Hard Seat Overnight Train Ride #1

A little back story. Other than seeing Sharon’s family, one reason why we went to Xing Tai is to pick up Sharon’s nephew along for the trip.

I met Sharon when I was living in Beijing, where she worked as a nanny. She was young and naive, maybe 22(?), was nice, energetic and loves kids. For someone with her background (from a village close to a 3rd tier city, and very young), she had traveled quite a bit. I believe some of her previous employers took her to Australia, Hong Kong, and other places, so she really wants to bring her nephew along and show him the world.

That sounds great on paper, but I kind of wonder why she thinks any 10 year old would want to go on our trip. My own kids and husband definitely won’t want to go (actually if we were still living in China, I can make my family go. It will just be a more luxurious and relaxing version than what I’m about to experience for the next few days).

First of all, Sharon’s nephew has to hang out with adults. Our plan is to go to Gansu and Qinghai, some of the poorest provinces in China. It would be great for my kids to experience it. But for a kid living in a village, won’t he want to go to a big city, watch a 3D movie and go to an amusement park? Second of all, Sharon does not have the money for plane tickets, so we will be taking the train the entire trip. And that is A LOT of train and bus rides.

14 Hour Overnight Train: Xing Tai to Tian Shui (天水)

Things may be a little different now, but when we took the trip in the summer of 2013, you could buy Chinese train tickets only either 14 or 21 days (I forgot) before the actual trip. Even though Sharon went to book tickets on the first day they became available, all the soft and hard sleepers were already sold out. What we had were hard seat tickets. That sounds bad, but there are worse – some people will buy standing room tickets for the 14 hour ride, and sometimes even for 30+ hour rides.

If I have to go on the same trip now (2016), there are high speed rails serving most of the route if not the entire route. If I were to travel again, I will definitely take the high speed train. However, many of the other passengers I saw may still be taking the regular train:

• I will end up taking three 10+ hour hard seat train rides. I think the overnight trains are always more crowded because everyone is thinking they will save one day and sleep on the train. But hardly anyone sleeps well, and everyone is very grouchy by 3am.
• Some people are stuck buying standing room tickets because the hard seat and the sleeper tickets are sold out. But most people buy the standing room tickets simply to save money. Currently the hard seat ticket for Xing Tai to Tian Shui is 141.5 quai, or around $23, which is still a lot to some people. Sometimes a group of 3-4 people will share one hard seat ticket with the rest of the group buying standing room tickets. They will just all rotate seats during the trip. Or they will just squeeze two people in one seat. On my next train ride I would meet two students on a 40 hour train ride, going home from university, sharing one seat. I don’t think those people will be paying for the high speed train if they can help it.
• During the less crowded trains, the standing room ticket holders will just take whatever empty seat that is available.
• The hard seat on these Chinese trains are quite hard. The seats are completely straight up and are not tilted backwards at all.

Here are some photos from my first hard seat train ride

Beginning of the ride. People were still standing, although the air conditioning did not seem to work

Beginning of the trip

An hour into my ride. See the man who was standing in the last photo? He is now sitting down. There is a reason why they sell cheap folding chairs outside the train stations.

A while later, you see that man who was standing has now decided to sleep on the floor.

As the night wore on, people stopped standing and many started sleeping on the floor. There was no room on the overhead bin for my luggage, so I had to put my bag on the floor. Since people always scare me by telling me people steal things on the train, i wrapped one leg around my bag the whole trip, believing it will be safer.

Not that I could really move my legs. An older man started sitting on my bag, which meant he was sitting on my camera lenses for hours. I couldn’t really tell him to move since there was no room. Plus in that situation, you feel so fortunate simply just having a seat. Eventually he started to sleep on the floor right under my seat,  his head right next to my foot, while another lady slept on the floor next to my other foot. And I still wrapped one leg around my bag the whole 14 hours and did not move a bit.

Luckily I decided not to eat too much before the train ride, and didn’t even drink after I got on the train. People who were trying to go to the bathroom took 30 minutes just to walk through a carriage. Later I heard the bathroom actually had a broken door, so people had to spend 1-2 hours just to walk to the farther away bathroom and back.

Despite all that, I actually slept quite a bit. And I will continue to have decent sleep during the rest of my train journeys. I guess I really can fall asleep anywhere.

 

A Little Look Around Xing Tai

The Most Polluted City in China

It would explain a lot that according to this article, Xing Tai (邢台) is the most polluted city in China. The major industry in the area is coal, and I saw many trucks with coal around.

Being summer, the air did not seem too bad since nobody was burning coal for heat. However, the city looked very gray. It was cloudy and raining the whole time I was there, so you can blame the weather. But the pollution was very obvious when we went to visit Sharon’s brother’s modern apartment.

According to them, the apartment was only 6 months old. I was quite excited to visit their new apartment because I really wanted to shower and use the Western style toilet. In their old courtyard home, they have the squat toilet that does not flush (I suppose someone remove their sewer once a week, maybe when they deliver the new water). The toilet also requires you to walk outside through the courtyard, and I was simply too lazy to use it if I could manage. I also really didn’t know where anyone showered, because I washed my face and brushed my teeth right in the middle of the courtyard.

When they parked outside their apartment though, I was confused by the gray, dirty building in front of me. The building was three story tall, and very gray, but was obviously white at one point. Some buildings in China seem to age quickly, but nothing should age this fast in 6 months. From the outside, their building looks at least 10-15 years old, and not newly built like it should.

Not only was their 6-month old apartment gray. Other buildings that haven’t yet been completely built were already turning gray.

The inside of the home was nice and new, and I did get to enjoy my use of the shower and toilet.

A Quick Drive

Given how gray and gloomy the village is, we took a drive maybe 20 minutes outside, which turned out to be quite lovely. I think there was some other interesting place that we could visit, but due to the rain we could not go.

Anyway, we drove around to some hills and creek among farmlands, and Sharon’s family decided to take a hike.

The area is known for producing these red rocks. I believe there are villages with homes and roads built from these rocks. Unfortunately I did not get to visit.

The area was pretty, but I remember being a little annoyed at this short two hour excursion. I was kind of sick of walking in the rain, and in order to walk across the creek, I knew my only pair of non-croc shoes would smell and stay wet for the next few days. Looking back (and it will be more obvious in future posts), I really should’ve eased up a little.

Signs along the hill

We also saw many sunflower fields. Driving along the road, we saw some beekeepers. We will see many more beekeepers during the rest of the trip. They are like herders in a way, following the flowers all year round depending on the season.

Home for the bee keepers. They even have solar panels and satellite dish

After our hike and drive, we ate a meal at a local farm, where they raised their own fish, chicken, everything. It was quite popular, being located in the middle of nowhere. Tonight will be our first big train ride to start our trip.

Beginning of My Northwest China Journey

“Be a civilized villager”

To start my summer China Silk Road/ Gannan/ whatever is on the way journey, I began by taking the high speed train from Beijing to the hometown of my travel companion, Sharon, early in the morning. Xing Tai (邢台) is a place (city? town? It is not big by China’s standard, but it does have a population of 7 million) in Hebei province, and around a 1-2 hour away from Beijng via high speed train.

Like many other Chinese high speed train stations, and buildings in general that try to impress, the Xing Tai train station is large but impractical. The entire exterior of the train station, extending all the way out to the bus stop, is tiled with marble or something similar. It was raining heavily when we arrived. Due to tiles none of the water drains, and the marble is slippery especially when you have to run to your bus.

Luckily without falling, Sharon and I got on the bus for her village, around 1 hour away.

Sharon’s Village

I suppose Sharon’s family live in a typical Chinese village. It is close enough to Xing Tai and Bejing that it is not too rural, and is probably considered middle class, if such category exists.

They live in a typical courtyard style home, with three building structures surrounding the courtyard. When we arrived, we are greeted by her parents, one or two siblings, and a bunch of kids. After resting and lunch, we took a walk around the village.

Road to happy homes

I don’t want to brag, but I probably have better handwriting than this!

The village is a meandering of pathways that leads to other homes and small farm plots. I took pictures of a few abandoned buildings, but most of her neighbors’ homes seemed to be in good repair. I’m not sure if any of her neighbors still farm for a living, but most keep their own plot for their own vegetables and raising their chickens.

A short 10 minute drive from Sharon’s home is the downtown area of her village. That’s where the bus stop is, and various typical Chinese stores and ads:

We actually spent an hour or two there because Sharon’s brother owns a cell phone store. Chinese people really like to hang out at each other’s stores. I didn’t mind because I always found small towns quite fascinating. Maybe one day in the future I can visit different villages in China to get a better understanding of how people are living. But for now, my only observations of Sharon’s village are:

• Sharon’s home has electricity and several TVs, but no running water. They get a huge container of water delivered to their house once a week.
• Despite the lack of running water, Sharon’s family is definitely not considered poor in China. They eat quite well. They have a car and a store. In fact, they have a new modern apartment just five minutes from the downtown area, which has running water, air conditioning, nice bathrooms, satelite TV, washer, etc. They just haven’t bothered to move there. They took me there to shower, and I was probably the first person to shower there because they didn’t even have towels around. I don’t even think they figured out how to use the washer yet, but instead still handwash their clothes.
• With the one child policy, all her siblings seem to have 2 or 3 kids? Maybe they only care in the city? I have no idea if they are considered a city or a village hukou
• Having lived in Beijing for a few years, Sharon does lament the small mindedness of people from her village. I suppose Xing Tai is the city center of the area, where I saw several shopping malls while on the bus, but Sharon’s family may only go there twice a year. She ran into girls from her high school who are already married with kids. All her siblings’ marriages seemed to be arranged, and the couples looked quite happy about it. It is not arranged marriage in a bad way – they probably just did not meet anyone in high school. And once they turned 20 their parents just took care of all the dating needs and found them someone.

For now, this sums up my first day of my trip. Probably in future posts, I will sprinkle in little rants I have about Sharon (and maybe my other travel companions). I remember sleeping really early, probably tired from waking up early and standing on the crowded bus while pretty wet from the rain.