depthq - ccm|mac

About China

I haven't written much about Beijing or China as a whole. Dominic has many posts on them and Bjorn also has some interesting ones. Also, I've not travelled as much on trains as Wang Chun but I think I've got a slightly different perspective.

Disaster

Out of the 4 times my girlfriend and I have taken a train, 3 times have gone in disaster, somehow always being late.

Anyway, out of those 3 times, only once did we not get on the train, which was very much my fault. Almost always after making a few calls and slipping through the security, we managed to find a way. So I wanted to tell a story about returning to Beijing at the end of the Spring holidays from Zheng Zhou.

Revelation

It did not come to us immediately that we might not be able to get back to Beijing. We were so excited about Spring Festival celebrations and about being home that we totally forgot to get the train tickets. Maybe it was impossible anyway, but we didn't really try, because we know that we could get help from a friend who works at the train station.

So it was the sixth day of Spring Festinal or Chinese New Year. Our bags all packed and we headed for the train station. We stopped by the 'mi pier' shop to savour the most delicious noodle type of snack. No regrets! But we took our time, we should have been at the train station earlier, it seems.

Damn!

We got a call from our friend at the train station. We needed to get to the train station as soon as possible. It seems there might be some problems.

We arrived and met with him outside the train station. We headed towards the employee's entrance. The guard at the entrance disallowed us to enter. He told our friend that he won't allow because there are already too many people trying to return home at the end of the Spring Festival holidays.

Hope

For a moment, we were at lost. Our friend makes a few calls, told us to wait for a moment and then took my bag and went into the station. Soon after, a lady arrived, who was a friend of our friend. There was a couple and another guy that needed to get on the train as well with her. She directed us to follow her. She was on the phone with another guy; We were trying to meet him at another entrance. Quickly we headed for the south entrance of the train station, trying to find this other guy.

We waited for a while and met this other guy. He looked authoritative. The lady and him were discussing for a while, devising a plan of attack. She told us to enter the train station with all the other passengers and they will meet us inside. We headed for the entrance. There was a long line and we had to put our baggage through security check. After a few minutes, a lot of pushing and being pushed, we were inside. The lady and the other guy was already waiting for us. We followed them through the halls of the train station. We headed for a gate that did not have many people. The train for that gate was not scheduled to leave yet. Only one person was securing the gate. That person wanted to stop us, but he didn't try hard enough. We just walked by him. We suspect also that the man must have been some higher ranking employee that he recognised.

So we went through the gate and then went down to the hall you would normally take to exit the train station after arriving or sending off friends. But this time we were entering, not exiting. This hall would take you to any of the platforms and there would be no guards to stop you.

Beijing

After a short walk, we arrived at our platform. Hurray! We did it again (Not something to be too proud about). We were on the way back to Beijing. My girlfriend and I had to share one bed, like other people on the train that failed to get the proper ticket.

Thinking back, we realised that the lady and the other guy are employees that our friend knew and he called them for help. We feel really grateful for their help and next time, we will buy our tickets earlier. These disasters have to stop, although they do make pretty interesting stories.