“Riding the iron rooster” (Paul Theroux, 1988
In 1982 a friend of mine finished a year of travelling in Asia with a tour across China and a trip home on the transibirian railway. He must have been one of the first individual travellers allowed to enter the country. He came back with a backbag full of the strangest souvenirs and brilliant pictures. He started to cook the most elaborate chinese dishes and told all these fascinating stories. He was so enthusiastic, that he went to University again…. to study Chinese. I had to go there, but it took four years until I eventually could. And again, of this tour, I have kept a detailed, but almost undecipherable diary, maps and other printed matter. Of some maps, I cannot even retrieve which town it was because everything is in Chinese. The two of us sent home three parcels of 17 kg each (the maximum weight for surface mail) full of souvenirs, spices and books (yes, a cooking book (with excellent recipes, however I did not try the red, hot camel soles yet), and some in chinese). The following story is an abridged version of the diary.
City map of Kunming, the railroad timetable of China (abridged tourist version !!!!!), a beer bottle label and a banknote. We considered to cut out the plane of these banknotes to glue on our letters home to make clear that they had to be air mail
There would be many stories to tell from this memorable trip. I select a railway story although the photos are very bad, but it shows how friendly people are in a country which gets such bad reports recently.
The queues to buy tickets in Guiyang. Each counter is for one direction. Note the little holes where the tickets are sold.
There was a direct train from Guilin to Kunming, a distance of a bit more than 1000 km. But that train was full and so we only got tickets with changes on the way. We, that was myself and my friend Mane, two dutch girls and a swiss guy called Martin. No seat reservation and a trip of two days. The first train we had to take left Guilin at 7.30 for Liuzhou, a short trip of 2,5 hours. Against all odds we get seats.
Hard seat, not very full
In Guilin we had bought a little game of chinese chess. It looks very different from our chess and I don‘t know how to play it. An old guy next to me puts it on his suitcase and sets up the stones. Then he patiently explains how the different stones have to move. Like everywhere in China, everybody around us gets curious now and stands around us giving advice, i do not understand. Eventually the conductor comes and chases the others back to their seats. Now the old man corrects my mistakes himself. At the end he still wins.
We were never waiting alone for long. After a short while we were surrounded by curios spectators. Usually they moved away when i pointed my camera. So Martin, used as a shield, had to dive away quickly to take a picture
After we arrive in Liuzhou we go into the station hall. Maybe we can make a reservation for the next train, which runs overnight. However, we don‘t really know where to go. As we stand around a bit helpless in the huge station hall, surrounded by gawpers as everywhere, a pretty police woman approaches us. With the help of our language guide we try to explain that we want to make a seat or sleeper reservation for the train to Guiyang. She seems to understand and brings us to a board shed. The long line in front of the little openings in the wall indicates that this probably is the place where tickets are sold. But we do not have to wait. The beauty lets us enter right inside of the shed. From inside we see heads and hands of prospective travellers peaking through the holes. We get a reservation for a hard seat on train 403 at 16.30 right away. The police woman also helps us to stall our backbags so that we can have a look at the city.
Station road in Liuzhou
In the south of China my friend Mane got really fond of the chinese habit of chewing sugar cane. The cane is available at every street corner, you buy a stick a spit the chewed up remainders on the ground. So also here. But he did not take account of a little guy in a police jacket, who hardly reaches my shoulder. He grabs him at the neck and points to the ground. Indeed the streets here are surprisingly clean. Spitting is not allowed. But we get away with a reprimand.
End of dinner in Liuzhou. To order we went into the kitchen and pointed at the ingredients in the cupboards
Waiting for the train in Liuzhou...
The queues for the various trains departing soon in Liuzhou
After an excellent lunch we return to the station, get our backbags and sit down in the waiting area for our train. In china at the time, people had to wait in an area specified by a sign for their train and were led to the platform shortly before the train was about to depart. The train is indeed full. Very full. We have our seats, but we get all the attention of our local fellow travellers. No way to get any sleep in the more than 20 hours to come.
Yunnan spring countryside. Some stops seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, no station, no platform, only passengers
Suddenly a little railway man stands next to us and explains something non-comprehensible in chinese. We try the approach with the language guide again but to no avail. Meanwhile the whole coach is gathering around us. They even stand on the seats and the backrests to get a better view. At last there is a guy who speaks some french which Martin understands. The little railway man offers us tickets for a soft sleeper compartment. The problem is that these compartments only have four beds. Eventually we get the compartment for 100 yuan and one of us (guess who) is allowed to sleep on the floor.
Our soft sleeper compartment. Note the red thermos can on the floor under the window. Ht water is always available
The next problem is to get to the sleeper at the end of the full train. To get down the backbags from the luggage rack without killing somebody is already an achievement. But we make it. The compartment has best european sleeper standard, is meticulously clean (in all trains the conductors regularly sweep the floor), and we get a thermos can of hot water right away. The space on the ground easily accommodates the additional traveller. We even get away with a lower price of 70 Yuan for the five of us. The tip we offer is not accepted.
Yunnan in spring
We make ourselves comfortable and enjoy the view. Then we start to get hungry again and ask the conductor whether there is anything to eat. After some guessing we understand that the people from the restaurant car will get us when our food is ready. So we wait. After a while the train stops in a little station. Somebody knocks at our door. We are led out of the train onto the platform and they guide us to the dining car halfway down the train. The dining car is closed, but they open the door for us. We have a bit of a bad feeling because there are quite a number of other starving travellers waiting outside who are not allowed in. A table is set for 5 guests. A couple of others who managed to get in as well are kicked out right away.
“Renmin Tielu Wei Renmin” (the railway of the people is for the people” (cited in Paul Theroux, 1988)
In the dining car
The dining car is a bit rundown but nicely decorated with lamps on the tables, a bit of green decoration and almost white table clothes. Everything including beer is set ready for dinner. And then the food is carried in. Altogether we get seven freshly prepared courses. Tomatoes filled with tofu, roasted pork with vegetables, chicken, squid with vegetables and soy, pancakes, soup and rice. And a course which I cannot decipher from the scribble in my diary any more. The Liuzhou beer is excellent and flows in big quantities. The whole dinner costs us 40 Yuan, a negligible amount.
‘at mealtimes she was more reminiscent of a smith than a kitchen”, (Paul Theroux about the kitchen in the dining car on train 80 from Kunming to Guilin) “at lunch time they had dried fish, disgusting fat ham, rancid shrimp and rubber-like rice”
Passenger on a train crossing in the opposite direction
I am highly embarrassed when we walk back along the hard seat coaches to our soft sleeper. These poor people have to travel like on a slave trading ship. Later it turns out that there is only one sleeper in the long line of coaches. We probably got a compartment of the train staff.
Waiting room for first class, party functionaries and pregnant women
We arrive in Guiyang the next day at 13.10 after a trip of almost a whole day. The guard from the sleeper coach brings us into the station building and the waiting room for first class, party functionaries and pregnant women. There another friendly young lady brings us hot water for tea and somehow makes us understand that for the night train to Kunming there are only two soft sleeper and one hard sleeper bed available. Gents as we are we leave the soft sleepers to the two dutch girls and the hard sleeper to Martin, the swiss guy. A reservation for a seat is not possible since the train arrives from far away.
Shunting engine in the station of Guiyang
The friendly lady brings us to the platform shortly before the train arrives. At 15.24, exactly on time, the train rolls into the station, quite a feat since it arrives from Beijing 2000 km away. But our hope to get a seat dwindles. This train is very full. After a few people get out, there is a desperate run for the doors. The conductor tries to let us get in first, but has no chance. We are still among the first, but even the aisles are already full. We will have to stand for 15 hours.
Hard sleeper. Usually with lots of noise and music until 10 pm.
But we do not have to stand in the aisle for long. A conductor comes and examines our tickets. Then he walks along the seats and inspects the other travellers. Eventually we have to stand next to a couple of people who get out at the next station. Then the story of the train before is repeated. We are told that we can get hard sleeper beds. Under the envious looks of the whole coach we get our backbags from the luggage rack and manage to move ourselves through the train to the hard-sleeper. The plank beds there are by far not as comfortable as the soft sleeper. And there is no way to sleep before they turn down the music and turn off the light at ten. We get all the attention of our fellow travellers since there is no separation between the compartments. But it is better than standing for 15 hours.
The long line of coaches. Some trains had about 20; all full
And this train has a restaurant as well. It is closed but again we get the privilege to sit down and have a couple of beers before the kitchens opens two hours later. Then a run of the others for seats and food starts. We buy vouchers and get chicken, soup, squid, prawns and rice. Not as good as the day before but not bad.
“Chule fieji zhi wai, yangyang dou chi” (We eat everything except planes and railways), Mr. Jiang Le Song to Paul Theroux in 1988.
After a surprisingly good night‘s sleep we arrive in Kunming early in the morning. Exactly on time.
“I was the hairy, big-nosed devil from the end of the world, a foreigner that the chinese think of as the country's booby” Paul Theroux in 1988.
After he has coupled his engine QJ3130 on our train, the proud driver waits for the sign of departure. In 1986, these engines were brand new and still been built in the world's last steam engine production site in Datong. 10 years later most of them had disappeared into the blast furnaces again...
Paul Theroux published his epic book “riding the red rooster” in 1988. He must have traveled in China in the years before. He did the route from Kunming to Guilin in the opposite direction, on the direct train in a soft sleeper. It is almost conceivable that he sat on one of the trains we crossed on our way to Kunming. Or any other on the route between Beijing, Datong, Xian, Chengdu, Huangchow or Nanjing. But apparently he never got such nice food on a train.
“My trip to China took so long and asked me so much that it was no longer a trip. it had become part of my life”
Not much better than a train hard sleeper and worse than a soft sleeper.... dormitory in the Kunming hotel, Kunming
