The station is big (although not as big as Beijing Central) and houses several food courts and 2 mini-market/dept stores which sell everyday stuff ranging from soaps to dried roast duck. There is a large waiting room for every platform, housing rows of seats for about a hundred people, each self-contained with its toilets, stalls selling food and cigarrettes, hot water and big screen tv. The train numbers are clearly displayed in the large LED screens at the top of the entrances to these waiting rooms. The air is smoky and as usual there is the constant sound of spitting (I shall devote an entire blog section to spitting one of these days...).
After finding our waiting room, we decide to have dinner in the food court (fyi there are 2 food courts - there is a cleaner one further away from the train platforms which offers freshly made noodles. We only spotted this later). I have major problems trying to buy our dinner (WHY is it I can communicate to mongolians, explain a rather complicated itinery, schedule a meeting at a specific date and address and get the officer's name, post, mobile number and days when he will be in the station, and yet cannot order duck rice in chinese?? *&^%$**!!!). Fortunately, the girl working behind the counter takes pity on me and very kindly walks to the front of the counter whilst I point at the images overhead. She somehow tells her colleagues and miraculously I get my rice and noodles. They are all giggling behind the counter as I drag her from one end to the other in order to get my particular orders (JD as usual, wants stuff that is not exactly standard order grrrrr...)
Finally at 9pm, we board our overnight train to Xian. Compared to the Trans Mongolian, this is the Orient Express. The train, as we find out, is brand spanking new (only 3 months old we were told). Carpets are clean and their toilets are like the ones you get on an aeroplane. There is a row of modern sinks along the end of each carriage with mirrors (and mirror lights.. ooo!) which allow passengers to wash up without having to enter the loo. Soft music (Elton John's "It's no Sacrifice) pipes softly throughout the corridors.
View of train aisle, just outside cabinsWe had booked Hard Sleepers (There are 4 classes - Soft sleeper, Hard sleeper, Soft seat and Hard seat. The chinks typically don't mince their words - each class is exactly as described, i.e. you get a soft berth in Soft sleeper and a harder one in Hard Sleeper. Hard sleeper is what most people go for and is perfectly adequate. An inch-thick mattress, pillow, duvet and clean sheets are provided). Each compartment has 6 berths, 3 on each wall. There is no door to the compartment but unlike the mongolians, the chinese have more class - they don't peer into your cabin. Utter bliss.
We share our cabin with a nice young chinese man (a student at Beijing uni), his two aunts and another man (a relative). He helps us store our rucksacks on the top compartment. There are staff pushing trolleys with hot food, noodles, fruit (even!) and magazines. JD buys a pomelo which we ask the guy's aunt to choose for us and which we all share.
A glossy local travel brochure (in chinese though) is provided in each cabin (did I mention the train feels like an aeroplane?). The nice young man shows me the pictures in the magazine and explains to me that this is a very beautiful part of China. Other pictures of medicinal plants that only grow above a certain altitude and pictures of locals in the area follow. I do a double take .. the faces look Tibetan.. and ask him if this was Tibet? He didn't seem to recognise the name and then showed me a picture of Potola Palace, explaining to me that this was a remote part of China. And then it clicked -- of course! Tibet only exists to the rest of the world. As far as China is concerned, this is China. So the Mongolians think China is still theirs and the Chinese think Tibet belongs to them. Isn't that ironic?
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