Last month I asked readers to enter a competition for a copy of Lonely Planet's Vietnam guidebook, to celebrate my accumulation of over 1000 followers on my Twitter feed.
Here's the second-placing entry, Fran Watson's entertaining tale of the difficulties involved in finding one's train in a busy Chinese railway station (edited from the longer version on her blog):
In hindsight, I possibly didn’t choose the best route for my
first solo train trip in China: Taiyuan to Beijing. Even forearmed with
my ticket, the whole experience is overwhelming.
Taiyuan station is quite a large hub for the area. It’s not
a little regional station. I should have tried to do this from a small, two
platform station but noooooo, I've chosen the crossroads of a zillion communities.
Although Taiyuan Station is quite the hub, it’s not quite up to the standard of
the big city stations. Beijing and Shanghai have stations like airports
(and they’re bilingual!), but not Taiyuan.
Numbers and pictures
Airports in China are pretty much
bilingual. Everything is stated twice, once in Chinese and once in English.
Stand in front of a board long enough and you will find where you need to go. I
stand in front of the big flashing LED board at the station long enough. I
still have absolutely NO IDEA where the hell I'm going.
Finally I see my train number and time flash up. There it is D2006, departing at 11:30 for 北京 - that would be Beijing. This much I can ascertain from comparing
squiggles on my ticket.
Unfortunately, there’s not much else I can glean from the
magic light board. It does indicate that I need to go to a waiting room that
looks like this 四 and another unidentifiable
symbol.
I look for help. Damn near every worker in China has an official looking uniform, so it’s not necessarily helpful to approach
someone who may LOOK like they are an authority figure, because you’re just as
likely to find that they are the local dog walker.
Crouching tiger, hidden platforms
Well I have my ticket so let’s rule out all the windows
labelled ‘ticket’ and assume that there’s no baggage check.
That leaves one door. Here’s hoping this is the right
direction. Through I go. Baggage x-ray machine and more people in uniform, this
time waving wands. Well, it seems to be progress. No point having a security
check just for the hell of it. Bags through, me through, wand waved in a rather
non-effective way.
At the top is a big corridor with what appears to be
waiting rooms breaking off at regular intervals.
Sill no signs in English, numbers that mean nothing, people
swarming all over the place carrying neat little suitcases and enormous bundles
of unidentifiable food. I am yet to even see a TRAIN let alone a platform, or
tracks, or anything that vaguely identifies this as a station. In fact, all I
have done is gone UP to the second floor.
Enter the waiting room
I spot a sign at the end of an enormous hall. This is the
only way I can describe this waiting room: it’s like a giant ballroom of rows
of chairs … and people, thousands of people! Well … it looks like I am going to
have to go through each waiting room one by one. I stand in the corridor and
take a deep breath. I am completely lost.
Do you remember that feeling you had as a child that first
time you got lost in the supermarket? For me there is no recollection of
conscious thought, it’s just a feeling of utter despair and fear. As an adult I
don’t feel this far out of my comfort zone often. I rarely feel this utterly
lost. Today though, I am almost at the point of sobbing.
I consciously tell myself not to cry. I actually mutter it
under my breath: “I will not let this beat me! I have got this far in a foreign
land and I’ll be damned if a fricking railway station is going to beat me.”
Form a disorderly queue
I have now pushed my way through the barrier into three
other waiting rooms. I have discovered that the LED ticker sign at the end of
each waiting room is above a bank of stairs and escalators leading down to …
OMG! PLATFORMS! Thank God, sign of trains!
Finally in waiting room number four I see my train number,
D2006, departing 11:30am for 北京.
There are people forming a queue over to the far left
of the room. This is in front of a bank of stairs and escalators; however, my
LED ticker is over on the right side of the grand hall. Does this mean they
lead to different places? Is that the queue I should be in?
The big mob seems closer to my ticker than the neat queue in
the far left of the room, so I’m going to go with that. I weave my way through
the crowd to what, I think, is the ‘end’ of the ‘queue’, and I stand. I am
pretty sure I am in the right place. Although I am still somewhat curious about
the smaller line near some ‘nice chairs’.
The secret of the nice chairs
Now I have a first class ticket, and I am wondering if I
have access to the ‘nice chairs’ and the small queue. I sure as hell am not
going over there to find out though.
I decide to try and communicate with a fellow mob member.
After some charades and ticket pointing, neither of us are any the wiser as to
what the other is saying. Then, from behind me, a rather proper, somewhat
hesitant voice says "Hello, may I help you?"
I turn to see a young Chinese man
who has clearly had to think about his words. It’s not his native language. It
is music to my ears though.
“Am I in the right place?” He looks at my ticket. He points
to the smaller queue and the ‘nice chairs’. “You may go over there if you
like.”
The gate opens
I am pretty sure I tread on some toes, I think I drag my
bag over the odd foot, I try ever so carefully to be polite.
Anyway, I finally get to my more civilised queue… and I
wait. This queue is far less of a seething mob than the other… until the gate opens.
One person through is enough to show sign of movement
and chaos ensues. Everyone seated is now pushing into the queue. A grand
ballroom of people just started pushing forward. It would not surprise me if
people die doing this!
Finally my bag and I make it through the barrier in one
piece, then down the escalator to the platform. I know that I am on carriage
16, seat 51. Once I figure out which direction the numbers go, I start
heading down the platform … carriage six, carriage seven, carriage eight … I am
starting to run out of train here. Ten minutes and ten carriages later, I get
to carriage 16.
To Beijing and beyond
From here, it’s easy. Just like a plane. Seat numbers are
clearly marked. Perfect. Bag stowed, I find my seat. Relax. Deep
breath. I made it.
The trip is uneventful and three and half hours later I am
in Beijing. Thank whichever deity you care to, I chose the right train.
And that folks, was my introduction to train travel in China.
