By Train and Bus Through China

I had been working as an English Teacher in the North Eastern Chinese city of Harbin throughout the very cold winter, for months' at a time the temperature would not rise above freezing. I had been employed here since the previous summer; one area of contention for me was that I was employed by several schools in and around the city. I had been promised work in just one school and although it was promised to me for the start of the new term in the February I had learnt that a promise like that in China meant nothing, it was just a way to keep you quiet for now. The schools I liked working the most and they liked me wanted me for more hours during the next term, but the company I worked for was not even considering this. This company also had an office much further to the south, they had vacancies and I had been approached to transfer down there.

In China they have absolutely no scruples whatsoever about poaching staff, even from within the same company. So even though my boss in Harbin was disappointed about my requesting a move he didn't really stand in my way of moving, the next hurdles were all the necessary red tape that is China that had to be dealt with, by that I mean any money they could get out of us as foreigners to assist us in our movements about the country, or call it lining their own pockets.

The system of buying train tickets in China up to ten days in advance, and quickly selling out, and this was at the time of the Chinese New Year so travel was at a peak and buying tickets was the first big hurdle, one of the Chinese office staff was also jumping ship as it were and transferring south, so he assisted as much as possible. The tickets were bought as soon as they went on sale and we then had to sit and wait until departure day.

We met up at Harbin railway station on the morning of departure and ready for the long journey south. Our first train took us to Beijing, and some 12 hours of travelling, although it was a daytime journey we had sleeper cars, it cost more than seats but at least we had room to stretch out, not so in the upright seats. With all our luggage we would not have fitted in around the seating area.

We arrived into Beijing around 8.00pm and had to transfer across the city from the main railway station to the Beijing west station. To get a taxi we had to cross the road with all our luggage, luckily a bridge that was still being constructed on our previous stay in the city was now open, making getting across the road much easier. We had to pile into 2 taxis with all our many bags and travel across the city.

Before we left the station we had to find two local teachers that had purchased tickets for us for our onward journey, another of the perils of travel in China you can only buy tickets for the train from that station.

On arriving at the next station we found our waiting room and sat for some hours, our next train was due to leave at 2.30am, some four and a half hours away. Sleep was impossible, too noisy and we had to keep our eyes on our belongings, as well as the travellers were a number of the capital cities homeless population, this being their home for the night.

Eventually we found our way onto the train and to our places, sleeping compartments but this time the lower class was all that was available. The bunks were three high, quite a climb up to the top level. We were on this train for 44 hours, at times it seemed like we would never get there. Especially when on the Sunday morning (last day on the train), I awoke in the cold, the train had been stopped for several hours and the heating, what little there was, was off.

Eventually we arrived into Chengdu city, the main city in Sichuan province, we had to stay overnight here in a hotel, it was so good to be in a real bed, and to be able to take a shower. The next morning we left the city for a three hour bus journey into the more remote areas surrounding the city, on arriving into Luzhou city, where we thought we were to stay we had yet one more bus to catch, into the even more remote location of the school, Luxian No1 school would be our home for the next few months, and little did we know it at the time but we were right in the path of one of the largest earthquakes to hit that region before we left. We didn't even know we were in earthquake territory.

We travelled through very varying landscapes from flat lifeless in the north, through mountains, for many miles alongside rivers. Seeing places that many from outside China never get to see, it was a challenging journey one that I was glad to have taken, but not one that I would want to again.