This is Not the Hogwarts Express

Jessica and I were pretty excited to take the overnight train to Xi'an, until we sat down in our 4 bunk soft sleeper compartment and realized we might have to share with two strangers. We also discovered we had been given a top and bottom bunk but on diagonal sides of the compartment (i.e. top bunk not over the bottom bunk). Additionally, after some quick mental calculations, we realized the train was about 16 hours. Luckily, I had a pack of cards.

Our train departed Chengdu exactly on time to the minute. The conductor in charge of our soft sleeper car came and checked our tickets, and then switched them out for a plastic red tag (which we had to return at the end of the train ride, in order to have our original paper tickets handed back to us--not sure why this rigmarole was necessary). She also recorded our passport numbers (all foreigners must register all the time in China!) and asked if we had the swine flu. We of course said, "mei you!" (which means don't have!). Really, why would you ever say "Yes, I have the swine flu!" You'd probably get carted off somewhere never to return. Upon our departure from Chengdu, our compartment was still empty, however we realized that someone might still get on the train at a subsequent stop.

We looked out the window, which was pretty gray and dreary as it was raining in Chengdu, and then played cards. After a while we got hungry and visited the dining car. They didn't have a picture menu, but they did have pinyin next to the characters. After a lot of back and forth where I explained again and again that Jessica did not eat meat (and was Buddhist), the waitress finally recommended a stir fried tomato dish. I got a pork belly fried rice dish that was really yummy. It had these light green peppers (reminded me of like Slovak papriky) that were a tiny bit spicy, but not too much to detract from enjoyment of the dish. Jessica's tomato dish was actually really yummy, I don't know what they do to the eggs here to make them so good but this was quite tasty.

We got back to our car and played more cards. Around 7:30pm, our compartment door was opened by a Chinese gentleman, who looked like he was about 45-50 years old. He had the bottom bunk and seemed a little surprised, but not in a bad way, to find two young white girls in his compartment. Jessica was very surprised to find a man sharing our compartment, so I had a quick chat with the conductor (who was also female). She understood our predicament, and offered us the chance to switch into a compartment with a young couple traveling with a toddler. That seemed worse than sharing with an unknown man, so I asked if I could just take the top bunk in our compartment. She said the last stop for the night was at 10pm, so she could tell me if that bunk was taken then.

As it turned out, the guy in our compartment was pretty cool, we had some chats in Chinese (with me translating). He was an engineer working for Ericsson in Baoji, which is about 2 hours outside of Xi'an. He said he had many German friends through work, but didn't speak any English. We talked a little about what Jess and I were doing in Chengdu and Xi'an and how we were at Beida. He endeared himself to Jessica by commenting that Chinese are terrible drivers. He also at one point got into bed and removed his pants (which scared the crap out of both of us), but was wearing a pair of flesh tone and white striped long johns for modesty's sake, which we certainly appreciated.

At the 10pm stop the conductor told me it was fine to sleep in the top bunk, so we all got into our respective bunks. Our companion went to sleep, as his stop was at 7am, and Jessica and I continued to play cards until around midnight. Sleeping on the train took a little getting used to, as you are swaying and bumping a little, but I did get to sleep eventually, waking up early in the morning, perhaps 6am. The bunk was just long enough for me to sleep, but anyone else taller would have to curl up on their side like a shrimp.

Our train arrived in Xi'an just on time as well, but Jess and I were a little grumpy after being in a small space for 16 hours with a stranger. We decided to find an internet cafe so we could check flights from Xi'an to Beijing. Emerging from the train station was a bit of a shock too, as it was typically packed with peasants staring, the city was cloudy and grimy and it was humid and warm. We wandered around fruitlessly looking for an internet cafe, getting directions from people who kept saying we were near one, but we just couldn't find it. Finally we stopped in a hotel and I kept asking them to draw a map until they sent a bellhop to show us the place. As it turned out, the sign (I know the characters for internet cafe) was wayyyy up top and you couldn't see it from eye level.

As it turned out, the tickets for the plane trip were only 100 yuan more expensive than the overnight train, so we decided to book the tickets through Air China. This is where things got really, really messy.

Online reservation services in China appear to be unable to handle US credit cards, so the purchaser must go through a ridiculous rigmarole of sending copies of both sides of the credit card, a copy of your passport and a signed authorization form authorizing the agent to use your credit card. Luckily Jess and I had all the copies of everything in our emails from purchasing our flights on eLong a couple of days before. When we tried to book the tickets online, I got an error message from Air China so I called their online booking service. The booking service told me that I had to send in the above information, which I did. I had Jessica do the same. They then sent me a new authorization form, because the one I wrote myself (which they told me to do) was not good enough. We resent. My ticket was confirmed, however, they didn't process Jessica's because of various conflicting and stonewalling stories. The two versions we got the most were 1) we took more than 30 minutes to send in the payment information (this information is not posted anywhere of course) or 2) they don't accept debit cards; since Jessica's card is a debit/credit card that says debit on the front they rejected it outright.

We didn't find out that they canceled her reservation until we were on the bus heading to the terracotta warriors, which are about 20 km outside of town. We tried fighting with them on the phone but we were stonewalled with typical crappy communist customer service (or lack thereof). We decided to check back at the internet cafe after getting back from the warriors.