Another train trip and another adventure but this time a summer journey so preparation and watching the locals has a different flavour….and smell.

I booked my journey from Daqing to Harbin and then onto Beijing on two different trains and made sure that I would arrive in time for a connecting flight to Manila. I arrived at Daqing Railway Station at about 3.15pm for a 4pm departure and even though the start of the holiday rush was well and truly over there were plenty of people there. That is always the case in China I have found. I made my way to the waiting room which was packed and the weather was 30C and humidity about 90%, quite unpleasant and of course these conditions cause excessive perspiration always accompanied by body odours. The usual starting stalls were in place and the Chinese mentality of wanting to be the first through the gates to get on the platform was in full swing so that meant 1500 people jamming into a space comfortable for 500 and it’s one of those things that still makes me scratch my head. I wasn’t having a bar of it and leant against one of the pillars away from the maddening crowd with sunnies on looking cool, detached but ready.

As the time approaches for the opening of the gates the crowd activity gets a more restless bubble in it and people start seriously jostling for better positions. Why? When we had all eventually passed through the checkpoint and hurried onto the platform there was no train there. It hadn’t arrived yet and in fact didn’t appear for another 15 minutes! Again, on the platform we have that annoying Chinese jockeying for position even though nobody could be sure just where the doors of the carriages would be when the train stopped. I watch all this like a wise foreigner, rather bemused but certainly not taking part. The time I DO take part is when I saunter over to the crowd that is getting on the train and others come to embark at the same point and just push in front of you. These days, being well and truly used to this Chinese tactic, I swing a backpack, raise an elbow and aim a suitcase to fortify my position in line!

The train tickets sold for each journey are hundreds more than the seats available so buying a ticket with an allocated seat is of the utmost importance. As usual when you get to your seat by battering your way down the centre aisle there are people sitting there as if they belong. One look and a thumb sign indicating for them to move works straight away, no argument. Those without seats stand in the aisles always looking, looking, looking for an opportunity to nip into a vacant seat. Chinese train games – quite interesting.

The Chinese train system, although bordering on illogical and encumbered with stupidity seems to work but it was during this trip that I witnessed the most incredibly ridiculous disembarkation from a train that I am ever likely to see. At one of the stops, Limudian I think, the train stops and people alighting here descend onto the next set of tracks then have to negotiate 3 more sets of tracks and the track ballast while laden with suitcases and whatever other luggage, scale the ½ metre onto the station platform and do this while a couple of guards keep a lookout for approaching trains! While I was shaking my head and laughing a little to myself I watched the passengers wandering off through the station gate and as I was thinking about why it’s done this way a train from the opposite direction and on the platform line thundered past!!! Say no more!

It was a rather uneventful train ride and it wasn’t until about two thirds of the way through the journey that the irresistible force of a foreigner sitting amongst so many Chinese and the need to show your level English by saying a few words becomes too much. The little guy sitting next to me and who was part of a family of 7 started asking me questions in Mandarin the answers to which I rattled off in Mandarin as well because I am familiar with the line of questioning these days. They wanted to know where I was from (Australia), what I did for a job (teacher), how long had I been in China (3 years), did I like China (no! not really….I always say yes) and under which Chinese animal sign was I born (Ox). My hair is greying and my goatee is white so the locals get a great kick out of my answer “Èrshíwǔ” (25) when I tell them my age. The next 10 minutes is spent on them playing a guessing game amongst themselves about my age. I never reveal my real age so I am sure it remains a conversation point with them for months to come. Eventually a young lad, who spoke reasonable English, stood near me and we engaged in a bit of conversation. His English name was “King”. Why?

That part of the journey completed I then had to exit Harbin station, always a challenge as well, and being summer there is no air conditioning as the city is usually experiencing sub zero temperatures. So there is central heating but no cooling. It was rather warm in Harbin too. I debated on whether to go across the road to have a meal or make do with my jam sandwich, bottle of water and 5 chocolate wafers. I chose the latter and made my way through the crowds to the waiting hall. I had a 2 hour wait here and inside the building it was stinking hot apart from a huge, central area which had cool air being pumped into it. After deciding not to sit in the waiting hall as it was hot and crowded I thought the central area would be a good place to eat the sandwich and cool down a bit. Nobody else was sitting in this area at all and I soon found out why as I plonked my arse onto the upended suitcase, enjoying the cool air when a station officer appeared and asked me to move on. I pretended total ignorance and remained seated. I saw this guy go over to his uniformed colleague and laugh and point at me probably saying: “Crazy foreigner. Doesn’t know he isn’t allowed to sit there!” I stayed crazy…….and cool.

I did eventually move from that spot to one near the toilets and which obviously wasn’t within the patrol area of the parking officer and started doing what I enjoyed the most when I am in China – people watching. Wondrous sights to behold with people dressed in the strangest clothes for train travel imaginable like the girl dressed in a ball gown, glittering jewel pendant with ear rings and with stiletto heels, some guys too hot to be bothered wearing any shirt at all and a couple in pyjamas topped it off. The station attendants from the Chinese army were there in full uniform marching from one waiting hall to another in strict, regimental fashion, no smiling. I saw 3 of them later on actually marching into a shop to buy ice cream and marching out again. Two station attendants, seated on golf carts with a broom affixed to the front and one at the back made up the sweeping team I guess. They manoeuvered their carts between scurrying passengers just pushing dust from one side of the station to the other and spearing bigger bits of rubbish with their specially made tools. The time really flew as I watched all this and finally I heard the announcement for the departure of my train – the Z2 to Beijing!

For the first time I had decided to take an overnight train to Beijing and get a good night’s sleep. The 4 berth soft seat option costs 421RMB as opposed to the flight cost of 1200RMB and the scheduled departure was 9.41pm with arrival in Beijing at 7.38am. That gave me 4½ hours to flight time after arrival and what I hoped would be a reasonable night’s sleep on the train. Sweet! By the way, the train fare from Daqing to Harbin is 13.5RMB. Again I found the numbers on the ticket a little confusing but before making myself comfortable in what I presumed was my cabin I asked the guard. Sure enough, I had it wrong and moved to the other end of the carriage. I had bottom bunk, also an important factor, there was a young woman in the bottom bunk opposite, a younger woman above me and I think her boyfriend in the top bunk opposite. I wondered how conversational this was going to get and whether anybody knew how to speak any English!

I should mention that the air conditioning on the train was nothing short of exquisite. The ambient temperature would have been 18C, a welcome relief from the heat and humidity in the station. I need not have worried about what we were all going to say to each other during this trip. Everybody was asleep within 15 minutes of the train leaving the station, including me. It got so cold during the night that I even had to resort to putting the doona over me instead of using it as a pillow because the small sack of wheat that was supplied as the pillow was a bit of a joke. The train is very comfortable and very quiet. I was awakened a couple of times the first occasion being from the snoring sounds coming from the young woman opposite me and the other time was when the train was stopped due to the most violent storm I had ever seen with respect to lightning. It was lightning so brilliant that it was impossible to keep your eyes open all the time as the flashes came at you in never ending succession. Everybody else in the cabin slept through it yet the thunder was shaking the train! Whether the train schedule had been changed or whether the storm had held us up I don’t know but the train arrived in Beijing at 10am the next day, not 7.30am, setting me another China challenge of getting to the airport before boarding time for my flight!