Adventures in Guangzhou!

When I got to the train station, I was faced with my first real challenge of the trip. Let me backtrack a bit-- Guangzhou has two main train stations, East and Main. My ticket had me departing from Guangzhou Main Station which is quite a bit more chaotic than I expected. I seem to remember a guidebook describing it as a "seething mass of humanity" and that's pretty accurate. There was massive construction, poor lighting, TONS of people camped out all over the places, and a distinct shortage of signs (English or otherwise). I was sweating bullets and decided to take my pack off and rest for a few minutes before attempting to figure out where in the world I was supposed to go. Luckily for me, a kind college-aged kid came over and asked me in English if I needed help. I said yes, though my traveler alarm went off inside--is this guy trying to scam me?? Nope, he was legit and pointed me upstairs to the waiting room for my train. This was a large room overflowing with people and I was not lucky enough to score a seat so I threw my bag and sat up against a rather dirty wall. I had heard that the train would start boarding about 20 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, but 10 minutes before departure time, we hadn't moved. Was I in the right place? Should I be looking elsewhere? Some lady came into the room with a bullhorn and starting shouting out some information in both Mandarin and Cantonese which was completely useless for me. About 5 minutes before the train was supposed to leave, everyone got up and mass hysteria ensued. People were blatantly pushing, shoving, and attempting to get to the front of the line. I got down and dirty with the rest of them and elbowed my way into a better position in the slow-moving line. Eventually we migrated to a platform and got on the train.

Luckily there are assigned seats/beds on the train so the chaos calmed down quite a bit once aboard. I was in the hard-sleeper section which has six beds (two stacks of three) per each open compartment. I was happy to be on the top because my feet could dangle off the edge safely, however the lack of headroom was a bummer. Regardless, I wasn't in the best of spirits given how much I had sweat just getting to the train, and I was imagining a torturous twenty four-hour ride. It was also plainly obvious that I was the only white person on the entire train and I was getting some solid stares from everyone who passed by. When trying to figure out what to do with my stuff, I opted to keep it with me on the bed, decreasing the body space in half. I was worried about someone stealing my stuff as I went to the bathroom or got food so I decided to keep it on my person at all times. Paranoid? Maybe, but when you're alone, you kind of have to be overly paranoid. Either that or I've been watching too much 24 and will only trust people named Jack Bauer.

I grabbed one of the mini seats by the window and began to look at the scenery outside the city. Green--what a welcome change from the dirt of Guangzhou! It became pretty obvious right away that there is quite a bit of poverty outside. I had read about this but it's very different when you see it face to face. We passed by dozens of small villages with nothing but basic shacks and peasants working the nearby land. It's almost like traveling back in time, except for the fact that I was on an air-conditioned train compartment. I also saw a bunch of what I can only describe as water buffalo-like creatures hanging out in and out of various bodies of water. It was a quite a contrast from the Tianhe District in GZ (where I live) that contains the Grandview Mall, where a scoop of Haagen Dazs costs approximately one month of a peasant's salary. I could be wrong, but I think China actually has the largest disparity between rich and poor in the entire world. For the first time I caught a glimpse of this reality and it was startling.

It was a bit awkward to take in this scene while sipping my iced green tea, but such is the way of the world, I suppose. The experience was made even stranger by the fact that the train was playing really cheesy Chinese pop music (is there another kind?) the entire way. I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration; There were various announcements over the P.A. that I did not understand at all. This, of course, meant that I tuned them all out and instead day-dreamed in my own little world. I figured that if it was an emergency and we had to evacuate, someone else would take the lead and I'd follow. Luckily, it was a smooth ride the whole way.

A smooth ride, except for the fact that it took over three hours longer than it should have! I was starting to feel very isolated having not spoken a word to anyone and not understanding any of the announcements that presumably explained the delay. However, about 8 hours in, I met the girl on the top bunk right across from me and we proceeded to converse in crude English and Chinese. She was a rather attractive 23 year-old dancer from the Guangxi province and was going to visit a friend in Hangzhou. She would type English words on her cell phone and pass it over to me with a smile. Her questions/statements ranged from "you self?" to "I dancer enjoy." It wasn't exactly top level stuff, but I was responding with chinese phrases like "I am a teacher" and "I would like to drink some tea." We laughed quite a bit and this managed to entertain me for several hours. At night we even had a moment of teamwork to put a newspaper over the vent that was blowing frigid air directly on to us.

At 10pm they turned the lights off, and I spent about 20 minutes in the dark attempting to manuever my bag in such a way as to provide me with some space but also shield it away from the rest of the train. I settled with sleeping half on the thing and listened to my iPod until I fell asleep. What a beginning to my adventure...