Xiamen – Guangzhou – Journey of Surprises
Those of you who have been following this blog for any length of time – first of all, thanks, it can’t have been easy – and secondly, will know that most journeys I undergo seem to be a bit wierd. Well, the journey from Xiamen to Guangzhou tops them all in terms of surprises.
Train journeys in Fuijian, the province in which Xiamen sits, are depressingly circuitous, and you board any train in the area knowing you are definitely in it for the long haul. So the first surprise – a pleasant one, I’ll grant you – was the state of the train. I got into the hard sleeper carriage, where I had booked a bed, and thought I was in the soft sleeper carriage, it was so plush. OK, maybe I’ve just been on the backpacker circuit a bit too long, as I was impressed by a bit of carpet on the train floor, but after a few months of travelling round Asia by train, this was pretty top-notch and put me in a good mood immediately. A nice guy helped me get my ever-weighty backpack up to the luggage compartment at the top, and we got chatting once the train moved on.
He spoke really good English, compared to a lot of Chinese people we met. He is a (mature) student at Xiamen University, and was returning home to Shenzen for a short trip to see his wife and 6 month old son, and he was telling me of his ambition to become a univeristy lecturer when he’d finished his studies. He had to read a lot of reports in English, which I think is why his language skills were so impressive. We were talking about all sorts, politics, schools, football (we talked at length about the World Cup, I think I bored him on this one but he was too polite to say), and finally, places in China I’ve been to. When I mentioned Shanghai, he said he liked it and he used to live there. However, the next thing he said nearly made me fall out of my bunk. He asked me,
“Do you know the English company Pilkington?”
(FYI to those of you who don’t know my history, I used to work for them – of which I will say no more, except for the fact that I got voluntary redundancy from them, without which I would not be here). (In a nutshell).
I confirmed that he did, wondering if he was a spy, a mindreader, or both. The next thing was even more surprising:
“I used to work for them in Shanghai”.
Now imagine – I’m on a slow train in the middle of a lesser-visited Chinese province, speaking to a random guy on a train, and it turns out not only did we work for the same company (our time overlapped a bit), but some of the same names were familiar to both of us. I was well and truly freaked. The ultimate ‘small world’ experience?
The next surprise came in the form of a seranade. As we chatted, we heard a loud and tuneful voice singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’, absolutely word-perfect. Fortunately, Celine Dion hadn’t joined the train (fortunately for her, that is – I don’t know if I could restrain myself), but we were in fact listening to the precocious warblings of Logan, aged 3. He was so cute, in that ‘I’m glad I’m only with this child for a few hours max as he’s a bit too full-on’ sort of way, but he was very entertaining. (And, Elephant Apple, rest happily – I got his photo, as per your request).
We drifted off to sleep, listening to Logan and the heavy rain outside performing a duet.
I woke up a few times during the night, vaguely aware that we had, at various times, either stopped, were going very slowly, or were shunting about vigorously on poorly-joined-up* tracks. None of these prove for happy and peaceful slumbers.
*technical term
So it was with my grumpy, not-enough-sleep head that I faced the world the next morning. This was not helped in the slightest when Gerry, my Pilkington colleague, turned to me after listening to one of the announcements and said “We are 8 hours delayed”.
“Pardon me?”
“We are 8 hours delayed. The train is 8 hours late”. God love him, I don’t think he could have put it any simpler if he tried, but I have this theory that if you refuse to believe bad news, it doesn’t really happen. I tried one last tack, hoping that the translation was somehow breaking down:
“So, what time will we get to Guangzhou?” (We should have been arriving at 7am, I was hoping that “8 hours” was somehow meant to be “8am”.)
“Umm, about 3pm, if not later”.
“Ah”.
Believe me guys, I was not prepared for that. I’d never done 24+ hour train journeys before this trip, and I’ve learned it takes a certain amount of preparation, both physical and mental. Physical – you need food, for a start. The Chinese are big, big fans of their versions of pot noodles, and I have joined in with gusto. In actual fact, it may surprise you to hear I don’t think pot noodles are as bad as they are made out to be, so when I saw the food-obsessed Chinese slurping away out of these huge tubs of noodles, I thought, hey, when in Xiamen. In addition to a few tubs of noodles (there is a constant supply of hot water at the end of each carriage, and indeed everywhere you go here), you add a couple of bags of Lays crisps (very good and tasty, I can recommend the roast drumstick flavour), the greasy-yet-strangely-delicious vac packs of peanuts, some chocolate (the Chinese brand, Dove, is again surprisingly good), and some other random treat – my favourite so far being a big bag of marshmallows I bought in Wuhan. You also need drinks, obviously, so throw in a big bottle of water and – get this – my old-Chinese-lady style tea flask. Everywhere you go you see people (mainly of the older generation, although a good proportion of the younger ones as well) drinking strange concoctions out of these glass double-insulated jar-type flasks with screw top lids. Mainly it’s for tea, but occasionally you see something that looks a teeny bit scary, like they’ve stolen a test-tube from Frankenstein’s laboratory. So, a few weeks back, I bought one, and a bag of delicious jasmine tea, and have been slurping away happily ever since. The slurp, incidentally, is one of the major sounds you hear in China (along with the big rasping sound of someone hawking up a greenie. All. The. Time. Bad enough outside, but when they start inside… shudder…). Apparently, slurping the food makes it taste better. It’s also a great chance to revert to childhood without being looked at funny.
Like an athlete about to run a marathon, you also need mental preparation for such a long journey (including going to the loo – I’m sure Paula Radcliffe can back me up on this one – Chinese loos at the best of times are grim, and at the worst of times, can resemble that scene in ‘Trainspotting’). You know you’re in it for the long haul. You accept that the next 24 hours will be spent under a duvet. You need to charge your ipod, stock up on Sudoku puzzles and books and, my latest trick, I bought the world’s most tackiest object, a ‘Hello Kitty’ Rubicks cube. It’s actually quite difficult, before you point and laugh, because now I have mixed it up, all the Hello Kittys are facing different directions, and now I’m thinking I might give it to a little Cambodian child, a la Angelina Jolie, rather than face the fact that I will NEVER be able to complete it. It’s got to the stage where I’m having nightmares about Hello Kittys laughing at my incompetence.
Anyway, to pass the time, I found myself helping Logan’s half-sister with her Immigration application for the USA. As you do. And as I heard myself explaining the concept of half-brothers and sisters, and how they are distinct from step-brothers and sisters (she did ask, by the way, I didn’t just launch into it), I thought what a very strange journey this had been.
We pulled into Guangzhou station, only 7 hours late, and I was actually delighted that we had made up one hour, rather than angry at being 7 hours late, which is the strangest thing of all.
PS As an end note, actually the best surprise of all came in a phone call from Caroline and Michael, asking me to be their bridesmaid next year. I’m completely honoured, guys, and can’t wait. I think my squeals and laughing woke up the rest of the carriage but hey, it was worth it.
Tags: China, Travel
Suzanne
Can we expect a muddled up Hello Kitty rubik’s cube as a wedding present?
I do hope so.
I also thought you’d have been a little better prepared for your marathon train journeys by the the long haul coach trips we took to Lourdes so many times. Granted you may not have had The Sound of Music and seemingly endless fields of sunflowers to pass the journey, but Logan’s rendition of Celine Dion must come a close second.
Michael
Suze, knowing your obsessiveness when it comes to punctuality, I feel quite sorry for the guy who had to break the news that your train would be arriving 8 hours late – come back British Rail, all is forgiven!!!
Reading of your train journeys bring back lots of memories although I guess I’m just a light weight as I only managed a couple of overnight sleepers and not a 24 hour long haul. We discovered that there was usually one “normal” loo on each train. This was always located at the opposite end to where we had our reservations (probably the equivalent of the 1st class carriage). We used to set off and hike all the way through what seemed like (and probably was) hundreds of carriages to seek out our English loo. I remember one night I’d made the treck with Karen and when we were on our way back to our compartment all of a sudden the train was plunged into darkness, as all the lights go off automatically at 10.00p.m. Fortunately, Karen had a little torch with her (must have been a Girl Guide) and I think we made it back to our own beds!
Love you lots
Mum