漫游中国 by 费雷德·理查森

Author:费雷德·理查森
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 外文出版社
Published: 2008-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Trains

1988

April 30

Instead of finding a hotel in Anshun, Guizhou, I bought a ticket to Kunming on the Kunming-Shanghai train. It's said to be the most crowded in China. I was only able to get a hard seat ticket with no seat assignment. It was a real fight to get in the car, to push in far enough so the door could shut behind me. It was a rough thirteen-hour all-night sardine-packed standing room only no sleep endurance test. I was aboard for almost half an hour before I was able to get my pack off my back and get it reasonably situated on the mucky floor. Hot water for drinking ran out about two hours after I got on, so for the rest of the trip all throats were dry.

There was only enough room for about a third of the standers to hunker down, so we rotated, the most exhausted getting more squatting time. Good thing there wasn't any water, as there was simply no way to get to the toilets, and in any case they were full of standing people too. Some near me had boarded the train eighteen hours earlier. Their standing trip was 31 hours and they were hurting. I couldn't really complain or feel too sorry for myself. I stood nearly the whole time with my pack on my feet, clutched against my knees. I did manage to squeeze up to a wail so I was able to rest my back. I never got farther into the car than about six feet from the door.

1998

March 26

Guangxi: I'm trying the not-quite-finished Nankun Tielu (Nanning-Kunming Railway). The station in Baise is clean, open and bright, high ceilings with lots of windows. I'd call the architectural style "Station Modern". There's nice Chinese music playing on a good quality PA system on the station platform.

One of my seat mates, an engineer, said there are 288 tunnels between Baise and Xingyi, Guizhou. The train is moving slowly as this is a test train, the line really isn't open yet. And it doesn't go all the way through, only to Xingyi. I may have to take a bus from there to Kunming: information wasn't clear.

We are in mountains full of limestone formations, a poor shaoshu minzu (minority nationality) area. Some young country women got on at one stop, to get off at the next. One of the women sat down on the end of the seat across from me without noticing me. She looked up, saw me, and I said hello. She hopped up and moved to another seat fast, with all her stuff. She glanced at me once or twice as though I had bitten her, before they all got off. There are many wooden houses along here, and lots of horses. The houses tend to be scattered rather than clustered in tight little villages as is common in most of China, the parts I've been in, anyway.

March 29

Yunnan: I spent a couple of nights in Xingyi, and continued on to Kunming by bus.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.