76.7 F
Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesTRAIN TRAVEL GREAT TO SEE PLACES, MEET PEOPLE

TRAIN TRAVEL GREAT TO SEE PLACES, MEET PEOPLE

Part 4 of a series on a St. Thomas couple's recent travels in China
Call it the romance of the rails, a desire to see where one is going, appreciation for the distance one travels, or just plain masochism; my wife and I enjoy traveling by train when it's an option. It was very much so during our recent travels in China.
We took the overnight Beijing Express from Hong Kong to Beijing, transferred from Beijing to Xi'an via a night train, commuted between Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai by rail, and finally departed China from Shanghai to Hong Kong on the Shanghai Express.
We checked into Hong Kong's Kowloon Station at 2:30 p.m. for a 3 p.m. train, and we arrived in Beijing the next evening. The price for our tickets, obtained at the China International Tour Services office, worked out to about $120. The Beijing to Xi'an train barely gave us time for a quick early breakfast; the tickets were given to us by our guide during the drive from the hotel to the Beijing station and cost about $50. The commuter train between Hangzhou and Suzhou cost about $8, and the Shanghai Express was $110 for a 26-hour ride.
There are supposedly five methods of train travel in China: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, soft sleeper and deluxe soft sleeper. Hard seat is one step above cattle car. You get to rub shoulders with the people — all the people. Soft seat is less crowded, more comfortable, and offers such amenities as a bar, cleaner toilet facilities and maybe an observation deck. Hard sleeper is a dormitory approach with a fixed bunk assigned to each passenger. Soft sleeper is a more comfortable fixed bunk enclosed in a compartment of two uppers and two lowers. The deluxe soft sleeper is a compartment with four fixed bunks assigned to one traveling entity (individual, couple, family).
The overnight trains we used had deluxe soft sleepers. However, one cannot get tickets for them in advance; they could only be purchased in the station within three days of departure or on the train from the conductor, and we were never able to get one. We were told surreptitiously that the compartments are available only for Chinese VIPs, and Western tourists don't fall into that category. So we took the soft sleepers for the overnight trips.
In fact, we are glad we did not hide ourselves away in a private compartment. On the ride to Beijing we had bottom and top bunks and shared our compartment with a Chinese woman of about our age. She did not speak any English, but we found ourselves conversing in terms of our grandchildren. As we struggled to communicate, she invited us to partake of her vast supply of fresh grapes that became dinner for the three of us. This charming lady was our first contact with non-tourism-oriented Chinese in China; she helped us to understand that the people are extremely interested in us Westerners and are anxious that we should like them.
Since we had stuffed ourselves for lunch in Hong Kong before departure, and only snacked on grapes for dinner, breakfast the next morning was our first meal in China proper. So far as we were able to ascertain, there were five Westerners on the train — ourselves, two backpackers and a wandering soul. The backpacking couple was alone in their compartment and apparently had brought along sufficient food to see themselves through the trip. For breakfast, the dining compartment crew seated us and served us two eggs, toast and coffee for about $15. At lunch, we protested that we wanted to eat what everyone else ate — and our food improved remarkably. The Chinese like to eat. They have a varied menu with all sorts of fish, fowl, meat, vegetables and don't ask/don't tell items.
We decided to adopt a daily regimen of breakfast, lunch and snack. Breakfast would include a rice soup (with multiple seasonings such as chives, pickles, salted fish flakes, chili paste and pearl onions), a noodle dish, several vegetable dishes, a meat, hard-boiled eggs, dumplings, salad, beans, and cookies or pastries of some type. Drinks would be tea or instant coffee. For lunch, there would be rice, several vegetable dishes, a couple of meat dishes, an egg dish and a sweet or fruit. Drink options included beer or soda. On the train costs ran about $5 each per meal for all we could eat of healthy and appealing food. Several times people who spoke English joined us to practice the language. Chinese not only enjoy eating; they enjoy themselves while eating.
Every compartment had a picture window inside with another across the corridor on the other side of the train. There was no lounge or bar car, but groups of Chinese men sat in the dining car between meals playing cards or mahjong, smoking and drinking.
Daylight hours were great for simply watching the countryside. The poorest accommodations we saw were in the cities in large apartment buildings next to the tracks. The countryside space was almost always used for something. Farmers lived in relatively new two- story houses, and most houses were clustered in villages. There were also houses as well as businesses strung out along the commercial highways.
On the train to Xi'an, our bunkmates included two Chinese rocket scientists. One spoke fluent English and had obtained his knowledge of rockets studying in Germany. When we boarded the train we noted a large McDonald's bag and assumed our mates had brought dinner. The bag was still there when we returned from the dining car after dinner, and it remained so through breakfast. As our English-speaking companion was getting his suitcase ready to depart the train, he told us the McDonald's treats were for his family — Xi'an only had Kentucky Fried Chicken!
On the train ride from Hangzhou, we sat across from a German lawyer who had come to China specifically to purchase a life-size replica of a terra cotta warrior to place in his law office — definitely a conversation piece.
On our trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong, two young men rushed to join us at our table for dinner. One immediately announced he was half-Chinese and half-British, born and raised in Hong Kong. He had been visiting his Chinese family and was on his way home. His cousin traveling with him was an engineer on the way to work with a company in the district. The Hong Kong native took great pains to explain his view of China, race relations, the new economics and anything else we wanted to hear about. They both were proud to share their selection of menu items with us. The next morning at breakfast, a couple who had been sitting across the aisle joined us. They didn't speak any English but were most accepting of our idiosyncrasies.
To me, the most impressive aspects of our train travel were the friendliness of most people and the absence of squalor throughout the country. One minor incident occurred at the Xi'an train station when we arrived an hour early and our guide was not there to meet us. It was the only such occurrence during our entire journey and not the fault of the guide.
Standing outside the arrivals gate, we stood out as Westerners. All the touts, vendors and beggars zeroed in on us. All but one made their pitch and, when rebuffed, departed. The exception was an old man determined to succeed where all others had failed. After a while, he really did become annoying. All of a sudden, a mature military man stepped out of the crowd and lambasted the old guy, who promptly disappeared, never to be seen by us again. The soldier stepped back into the crowd without so much as a further glance in our direction. For some reason, this experience gave us a sense of safety throughout the rest of our stay in the country.
China by train? Wouldn't have done it any other way. Anyone up for Beijing or Vladivostok to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian Express?
Next: Guilin, city of exotic tastes and tours to impressive Li River limestone sites

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Keeping our community informed is our top priority.
If you have a news tip to share, please call or text us at 340-228-8784.

Support local + independent journalism in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Unlike many news organizations, we haven't put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as accessible as we can. Our independent journalism costs time, money and hard work to keep you informed, but we do it because we believe that it matters. We know that informed communities are empowered ones. If you appreciate our reporting and want to help make our future more secure, please consider donating.

UPCOMING EVENTS