Our quest to get out of Beijing
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
102
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Beijing,
China
Sunday, January 27, 2008
We tried at that travel desk for maybe our days, and then we tried the agent across the street. Occasionally they'd have one ticket, or tickets for the wrong day. Usually the line would be busy and they'd tell us to come back.
Thinking it would be difficult to get anywhere by train, we took a long walk to the huge bus station. Every sign was in Chinese. There was not a word of English anywhere
hoping for a train ticket
. We were prepared and had written out in characters that we wanted a bus to Xi'an. The lady read it okay but all she said was the dreaded "Mei you" (not have). No explanation as to what the problem was. We did find a woman who spoke some English but seemed incredibly ignorant about anything relating to buses to Xi'an. We could only find the characters for Xi'an in one place. We left defeated.We tried three different numbers to call the bus station and inquire about tickets through the hotel reception. No one picked up on any of the numbers.
The news was even more depressing. Record numbers of Chinese were taking to the rails; the numbers were increasing by a million passengers every day. To make matters worse, snow was falling through the central and eastern provinces. The heavy snow was closing highways and stranding bus passengers. This meant that people who would usually take the bus were forced to take the train. It only seemed to be getting worse. People were waiting at bus stations for a couple days, some stations were cancelling all their buses, and thousands of passengers were getting stranded. All we wanted was a ticket to Xi'an.
The last resort seemed to be a trip to the actual train station
the first gorge
. Reports of terrible queues and chaos did not sound promising. But then we heard of a couple people at the hostel who had bought tickets to Xi'an at the train station that very day. One night we took the metro down to the train station.We went to the Beijing Train Station because it was on the metro. Trains to Xi'an actually left from Beijing West. The station was enormous (West is supposed to be bigger). There are over 100 ticket counters at the train station. Half of them were outside. The queues stretched across the plaza. There are way too many Chinese people in China. Inside the ticket hall things were a little quieter (relatively). We got in a line that indicated it was for foreign people and waited with the decidedly non-foreign Chinese. When we finally reached the front the lady cursed to herself and called for help. We got an English-speaking lady that didn't know how to work the computer. She helpully told us she couldn't give us tickets to Xi'an. We had to go to Beijing West. Defeated again.
We tried again the next morning, early. We decided to try our luck with the lines outside, some of which indicated that they were for Beijing West. We had our written out request in characters. We got to the front and the guy told us that we needed to go to line 74 to get tickets to Xi'an. Line 74 was very long. It was very cold.
We waited for over an hour and I got the chance to study the Chinese institution of standing in line. From a distance it really looks like Chinese people stand in line. As you get closer to the line (and closer to the front), it turns out that line qualities start to disintergrate.
Poor Erin. These situations just drive her crazy. No one seems to want to actually stay in line and move forward in an orderly fashion. No. They want to visit their friends. They want to have a chat with the guy five people in front, and then maybe stay there. Or they go to talk to someone and then come back and resume their place. The best is when they leave the line to go to the front and stick there head near the ticket window. Maybe they want to see what's taking so long. Maybe they want to bribe someone to get their tickets for them.
The real annoying people are the ones that seem to have no regard for lines at all. They walk past all the people patiently waiting, butt in at the counter, and start demanding things. Sometimes people just let them do this. Other times people get angry. In our line there were, at any one time, at least ten people to either side of the window that were not actually in line. Sometimes it got nasty. At one point a guy was physically ejected from the scrum and a fight broke out right in front of us. Unfazed, the guy switched sides and got back in the scrum.
As the line reaches the ticket window it descends into a pushing match. The outside guys try to cut in and the people waiting in line have to fight for a spot. The woman in front of us was defended by the guy waiting with her, quickly shoving a space for her to reach the ticket window. We were undefended. The guys to either side saw us and snorted in contempt. We were very close to getting pushed out of line altogether.
It's at these times that we show what we're made of. Erin drove her leg in as an anchor and grabbed the counter while I cleared the guys to the side with a massive shove. Thus thwarted, the man involved in the fight earlier patted my head and yelled at me. A sign of respect perhaps? Or a curse on my family?
We were prepared for another Mei You. To our amazement, she looked at our paper and indicated that we could have a ticket for Tuesday. We stared at her in shock. Then we handed her fistfulls of money. And walked away with two hard sleeper tickets to Xi'an with no commission!
Persistance does pay off.
~Travis
