Sunday 5th October, 2014                     Noon

I’m getting too old for this travelling “joy”. Thirteen hours after getting off the train last night and my body is still on the damned thing. I never used to have any after effects after a sea trip or flight.

Knowing food would probably not figure very much yesterday, I ensured I was early enough for the McDonald’s breakfast menu. I had the breakfast plate with scrambled eggs, muffin, burger and hash browns but decided afterwards I would have been better off having a McMuffin. At least I had eaten something though.

The first train (as mentioned) was the high speed express D train which does Yiwu to Hangzhou in an hour, half the time of the slower high speed K trains. The D trains are impressively new and sleek and everyone has a small table in front of their seat. My seat was occupied when I boarded but simply showing the errant “standing ticket” passenger was enough to see him get up and stand, leaving me free to flop into it. In fact the chap very kindly lifted my case up onto the luggage rack, something with my arm I find impossible to do, given the weight of luggage I packed. I couldn’t help but notice the train doesn’t seem to go any faster than the K trains - I was expecting to be streaking through the landscape but that wasn’t the case. I am convinced the huge time saving is purely because it doesn’t stop at many stations.

I had a couple of hours to wait in Hangzhou and could have shovelled more sustenance into myself but so soon after breakfast I  wasn’t hungry. I knew I was condemning myself to Garibaldi biscuits for the rest of the day. The second train was very busy with standers mainly using the vestibules between carriages. This of course is where one can smoke and even as a smoker I found the atmosphere highly unpleasant. It wasn’t as bad as going for a tinkle though. The toilet windows were locked shut, resulting in the ammonia stench of old urine being strong enough to make the eyes water. It was a case of go in, squeeze hard whilst trying to hold your breath and then get the hell out as quickly as possible. One time when I was having a smoke someone left the toilet door open, allowing the toxic air to circulate which was most unpleasant.

Chinese train toilets are often simple squat affairs with a pipe which funnels effluent directly onto the tracks, no such things as septic tanks. One time a door was left open and to my disgust I noted that someone had left a turd that was easily a foot long sitting in the toilet glaring malevolently at passersby. Perhaps it was just as well that I wasn’t going to be eating.

Of the seven hour trip on that train, about an hour in total was spent standing idle in the middle of nowhere and for no apparent reason. Very frustrating when all you want to do is get home. Just after eleven my trip ended and I braved the gauntlet of the people trying to convince me to take a room in whatever hotel they were touting and went to the bus station car park where my bike was waiting for me. Twenty minutes later I was home. I washed all my laundry and hung it up to dry and by then I was overtired so knew I wouldn’t sleep. In fact it was almost four when I turned in. Had I known at the start this would happen I could have taken a pie from the freezer and heated it up.

Hefei will see me dining with multimedia Vivian and also Anna who lives close by. She is returning to school on Tuesday as well so she said she would go and try and buy “contiguous” train tickets for us. As I have never heard anyone refer to adjoining seats by that word, my guess is she used an online translator! Anyway, there are no seats left on that train nor any standing tickets, not that I would be prepared to stand anyway. I told her we would have to take the bus instead, more expensive but guaranteed a seat, plus there is more than one bus a day, unlike the train. Unfortunately, an online search for tickets for me to get there tomorrow showed me the outbound train is also sold out. Consequently after my shower I am going to the bus station to see if I can buy a ticket for a bus, hopefully leaving late morning. I will also travel light, minus laptop this time. I will also have to get some food inside me. I just wish I could get off the train………

2000

Having booked a hotel room at a price which didn’t include breakfast I asked my friend Steve in Shenyang how much it costs and also how much the Happy Panda restaurant is for dinner. I need somewhere nice to take the girls to eat. To my surprise he has contacted the hotel and told them to upgrade my room to one on an executive floor! Very kind of him indeed, for that now means breakfast is included and in addition I get the use of the executive lounge atop the hotel where drinks and snacks are complimentary! Now all I have to do is make sure I am up in time on Tuesday so I can take advantage of an almost English start to the day.

I will be offline once I leave here tomorrow, I’ve had enough of hauling heavy baggage and will just be taking a change of clothing, a book and something to drink en route.