My visa was up in a few days, so I decided to take the train from Shanghai to Hong Kong. If I’d had more time I would have taken several days to wander through Yunnan, but the consequences of overstaying on a Chinese visa, whatever they may be, were not on my bucket list.
I had learned that the T99 train to Hong Kong (called Jiulong in China) left every other day from Shanghai Railway Station at 18:20. I purchased a ticket one day in advance and arrived on the day of departure at roughly 16:00. I ate a sandwich at KFC with that furtive, shamefaced self-loathing that is a hallmark of eating at KFC.
Then I waited in line with everyone else to go through customs to ride the Hong Kong train. When the gates leading to security finally opened what was a queue turned into a stampede as if starving people had all of a sudden sighted food.
A fight between grown adults, some of them elderly, somehow erupted just a meter or so in front of me, and it took several moments for the snarling, screaming and puffing-of-feathers to subside. I had never seen middle-aged people swing at each other over their place in a queue, their adult children holding them back and shouting obscenities in Mandarin at one another.
The funny thing was that the first queue led to the bag-check/metal detector, then another line formed for customs, then there was another waiting area before finally getting to the platforms. So, the adults were basically fighting to get to the metal detector security area first.
All combat aside, I had no problem shuffling through customs and eventually to my train car - number three.
I had once taken a train from Jinan to Beijing and was picturing a nice long eating car with dining tables to sit at and drink coffee, read and gaze out the window. These fantasies were quickly dashed as I shouldered through to my “seat,” which was like a coffin directly under the ceiling.
But, the linens were clean and the pillows were a nice median between firm and giving; and after getting my bags stuffed into place, I took stock of my surroundings.
I was in the “hard sleeper” zone, which, despite its name, is actually a cushioned cot. Passengers are stacked three high in columns of two in a room, so six people were stuffed into a space the size of a minivan. In the “soft sleeper” you get more space as only four are stuffed into the same-sized area, plus there are hangers, wider beds and brown carpeting on the floor instead of navy blue carpeting.
The aisle, which accommodates conservatively the shoulder-width of an average-sized grown man, has fold-down seats and little tables for sunflower seed shells and a can or two of beer.
It is a compact affair- they prudently spare no room where a ticket-holding passenger may physically fit- yet everything is surprisingly clean and the beds, granted you are able to reestablish your limbs in their sockets after getting inside, are as cozy as a womb.
There was a restaurant car, yet it only seemed to be open from about 19:00 – 19:30 and for the same amount of time the next morning at breakfast. After that it was off-limits. Luckily, a nice man came through the aisles with a cart of pre-packaged meals. The meal was tasty and a bit of a fun adventure in guessing which animal or vegetable its various elements came from.
The scene in the aisles throughout the cars was a lively affair, everyone smoking and drinking and spitting and licking their fingers and shouting at one another. It as if everyone knew one another.
Around ten the lights went out and I scampered up into my pod with acrobatic finesse. I read by a personal light on the wall behind my head and quickly fell asleep to the sounds of the swaying train.
In the morning I made instant coffee with the hot water freely provided by a courteous spigot in the joints between cars and watched the countryside zoom past on our way to Hong Kong. When we arrived the mood was gay, not a punch was thrown and customs was a breeze.
Hello, Hong Kong!