36 Hours

Last Saturday, we left for our first big trip of the semester. We were all excited to spend a week touring Dunhuang and Xi’an. We were told that the train to Dunhuang was 36 hours, but I figured that I would sleep for the majority of the time and enjoy reading and talking to my classmates the rest of the time. Granted, the longest train I had ever taken was just over two hours, but it was a fairly enjoyable and relaxing experience. Really, how bad could it be? :)

My first red flag should have been the way the other students who had taken long train rides before were talking about sleeper trains in China. One word? Loathe. They described the living quarters as small, the beds hard, the food expensive, and the bathrooms...no comment. Oh come on! It can’t be that bad. A little optimism please!

The trip started off harmless enough. We met at the school, and our director’s wife met us with a delicious dessert from my favorite French bakery in town. How did she know? We traveled by bus and arrived at the train station an hour early. I spent that hour talking to a nice woman and taking pictures of old Chinese men with their Buddha bellies hanging out. Sorry for the visual. We boarded the train around 10:30 p.m..

My first impression? Shock. I walked on, and all I could see were tiny (TINY!) compartments with six beds in each. There was about a two feet walking space between the two columns of three beds, and the beds were so close together that it looked like you couldn’t sit up on the middle or the top bunk. There was a three feet wide walking path outside the compartments, just big enough for a food cart full of shrimp-flavored chips and artificial meat on sticks to pass through. No thanks. I kept walking, wondering when we would get to our place on the train (two people to a room, two beds, a bathroom, and maybe even some Chinese ESPN, right?), but to my honest and utter SHOCK, I saw members from our group throwing their baggage up top and sitting on the beds in these little rooms. Were they still cleaning our rooms? Aren’t we going to get in the way of the people who are going to sleep in these six-bed compartments? Oh, Ben (Matt?), Ben, Ben.

Second red flag. We started piling in, and I noticed that there were boys and girls in the same compartments. Wait…what? I know that bonding is one of the fun parts of these trips, but isn’t this a little too much? When questioned, our program director didn’t see what the problem was. I mean there weren’t doors and I didn’t feel like we were breaking BYU standards, but I did think that we were flirting with a line that did not need to be flirted with. I mean people, cooties! No, but seriously, it was kind of weird.

The train pulled away, and people started to get ready for bed. I was on the bottom bunk. While you can’t sit up on the middle or top bunk (I’m laying on my back right now as I am typing this from the top bunk of our only 20-hour train from Xi’an to Nanjing), you can fully sit up on the bottom bunk. It really was a blessing. I went and brushed my teeth (out of respect for those whom I love, I will not make any comments about the bathrooms) and then got in bed. Luckily, I was exhausted, and I quickly fell asleep to the sound of Chinese radio and the smell of cigarette smoke. Wait, we’re paying for this?!

I slept in until almost 11 the next morning. I ate some breakfast (wheat bread, bananas, and oranges I brought from Nanjing), read my scriptures, started a book, and then enjoyed looking at the scenery with my classmates. It was time for lunch. More wheat bread, bananas, and oranges but this time finished off with some of my favorite Japanese cookies. I tried to keep reading my book, but with 12 people cramming into our compartment barely big enough for Mr. Whiskers (my pilot blog…if you will), I found it difficult. I managed to fall asleep amidst the conversations about science fiction movies and the military. I was grateful. I woke up and after weighing my options (I didn’t have to think too much), I decided it was time for dinner. Wheat bread, bananas, and oranges finished off with cookies. Do you see a pattern? I finished dinner and realized that there were still four hours until lights out. I looked around. My friend was reading my book and had gotten farther than I was, and my bed had four people sitting on it. Trying to stay positive and look for the positive aspects of the situation, I went down the compartments looking for a conversation partner. I saw four Chinese men chatting, so I went and asked them if I could sit down. I think they were desperate too. They happily invited me to take a seat. I spent the rest of the night chatting with this group of Chinese men. We talked about the usual topics: America, the Chinese language, education policies, and of course…the NBA.

We went to bed at 11 p.m., and I didn’t wake up until…4 a.m.!!! I had gotten used to people running into my legs when I slept at night because they were hanging over and taking up more than half of the three-foot hallway, but I was unprepared to be woken up by cabin lights and a lady poking around my bed with a metal rod. What time is it? Are we there yet? No and no. Someone had lost one of their shoes, so the train attendants pulled out everything except the search dogs to find it. The lights turned back off around 4:30 a.m. The shoe was found.

Our director’s wife woke us up around 7:30 a.m., and we arrived in Dunhuang an hour later. We grabbed some breakfast on the street (anything but wheat bread, bananas, and oranges please!), and then we took a 2-hour bus to our hotel in Dunhuang. 36 hours! I was (k)exhausted!

My thoughts and feelings on the 36-hour train ride? While I don’t think I will ever choose to use long train rides as a primary means of transportation when traveling abroad, I certainly thought that it counted as a very authentic cultural experience. Like my loving mother often says, “I am here for the full program!”