Like this:

Our train left at 11:23pm so we had lots of time to rest up, which was good since the quality of sleep you get on a train isn’t very good. Little did we know that that train was going to be packed to far beyond capacity.

We were stuck with soft seat tickets since that particular train was older than China and had no soft sleepers. It had hard sleepers, but I’ll get to that. Normally a soft seat is similar to that of an airplane seat. It would have gotten uncomfortable over the course of 40 hours, but they’re doable since they recline and have those fold down tables and such. This train however, had “soft” seats that were more like dining room chairs with a tiny bit of cush. They also faced each other with 4 people sitting around a small table. I had been holding it together through the crowded train station based on the fact that soft seats were like the ones on newer trains. We got on this train and I absolutely lost it. I have a decent sized comfort zone but this was so far beyond that that it just wasn’t going to happen. Luckily we speak Chinese and knew that sometimes you can upgrade your seat once you’re on a train. We asked our helpful conductor (who is one of my favorite people on the planet now) if we could upgrade to hard sleepers. He cheerfully said it was no problem and told us to get our things. He then led us through a total of fifteen train cars absolutely packed with people and it’s a good thing we bought cheap hiking packs for this adventure otherwise I can’t imagine how we would’ve gotten through the crowds. We had to shove our way past yelling “Careful!” and “Excuse me!” and it felt like we were about to cause an international incident. The cars were crowded with people who had purchased “hard seat” tickets. If you have a hard seat ticket there is open seating in a few cars for those tickets and if you don’t get a seat there you can sit or stand in the connector cars, sink areas, bathrooms, and where ever else you might find a corner in which to wedge yourself. I saw more than one person sitting on all their stuff shoved into the sink area right by the restrooms.

Once we finally squeezed (literally) through the hoards, we reached the hard sleepers. Each train always keeps a few open for those who wish to upgrade while on the train, so we quickly purchased 2 top bunks at an extra 180RMB each. I was not about to begrudge them that upgrade price either, I would’ve paid 300RMB each extra just to not have to sit in the “soft seat” car for 46 hours. The conductor kicked a couple of squatters out of our newly acquired berths and we got out our blankets and promptly passed out (with the aid of a little Nyquil… good luck falling asleep on a crowded train without it).

When we woke up we realized just how many people were in that car. Each bottom bunk had about 4 people on it sitting or leaning on each other, and all the middle bunks were reserved for extra luggage space. Needless to say I snuggled my purse at night, even though attendants patrolled the cars and the lights were left on.

There is nothing like a train ride through China to make you realize just how much sense some of these people lack. On our car the windows were left open all the time because it was so stuffy in there. Apparently having the window open also means that the world is your trash can. I watched some people throw orange peels and sunflower seeds out the window, which I don’t have a problem with since those are organic materials. However, when I watch some thoughtless jerks throw plastic wrappers, bottles, cans and the like out the window that just makes me angry. What was even worse about the whole thing was that there was a trashcan not FIVE FEET AWAY from said window that was emptied every couple of hours. They were too lazy to lean over. Are you kidding me, China? This is why your animals are going extinct. This is why you have so much pollution. You’re killing your environment. For how proud they seem to be of their country they don’t care at all about their culture OR their environment and I’ve seen examples of this time and time again.

Some people also seemed to think they could smoke wherever they pleased as well. Again, our Chinese came in handy as we yelled at them to knock it off at least four times during that trip. Andrew even made up a song (in English) while playing his guitar about how much he hated the guy below us for smoking and climbing all over the place. The guy heard him and said “hen hao ting!” which means “sounds great!” I do enjoy a good non-English speaking crowd.

We eventually made it back to Shanghai, and holed up in our rooms for the next 2 days just to recover from the onslaught of people and enjoy being back in a familiar place.

Well, I think that about does it for our vacation adventures. I won’t be updating again until Andrew does one… it’s my way of protesting hah.

Cheers,

Alyse