Tag Archives: train

Ready to roll (more or less)


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov. 29 – Beijing

It smells like snow even though there is none. The bleak, dense, expectant sky reminds me of winter. That’s as literary as I get on what will be a very prosaic post.

I spent today preparing for 2.5 days of continuous rail travel, which will take me from China, through Mongolia, to Siberia. Laundry, of all things, has provided the most excitement. Daniel’s away on business, and in his absence I failed to make the washing machine work. Rather than risk some flooding or electrical mishap, I hand-scrubbed my small pile of laundry. There is no dryer in the apartment, and it is now a race against time to get the clothes dry enough to pack for tomorrow morning’s departure.

A trip to the supermarket yielded the following supplies: instant noodles, oatmeal, rice chips, banana chips, and tea. Also, a travel mug, plastic bowl with cover, spoon and fork. At lunch, I tested the noodles and dishes to ensure no surprises in taste or functionality. The train will have a dining car, but bringing a reliable stash is a good precaution. This leg will be about learning what works and what doesn’t. As I continue westwards, I will adjust my mix based on experience.

Yesterday I bought the Let’s Go travel guide to Russia. I know this could doom me to following the beaten path, but it is important to have basic information at hand. I’ve contacted a hostel in Irkutsk – stay tuned to see how that goes. Anyway, it’s better than showing up with no plan in a place where Friday’s predicted high temperature is -7 degrees Celsius.

One thing I don’t have is Rubles. I failed to get some at a bank in Beijing, but I’m not too worried. I’ve got Yuan and a few Yankee dollars for the train, and Let’s Go says ATMs abound in Irkutsk. As a reference, I also know the exchange rate.

If things go according to schedule, I should be in Irkutsk (and blogging) on Friday. But I’ve pre-written a couple of short travel-related posts to tide over my absence from the wired world, which will appear on Wednesday and Thursday.


Anaesthetized by speed


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov. 20 – The 0900 from Shanghai to Beijing

Good, fast, cheap. Choose two. For the first land stage of my journey, I chose good and fast. At 1750 Yuan (about $250), my first class ticket on the brand-new high-speed rail line was definitely not cheap, and a small fortune by Chinese standards. On that frustrating first day in Shanghai, when I bought my Beijing ticket, I had opted for the maximum contrast in convenience. So as I strode through the large, new Shanghai Hongqiao station, the reflection of shop signs projecting onto the spotless, polished corridors, my expectations were high. And they were met.

Waiting on platform 2 was a long, white, dolphin-nosed magnetic-levitating land rocket. Since this summer, a fleet of these trains have sped the 1300km between Beijing and Shanghai, one per hour. The first class compartment had 24 wide, fully reclining leather seats, in rows of three. Purple uniformed attendants did their attending – serving a meal and drinks unobtrusively, while us rich folk sat there playing around with power adjust buttons; forward, back, leg rest up, leg rest down, back rest up, back rest down.

The train wasted no time getting up to speed. The acceleration was smooth, but within perhaps five minutes we were over 200km/h, and it only took a further two minutes to get up to 300km/h, where we remained on cruise control most of the way (the LED sign over the door topped out at 310km/h). One of the first high-speed trains had crashed at 340km/h, I was told, so the throttle had been dialed back a bit since then.

As a mode of transportation, riding first class for five hours at high speed (we made one stop in Nanjing) is unsurpassed in comfort. You put your feet up, settle back in the leather, and watch China pass by. There’s actually no real sense of velocity, no blur. Brown and green fields, overpasses, power lines, construction cranes, new apartment blocks, factories, and crumbling brick hovels simply enter, then exit from view. You hear a dull, constant rumble – no Duke Ellington clack-a-clack – and feel gentle swaying as the train banks slightly through the turns. I read some, chatted with the fellow rich folk from Hong Kong and Hamburg, then tested the full recline mode and quickly fell into one of those states from which you arise not sure if you were asleep or not. We glided into Beijing South station just before 1400, no long, protracted arrival. In and done.

So it’s awesome transportation, fine. But it’s not travel. Travel is where you’re bored, you’re uncomfortable, you can’t wait for it to be over, you don’t know when it will be over. But travel is where you’ve got stories to tell. This was quick and painless, and I’ve got nothing more for you than the rail equivalent of Car & Driver. The Trans Mongolian will be different.