So after Vietnam came China. And one of the most interesting things about China was that our major mode of transportation was the China Railways system. The trip was made complex by the bizarre booking system of this system, or should I say the lack of a booking system. You can only buy tickets in the city of departure. So our trip was HK to Guangzhou to Xi'an to Beijing to HK. The first leg was just a 2 hour trip that we have done before. We then took the subway across Guangzhou because the Xi'an train left from a different station. Only then could we buy the tickets for the Xi'an train. After some effort we discovered that the Chinese system is to have the ticket-booking hall in a separate building adjacent to the station. Upon entering, we were met by this vast sea of humanity, roughly organized into lines in front of the 20 or so windows. Careful examination of these revealed the one window staffed by an English speaker. That was the line to join. After waiting our turn, we asked for 5 hard sleeper berths to Xi'an. They were available (fortunately - they often sell out and this train only goes once a day), though not in the same compartment. But we took them and then tried to find our way into the station itself. Basically, it was follow the crowd, through the security lines and into this behemoth of a station that was so overrun with humanity that it made the booking hall look like a quiet dinner for two.
We thought that we would find several restaurants in there for lunch but unfortunately, there were only two, both fast food, one Chinese and one KFC. That explained why there were so many people selling food outside the station, but once inside there was no going back. I figured out where we were supposed to wait for our particular train and joined the hoard there. I noticed enviously that people who had soft sleeper tickets had their own waiting room and even better, a tea room. From time to time they would make announcements in our waiting room, entirely in Cantonese of which we understood not a word. So we just tried to behave like everybody else and line up in the appropriate places. It was kind of funny, we were all lined up at one end of the room, with us at the back, when a new announcement caused everybody to rush to the other end of the room. That meant we were much closer to the front and that was the end from which they started boarding the train. It was all rather mysterious to me because, as far as I know, everybody had an assigned bed or seat on the train and therefore it really did not matter when people boarded.
We found our hard sleeper berths, in two adjacent compartments. They are arranged in bays of 2x3 beds, with the top one not having too much space. Actually they charge less money for the higher ones also. There are no doors on these compartments so they all open directly on the corridor. Thus, we shared the next 25 hours, very intimately with the other people in our compartments, but in the same small world as everybody in our train carriage. There were two women in the bottom beds of my compartment with a very young baby. Elizabeth though neither of them looked like they had just given birth, thus we surmised adoption. Actually, when I woke up the next morning they had all gone, so we had a lot more space. I spent a lot of time sitting in the corridor and watching life come and go. There were many vendors of food. The food was very good, much better than you would encounter on a British or US train, and reasonably priced. You could also buy all sorts of other stuff - my favorite was a necklace that offered all sorts of protections, most notably against radiation damage.
The trip from Guangzhou to Xi'an takes 25 hours. We left at 3 and got in around 4 the next afternoon. The passing landscape was mostly unremarkable, with occasional interludes; many different kinds of houses, lots of big cities, a few mountains here and there. I saw very little unused space. Land without buildings usually had something planted on it. Visibility was often limited by haze. Maybe it was just the weather, but more likely it was pollution. Sometime there was a touch of the Lorax about it.
I did not see any other Westerners on that train - there were lots on the Beijing to HK trip. Jacob in particular had a very nice interaction with some people in the next compartment. I can't remember how it started, but it morphed into an extended language lesson, with most of the benefit coming in our direction.
We had soft sleepers for both of the other long train rides. Not for the nicer waiting rooms but rather because the hard sleepers were all sold out. They were very nice but meant more privacy and therefore greater separation from the other passengers. Duncan really appreciated the soft sleepers. He had been on the very top bunk in the hard sleepers. They control the lights and the PA system centrally for the whole carriage and he was woken up at 7 AM by a bright fluorescent light about a foot from his face. On the trip back to HK I woke him about 10.30 when I was fed up with waiting for the rolls we had bought for breakfast.
Every train carriage comes equipped with a supply of near boiling water and each compartment, both hard and soft, comes with a thermos flask that can be filled with this hot water and then used to make tea. The soft sleepers even come with nice mugs with lids to facilitate that process. Is that civilized or what!