train day
by Rach, who likes to know what’s going on most of the time
Nanning, China
We’ll just pop over to the train station and sort out tickets to Guilin.
Steady on, not so fast!
The train station is on the other side of the road, and although it is only four lanes wide, there is a metal barrier running down the middle. We notice half a dozen sets of stairs descending into the bowels of the earth, and choose the ones that seem to point train-station-wards. There’s another whole city down there – shops and shoe shiners and beggars and arguing women and newspaper sellers – we press through them all and up to the tree-dotted square in front of the station. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people sit around on luggage, playing cards, eating, sleeping, crying, chatting. We “buddy up” the children and merge into the throng. Inside the cavernous building an INFORMATION sign beckons. I’m not sure why it is in English, or why it offers help, for that matter; a man sits behind one window refusing to assist anyone, yellow or white. So I try the Lady at the next window. Pushing my scribbled scrap of paper (Nanning – Guilin) through the tiny semi-circular window, I rack my brain for how to find out what time and where from, once I’ve asked the how much question. Lady speaks through microphone. I look helplessly questioningly at her and she repeats herself more slowly and with greater volume, not that either tactic enhances my understanding. Intent on getting her message across, she echoes my scribbles with some of her own, Chinese characters, of course, and equally unhelpful. She pushes the paper back through the window and gesticulates wildly at me. I am obviously supposed to go across the hall, and apparently pretty quickly, but I still want to know how much???? Asking is an exercise in futility – although this is the information window, Lady is not about to divulge any more.
So I try the Ticket Hall. Yes, hall. Not booth or counter – there is an entire hall for the 16 windows, and standing at each of them are at least 50 people. Quite an impressive sight! I am rescued-from-spending-the-rest-of-the-morning-waiting by a black-uniformed official, who is able to tell me a price – and the price for children under a metre and a half tall, but over 1.2m. Not bad, huh!
In spite of this modest success, we decide to give up on the train station and try the bus instead – yesterday someone had spoken English there, which feels decidedly more promising.
At this moment a little person needs the toilet.
We choose the easy option and head underground, coming out by our hotel. While half the family mercy dashes upstairs, Rob takes the scribbled characters to the reception staff for some translation and discovers the train to Guilin is leaving in one minute! It would seem that gathering information BEFORE you need it is a concept as foreign as we are. We resort to switching rooms to one with fewer beds, but internet access so we can complete our investigations online. There go a few more hours.
Armed with train ticket numbers and times, and dates (written the Chinese way – month before day), Rob will be dispatched later in the afternoon to purchase tickets.
But not before we do the bus station thing………however, we’ll spare you the details!
Tags: money, price, toilet, transport
rayres
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