The Train Ride
On Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:30am to catch the bus to the Tianjin train station. The ladies downstairs told me to take the wrong #97, which took me to the old temporary train station instead of the main one. When I got to the end of the line, I asked the bus driver, and he said I'd taken the wrong bus and now I had to wait for another one, #24. Finally, I get on #24, and 1 hour and 45 minutes after I left the dormitories, I arrived at the train station. I find that there's hundreds of people trying to get into building where they sell tickets. We have to go through security checks and there's only so many x-ray machines, so the lines and crowds are pushing and shoving to get through the doors and through security. I doubt that, with all the crowds and hurrying people, they're doing a thorough job of checking for dangerous items. It's probably more for show and intimidation.
After you get into the ticket purchase area, you have to line up again to buy tickets. This time, at least the lines are orderly and straight, although I still had to wait 15 minutes for the 10 or so people in front of me. When it was finally my turn, many of the tickets had sold out. It was slightly before 9am and the earliest bullet train ticket available was the 10:50am one. The other option was the 9:30am regular train, but there were no seated tickets left. I decided to go for the earlier, but slower train, even if I had to stand. I figured it was better because the slower train stopped in the main Beijing station, where the subway lines stop and everything. The new bullet train stops in Beijing South station, which is pretty far from city center and only accessible by bus or taxi.
Little did I know, that the regular train would be horrendous. My standing tickets were pretty cheap, only 20 yuan, but I will gladly spend the 58 yuan for bullet train tickets every time from now on. After buying the tickets, you have to go out the building, and then push and shove to go through security again to get into the main terminal. That is the most ridiculous and inefficient setup I know, but it's China, things have to be complicated and difficult, toughens you up, you know. Finally I get into the main terminal and it's huge, like an airport. The picture at the top is of the Tianjin Train Station terminal. The masses of Chinese people everywhere will leave you dumbfounded. Almost every seat in the huge terminal was occupied, and there were people sitting on the ground, lying down, leaning against their bursting red, white, blue striped hemp bags, it was crazy. You could clearly tell many of them were from the countryside by their much darker, leathery skin, their dress, their bundles after bundles of hemp bags instead of suitcases, and their heavy accents.
When my train was called to board, I had to stand in line and shove yet again for ticket checks. This photo is the view of the train platform right after the ticket check, as we descended the escalator to the ground level. Notice how people on the ground are running to the trains. I didn't know why until I got in and saw that they were packing the train like sardines. Not only do you not have a seat, you don't get much breathing space either. 1.5 hours is a long time to stand after you've been standing in lines already at the train station before. My feet got so tired I sat on my backpack half an hour into the ride. One guy with a seat pitied me, so he gave me 4 inches of the edge of his seat to sit. So I squeezed and got some rest on my weary legs. But not much, for getting out of Beijing station was equally taxing.
We're already in Beijing, you would think it'd be ok, no more rushing or pushing to get out. But it's still a pain. You push and shove to get to the stairs to go toward the exit, then there's another train ticket check (why the redundancy? because it's China.) Getting to the ticket check is crazy because everyone is pushing to go toward the limited 6 or 7 ticket agents. Even after ticket checks, there's a constant hand or foot at your back pushing you towards the main doors to outside. For some reason, people are slow getting out the door and the people behind are impatient, so people like us in the middle get pushed into the people in front of us and you feel like a human sandwich. I was so glad to get out into the open air and not be squeezed into tight spaces. Yet that was not the end of lines. I still had to line up for 45 minutes to buy my return ticket on the bullet train. (in hindsight, I didn't need to because there were plenty of tickets left on Monday, but I didn't want to risk having this horrendous experience again.)
This is still not the end of the lines, because there are lines to buy subway tickets, and another line to go through security check to get into the subway station. I looked at that 40 person line, and decided to go eat and sit down instead. I was too tired and hungry. If I didn't get food and a seat, I'd probably scream or start murdering someone. So I went and found a place across the street to have a cold glass of soymilk and noodles. It was a nice respite for a weary traveler. After resting, I went to the other subway entrance near the restaurant (across the street from the train station instead of directly in front of the train station), and there were no lines to buy tickets or to enter. It was such a revelation. Walk a little farther, work a little harder, and then the air is clear and crowdless.
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