Train to Beijing

Monday, April 26, 2010
Taxi to Hung Hom Railway Station, which is a hub for regional commute trains, as well as the through trains into Mainland China. The station is busy, but finding the immigration area and train departure lounge is not too difficult.

A “Deluxe Soft Sleeper” means bunks that are actually quite hard, but private toilet and table make a comfortable setting for the 24 hour trip to Beijing. After about an hour, we stop at Guangzhou, I think to change engines, and there is a knock at the door. People with uniforms  enter and there is a moment of confusion until the Conductor introduces herself and want to get into the toilet because it is “bad” workmen enter and after a bit of banging and commotion below the train car, all is fixed.

It's now the next morning and the countryside rolls by as I listen to Mark Knoffler and Emmylou Harris on my headset. I realize that, at least along this train route, there is not an acre of unused land. All is crops or towns, farmhouses or apartment blocks. I see buildings going up, or falling down, trucks & bicycles, isolated farmers in endless fields or trackside railway workers, Small backyard plots and new broad highways with no traffic. Much of what goes by is old and decrepit, but there is activity everywhere. The continuous rhythm of towns, fields, and cities is relaxing and gives some time to prepare for bustling Beijing.