and sharing pickled vegetables, in Sichuan spices and other good things with us. they maintained that the only good food comes from Sichuan an dthat they therefore have to bring their own when travelling to other provinces.
Another interesting thing that happened was when the dining car attendant burst in to our compartment one evening with an unopened bottle of wine asking for our corkscrew. Jacob handed her his form the table (we had just opened our bottle to breathe) and she got her bottle opened. He asked her how she knew we had a corkscrew, and she said that whenever someone wants a bottle of wine int he dining car, which is very seldom, they always find the foreigners ion the train because they know the foreigners will inevitably have a corkscrew. We didn't use the dining car, but we noticed that they had two bottle of wine on each table for some reason. But they have not corkscrew, relying on foreigners for that every time, apparently. Why they just don't buy a corkscrew is difficult for us to understand, but this is the kind of thing you often run into in China.
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