train

At 1730 after returning to the hostel from an hour or so online and after drinking my third 1.5l bottle of water of the day, got a taxi from outside the hostel. Not being able to say in Chinese where I wanted to go, I instead waved my train ticket at the driver; this revealed to him that i) I had a lot of time 'till my train and ii) I had a very expensive seat, so I became fearful that he would drive me all round the houses instead of a direct route. As it happened, he took me straight there, heading north and east through the city grid, but never backtracking south or west. The ride cost CNY9 (actually 8.60, but everyone rounds up for tourists instead of using shitty useless coins and notes).
In the taxi, the driver babbled at me in foreign for a bit, then spelled out the letters "U... S... A..." (both out loud and with his finger). I said "no, England" and after five minutes thought he spelled out "e.. n.. g... l... i... s... h"
Outside the station, its like a refugee camp. I head inside, through the laughable security checkpoint and find signs for the "Z20 soft sleeper lounge" (Z20 is the top end express to Beijing that I am to take).
I don't know at the time if I am to be in softsleep or hardsleep but I head in there anyway as it looks nice. No one tries to stop me at the ticket checking counter, perhaps because of my white skin.
Inside, airconditioning blows pleasantly on the back of my neck. I'm the only whitey there to begin with.
A chinese lady sits next to me with a baby, which I wave at. She makes the baby wave back to me and say hello in Chinese, then strikes up a short conversation "What are you writing?" (A journal) "For remembering?" (yes) "How about Xi'an?" (its very nice but too hot) "Yes, too hot but Beijing is too hot too" Then baby cries and she wanders off.
At one end of this luxurious waiting area, a flatscreen TV shows CCTV1 (?news, not closed circuit television); at the other end, another device shows a drama of wizards fighting each other in ancient peasant village (lots of that on TV here).
Suddenly crowds of whiteys appear, mostly older and in caps, looking like theiy are on a tour group which confuses me as I do not initially see the ubiquitous tour-guide-with-flag-on-a-stick; eventually I locate such, a purple triangle on a metal telescopic rod. Very high rolling luggage quotient.
I've checked out peoples tickets here - they seem to have paid more (417 CNY vs 400) but not much more. I puzzle over the price difference (later to discover its the difference between top bunk (cheap but I prefer) and bottom bunk (more expensive but people want to sit and puke and piss on it, in my experience).
At 1840, a surge and people start queuing to board... the outside platform smells of piss and shit like the rest of the chinese outdoors.
There are three people in the four berth cabin (the very last in the train). t Then me. Then three more arrive. This puzzles me, but eventually it turns out that some are only saying goodbye and leave after half an hour or so.
The layout of the carriage is much as russian kupe carriages are laid out; a little net by each bunk to put your stuff in, storage space over the corridors just big enough to fit my rucksack. But being the Z20, it has superiour fittings too -- each bunk has a 6 channel flatscreen TV, with padded headphones far superiour to those supplied on airlines. Muzak is piped over the speakers at the start of the journey - Carpenters etc. Not as cool as in Russia where the invariably started each trip with Global Deejays / What a feeling....
Also in contrast to Russian kupe class, there are no drunked soldiers to give me free food and alcohol; and people actually use the little ladders at the end of each bunk to get to the top, rather than dragging themselves up with their arms. At 1923, we leave, bang on time.
The provodnik comes along to unlock the lavatory. A little girl from my cabin uses it straight away; i decide I should use it too, while it is still clean... the state of train toilets is legendary around here.