Travelin' on the T99

We arrived in HK on Thursday, after that glorious 20 hour train ride I mentioned.  Usually I leave the logistical rundown to Ed, but in this instance I'm going to broadcast.  And, since we're out of mainland China and not re-upping our visas, I'm going to be perfectly candid.  Perhaps the internet monitors will pass my feedback along to the appropriate infrastructure division.  Heh.

Traveling between places in China is a pain in the arse.  Even when we'd done our research and knew with certainty what we were trying to achieve it was a shit show.  Purchasing train tickets to HK required 2 trips to the main train station and 2 trips to satellite offices.  Probably 5-6 hours were wasted following directions from hotel staff and China Railway counter people who had not one shred of a clue between them what they were talking about.  I mean, I could have used that time to further my study of Confucianism.  Or to have more acupressure foot massage.


Eventually, I scored the super deluxe tickets and was assured (believe me, I asked for confirmation more times than was polite) that we would be in a car with only 2 bunks and a private bathroom.  And each of us was, just in adjacent different cars, shared with strangers.

This isn't the first or the third time this has happened to us in China.  Fortunately, the sweet old man in my lower bunk swapped tickets with Ed, and all was resolved.  The rest of the evening, as we shelled peanuts and played cards and watched Modern Family on the laptop, we joked about my doing those things with the 88 year old from Shanghai instead of Ed.  About he and I hitting the dining car to share some mapu tofu, lying in our bunks talking about our hopes and dreams, or watching the passing scenery.  We were happy it didn't shake out that way, but the montage was hilar. 

Overall, we had a blast on the trip here and like the idea of traveling by long distance train again.  It went by so fast and was far less stressful and more comfortable than air travel.  The one major malfunction was the smoke.  Seemingly all men over age 12 in China are chain smokers.  I read that 27% of Chinese people don't believe that smoking and lung disease are related.  They're chimneys and there is no escaping.  Unfortunately on a train without open windows, this means that the ventilation system cycles smoke from the hallway through the cabin vents, where it lands on your pillow.  I woke up completely congested and lost my voice the next day.

10 points train travel, 0 points HVAC.