Chongqing lies at the convergence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers (where I would start my Yangtze cruise to the Three Gorges Dam) and is 800km and 16 hours by overnight train from Xi’an.  Me being me, I was one of the last into the carriage that seated 118!  I thought the Russian PlatzKartny was crowed - it had less than half this carriage did.

I made my way past 117 Chinese men to find my seat; I doubt I wouldn’t have been stared at more if I was stark naked! Of course someone was in my seat and there was no room for my bags, making it all the more awkward. I account of the running with my backpack to catch the train and all this I would start to sweat profusely, all the while the staring continued… 

Three hours of avoiding eyes later and a very awkward night was on the cards, but then I was handed a piece of paper with three questions on it:

  1. How are you?
  2. Can you speak Chinese?
  3. What are you going?

That kicked off a memorable four hours of interaction with the locals of central China as we tried to communicate through simple English, drawings, sounds, basically a long game of charades. For much of the time I was surrounded by the intrigued crowd who were interested why a lone foreigner was traveling with them in hardclass. Even though it was difficult, we managed to discuss topics as diverse as the one child policy, Chinese laws, the ‘Taiwan’ issue and about Xinxilan (New Zealand).  A strangely satisfying feeling to be so far out of your comfort zone only to be surround by so many curious and harmless faces. However, I was very happy to finally arrive into Chongqing and sleep off a physically tiring experience…I’ll think twice about taking long overnight ‘Hardseat Class’ journeys again…

Some observations I think typify what you’d notice on an intrepid journey through China:

  • People are curious/friendly and seem to be very interested in your legs/feet whenever you wear shorts and make no bones about staring at you
  • No shortage of smokers (no surprise seeing a pack goes for about USD $1.5)
  • There is a person doing everything and anything.  You’ll notice that all niches are filled, e.g. if it starts raining all of a sudden the people that sell maps around the place start selling cheap umbrellas – brilliant
  • There are electric bikes/scooters everywhere
  • Spitting (preceded by a fierce throat clearing retch)
  • Babies and toddlers wear crutchless pants (and no nappies) so they can do their business anywhere and at anytime
  • There are more KFCs than McD’s
  • You feel safe when out and about at any time
  • The toilets (holes in the ground often with no cubical divider) just don’t sit right with me, excuse the pun
  • A lot of corn is grown and is out drying in the rural areas
  • You’re never short on being offered a taxi, “Hello, rickshaw?”
  • The driving is rather hectic; it seems you don’t use your indicator here, just your horn.  Also, the pedestrian crossings don’t mean squat, but I’m sure it’ll all get worse in South East Asia.
  • The language seems incredibly complex, you’d need to know about 3000 Chinese characters just to read the newspaper and there are some 40,000 characters in all.  I take my hat off to anyone who has learnt it as their second language.

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