Standing room only.
Woke up and got to the train station dreading and searched online how to deal with our standing room only trip. We found a place for our big bags which was a good start. For about an hour and a half we found empty seats before a big stop and the seats were booked so we had to get up. At this point every place in our car was filled with someone standing, sitting anywhere (even the sink) or sitting on a stool they brought with them. We managed to get through to a car selling unused seats, unfortunately this train was totally sold out, but this car was less crowded so I made my way back through the madness to get our bags. After getting our bags I waited for a person with a cart selling food to start down the aisle and I used him as a fullback creating a opening in the sea of people that I could follow until there was a large opening near our new car. All this time people where laughing and starring at the crazy foreign “Donkey Friend” (that’s what they call backpackers in Chinese).
Seats!
Finally making it back, a group of 3 people let Charlotte share the 3 seats they paid for and a woman across from Charlotte pulled out a foldable stool for me to use in the aisle, but then 2 other people said they were tired of sitting and took turns letting me sit in their seats. At 5pm the people sitting with Charlotte got off so again we found ourselves with seats.
It was comfortable the entire trip until around 7pm when we stopped at a factory town and hundreds of factory workers got on. Two sat next to me and 1 across. In China I am used to people staring at me, but this was to a different level. They started by comparing shoe sizes with me, then how long my legs were. It was like they were investigating an alien. Then they started talking about my watch, like they had never seen one, and they wondered if American time is the same thing as Chinese time. They concluded it had to be because my watch was the same as clocks in China. Then when they saw me taking notes for this blog in my notebook, about 2-3 more came over all leaning over as far as they could staring at these exact words in amazement. Later I pulled out my Lonely Planet guide book and they all gasped at the size. Then I pointed out the page for Sichuan province and they were happy when they saw the Chinese characters for their province. Charlotte also got a taste of how it is to be different as everyone starred in amazement at her Kindle.
Another worker came by and started rambling to anyone that would listen (which it seemed no one would) about the evils of America and Taiwan and the great communist party, as well as a lot of conspiracy theories. Just before the end of the trip, a train employee started selling a product in the car. This isn’t unusual, but this time it was a special filter for cigarettes to make them less unhealthy (he had the right car because our car was totally filled with smoke). He got to our section and tried to sell it to the worker across from me telling him how bad cigarettes are and how this will help protect his lungs. The worker replied “But I don’t smoke!” to which the train employee, selling the product to protect your lungs, gasped and responded “You don’t smoke! No girl will ever like you if you don’t smoke!”
Finally arriving at Chengdu at midnight we checked into our hostel, Charlotte ran into another Taiwanese person and he brought her to street BBQ on a stick...then we finally get some sleep.
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