Worst train ride ever

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Thursday July 20th

I was feeling okay when I woke up so I packed everything and went directly to the bus station. I bought a ticket to Guilin for 15RMB which I knew is overpriced by 5 but I figured it's an express so it should be faster. Well it sure didn't feel like an express at around 50km/hr on the highway but hey, I guess someone somewhere made 5RMB more of profit. I arrived in Guilin an hour and a half later and I tried to figure out when the buses were leaving for Guyiang and Nanning.

I was a bit confused at first and went to the wrong bus station but the lady pointed me to the main one. I went there and it took me a while to understand the panel as the city names are only written in chinese symbols. I managed to figure out that if I wanted to go to Guiyang I'd have to wait several hours in Guilin before the bus departed whereas Nanning had buses several times an hour.

I really didn't feel like waiting for several hours in Guilin for Guiyang so I opted for a bus to Nanning. I went to the booth and asked for a ticket for as soon as possible. She offered me a ticket at 13:00 first but I used my phrasebook to say sooner and she ended up giving me a ticket while saying something which I totally didn't get. I tried looking on the ticket for the departure time and I saw 14:20 (in 3 hours). I was not totally sure if this was the time or something else (as there are only chinese symbols and number on the ticket) so I asked other tourists after 10 minutes if this was the departure time. Turns out I didn't read the good thing and the departure was 11:20, in a few minutes. I thanked them and boarded the bus that departed a few seconds after I boarded. It was another luxury bus and the only people on board appeared to be businessman except for a middle aged westerner with his chinese girlfriend. I cursed the ticket lady and wished at some point I could get on a transport with "real" chinese. I didn't know then that I'd get what I wanted soon enough.

The bus ride was fairly boring. It took 4 hours and a half with only one stop where I bought some fake Oreo which tasted awful (but a third of the price of the "real" chinese Oreos!). They played Police Academy 6 (in chinese) and some chinese movie which I didn't get the title but which had a lot of screaming. We arrived at Nanning bus station which is 5 km away from the main city and the train station. I asked the western guy if he knew which bus to take to get to the train station. He asked his girlfriend and after repeating 3 times she managed to understand what we were saying. I talked a bit with the guy. He is a french businessman who is visiting Nanning to visit the family of his girlfriend (I said Good luck in french so that his girlfriend wouldn't understand and he gave me a look of resignation and fear at the prospect of the weekend that was coming). His girlfriend barely speaks english and everytime they tried to talk they had to repeat what they were saying several times before they understood each other and in some cases they had to use a chinese-english dictionnary. Talk about communication problems! She was nice however and she told me to take the bus number 6 for 1.2RMB which would take me directly to the train station. It sure beats paying 40RMB for a taxi. I thanked her and said goodbye to them.

The bus took about 40 minutes to tour the city before it got to the train station. I got off and went to the train ticket office. I was waiting in the booth which is supposed to be "the one" for foreigner but I noticed there were a bunch of backpackers sitting on their backpack by the line. I asked them if there were any tickets left but they said not for today, except for standing tickets. They said they were dealing with a street guy who was trying to sell them hard-sleeper tickets (basically you get a bed in a 6-bed compartment and everyone who took it say it is comfortable) and that they've been negotiating with him for an hour. I asked if they could ask if he could get another ticket and they said they'd try but since the bus was leaving in an hour it might be a problem. There was 2 groups of them who had met a while ago on a train. There were 2 dutch, Myriam and Jimmy, and 3 Brits: Sam, Rob and Pete. They arrived in Nanning about 2 hours before me and they had been sitting there trying to find a solution.

At some point Jimmy and Pete came back with the ticket from the guy but they couldn't get a 6th one as I had come too late and the guy had tried to steal money from them. I really didn't feel like staying in Nanning 24 hours to get a hard-seat ticket for the next day and I was fairly confident I could upgrade my ticket while on board as I had heard several people do that (you buy a standing ticket, get on board, talk with the conductor and pay a fee to get a hardsleeper or hardseat). I bought my standing ticket for the 14 hours ride and joined the group as we made our way to the departure lounge.

As we entered the waiting room the checkin opened so we made our way into the train platform. I was not going in the same train car as the rest of the group so I said goodbye. This was the first time I took a train in my life as the train system in Canada is really bad. I entered my train and looked for the conductor. I tried to ask the official if I could upgrade but he just pointed me in a direction with a smile. I didn't manage to get my point accross at all with all the officials I met. After about 20 minutes of trying to communicate I gave up and tried to make myself comfortable for the next 14 hours. Now I had been told by almost every traveller I met how hard seat section is hell: there is only a small sitting seat and it is overcrowded with people who chainsmoke in your face, spit on the floor, talk very loudly until very late and throw everything on the floor. My standing ticket was in the same section except that I had no seat.

The train started and I moved around in another hard seat compartment, still somewhat hoping to find an official who could upgrade me. I didn't find that in the other compartment but a friendly chinese person stood in front of me, about 2 inches in front of my face while smoking. He said something to me in chinese which I didn't understand so I made a sign that I couldn't understand. He blew the smoke directly in my face as he started laughing at the stupid barbarian who couldn't speak the world's simplest language: mandarin. Now, I consider myself a very open minded person and I know that different cultures have different etiquettes and that what is considered unacceptable in some places are okay in others. Still, if someone did what he did to me in Canada, US or Europe I would have punched him for sure even though I haven't been involved in a fight since grade 2. I had problem just laughing it off so I told him he was a "crisse de colon" which made him laugh even more.

I spent the follow hour just standing around as the train was too full to sit down anywhere but at the end of the hour I managed to get a nice comfy spot half sitting next to the sink but I had to move everytime someone wanted to wash his hands. Now I was complaining before that in the bus I didn't see "real" chinese but on that train ride I got plenty as hard seat or standing tickets is the only thing the vast majority of chinese can afford. People talk extremely loudly, they spit on the floor, chainsmoke in your face, stare at you for hours (I swear one guy just stared at me for the whole 14 hours) and throw most of the rubish on the ground even though there is a garbage can nearby exactly as everyone had described it to me. Definately not the same feeling as on the luxury bus.

After an hour on the sink Sam and Jimmy passed by. I said hello and explained them my situation. They told me to come in their compartment to sit around. I gladly accepted and passed by the kitchen car where we bought some beer. As we were entereing the sleeper compartment Sam asked if it was possible to upgrade my ticket to a lady official. She got mad and told us to go back to the kitchen car where she talked with the main train officier who told us there was nothing else available to upgrade to and that I was not allowed to go sit in the sleeper compartment. We tried arguing but it was no help. I went back to my spot only to find someone had taken my sink spot. I waited an hour standing next to the toilet before he left and I took it back. Rob passed by at some point to say they were having some food in the kitchen car but I didn't want to lose my spot as I could see some chinese eyeing it. He wished me goodluck and went back.

I spent 4 more hours sitting on the sink and it got more and more uncomfortable as time passed by as it was impossible to sleep plus a guy squeezed in next to me so that I was now totally unable to move and my back was hurting like hell. I'd fell asleep for about a second but then I'd start to fall, wake up and put myself back into position. A few second laters I'd fall asleep again and the cycle would repeat itself. At around 1AM lots of people standing got off the bus and I found a little corner not in the main hallway that was free. I quickly claimed the spot and went looking for newspaper which I put on the ground to cover the numerous spits and cigarette butts on the ground (2 layer thick were required), used my backpack as a pillow and felt asleep like a baby.

Friday July 21th

I woke up at sunrise the day after and slowly waited for the bus to arrive at around 8AM. Needless to say I didn't sleep extremely well and often woke up when people walked by me or just because sleeping on the floor is not very comfortable. We arrived in Kunming at around 7:30 and I met the rest of the group at the exit. They were all relieved that I had survived the trip. The train station was packed full of chinese tour groups that are herded around by leaders with a flag.

Me and the brits were planning to go to Dali next (the dutch were planning to go to Tibet) so we bought a sleeper ticket for an overnight transport to Dali the day after while the Dutch went to the hotel right away. We tried the train but they had no hard-sleeper left so we bought bus tickets instead. We took a cab to the Camelia hotel and the driver yelled at us because she tought we were taking too much time to put the bagages in the car. The lobby of the hotel is by far the fanciest things I've ever stayed at. Of course the lobby was just used for check-in as the youth hostel was in another building but still. Me and the brits got a dorm while the dutch had a double in one of the old building. We put the stuff in the room and went for buffet breakfast (my first buffet!) which had a wierd combination of western, chinese and japanese breakfast (along with few things that just don't belong there, like ravioli with spaghetti sauce).

While we were eating breakfast I met Glynn and Jude which I met on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong (http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Inspirado/). I had kept in touch with them and I knew they were in Kunming until the 19th before they left for Vietnam so I was surprised to see them. It turns out that the chinese authority at the Vietnamese border didn't let them through because their vietnamese visa was only valid in a week (like starting July 26th or something). They had originally planned to stay 6 weeks in China but they didn't like it much so they figured they could leave earlier than planned and just pay a fine at the border because their vietnamese visa started in a week but the chinese would not let them cross to go speak with the officials on the vietnamese side. So they had to come back to Kunming (10 hours bus ride) to get a new visa at the vietnamese embassy. They were really tired and annoyed but it was nice to see them again.

I was pretty tired as I had only slept a few hours so I went in the room and joined the brits who were already sleeping. I woke up before them at around noon. I brought my laundry to City Cafe nearby (much cheaper than Camelia) and went walking around the city to try to find a Bank of China. I walked in the wrong direction and I tried taking a shortcut on the way back and I found myself walking in a sort of market in a side street. It is amazing how easy it is to get away from the nice and modern look of chinese city. Just take any small road or alley from a main road and walk a minute and you will find really old chinese building and poor people that generally appear nicer than the ones you meet on the main street. You would never any idea that they exist if you just walked on the main roads. I walked back and quickly found the Bank of China and withdrew money.

I went in a teahouse next to the hotel and used the internet for about an hour and then went back in the dorm which was empty and I slept 4 more hours. I went to City Cafe and ate some good spaghetti while taking my clean and folded laundry. I came back to the hostel and met Jimmy who told me he and Myriam had booked flights and permit to Tibet and that the brits were planning to go out tonight but he wouldn't go as he was tired. I went upstairs to sit around in the common room. I met Joe, an english guy who has been teaching english for 10 months in Xinjiang and is travelling China before going back to England to start univ. We talked for a while and then were joined by the brits who convinced me to go out (never trust a brits who tell you you'll be back from the pub early) and Joe came along. The brits said I was a "Man of Steel" because they thought I hadn't slept of the whole day after having a standing ticket because I came in after they fell asleep and left before they awoke and then came back after they were gone. They were a bit disapointed when I told them that I did sleep, a lot.

We (the brits, Joe, me and Myriam) went to a pub sort of close to City Cafe which wasn't really good. The beer was hot and the service shitty so we only stayed long enough for the people who hadn't had dinner to eat. Joe went out in Kunming the night before so he knew the "good spots". We went to Cafe de Camel, a decent bar with a few expats/tourists but mostly chinese people. The bar played the usual music for these kinds of places (I don't think I went to a single bar with dancing that didn't play "My hump" by Black Eye Peas since I started this trip). We played a crazy drinking game and had a great time. We drank about 2 vodka bottles, 10 large beers and a few other things. By the end we were almost being as loud as chinese people in bars when they're not drunk. I must admit I was heavily intoxicated.

Around 3AM the place sort of died so we went out. Myriam and Rob went back to the hotel but me, Sam Joe and Pete wanted to try something else and Joe told us about this place called Cobra where beer is free. We got on a cab and he took us for a ride halfway accross town before dropping us in front of the club. The club looks like the kind of place I'm used to go in Montreal (ala Cafe Campus) with heavy music and crazy dancing floor. Of course nothing is ever free in Asia (well, everywhere) and the reason why the beer is free is that this place is filled with pimps and prostitutes who wants your money and that takes "no" as a bargaining strategy. We stayed at the place only long enough to finish our drink and took another cab back to the hotel. The driver also took us on a ride halfway accross town before getting to the hotel but Joe made it clear that we wouldn't pay for the extra time he took. We paid less than the meter said once we got at the hotel and the driver didn't complain as he knew he had tried to screw us. It was 4AM and we were pretty hungry so we asked at the hotel checkin if there was anything to eat nearby but the half-asleep (fully asleep before we woke him up) attendant told us it was 10 minutes walk away. We were too tired to walk so we just went to sleep (not before having considered taking a taxi to this food place).

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Comments

[Silvia]

Good luck!
Your experience in hard seat compartment must be unforgettable. The only time I got a stand ticket is half years ago, I leant against the sink for a while and sat on my case for a while all the night, and stick not to sleep on floor.:) Next time if you get a stand ticket again unfortunately, remember, go to the first compartment with you luggage or the last, sometimes there are some seats left for the next stop or the relative and friends of the car attendant. or you can go to the dining car, order sth and have a rest, if you are fortunate, you can stay there until you arrive. Good luck!