Leaving Beijing, Arriving in Luoyang

May 4, 2011

We got another lazy start to our day (although sadly, I was back to waking up at 5am) and asked for a late check out from the hostel so we could repack for our side adventures. We arranged to leave our big bags at the hostel so we could travel with only our backpacks. It was kind of neat: the hostel didn’t have luggage lockers or even room behind the counters. We just left our bags next to the counter and left it on faith that they would be fine. It helped that one of the hostel staff and Megan had become new BFFs, so we felt good leaving our bags with Tracy watching over them.

Cuing up Kill Bill 2 in the Canadian bar

Our first stop after checking out was the Canadian bar next door, where we stopped for some beers and snacks. It was a kind of rainy day and we were feeling a little slow anyway, so we stayed for a while watching their big screen TV. We put in Kill Bill  to get us pumped up for our upcoming visit to the Shaolin Temple.

The Canadian bar's dog

Pai Mei!

Children playing

Beijing hutong

We eventually left the comforts of the bar and wandered around Beijing for a while.


















We ended up at Jing Shan Park, which is an artificial hill that overlooks the Forbidden City and has impressive Beijing city views. The park was actually formed from the dirt excavated to make the moats around the imperial palace. It was a very pretty park and did have great views!

Jing Shan Park

View of Forbidden City from Jing Shan Park

We set off early for the train station. Our train wasn’t supposed to leave until 10pm but we were advised to get there 2 hours early. Not knowing what to expect, we decided to listen to the advice. Two hours was plenty of time, or way too early, depending on how you wanted to look at it. So we ate dinner in the train station and then waited for the train.

We had booked “hard seat” passage, which is the lowest and cheapest train ticket. Since we booked our tickets only the day before, there were no sleeper berths available. To quote one of my guide books: “The cheapest class is hard seat, which seats three people side-by-side on lightly cushioned seats. Although fine for short journeys, spending more than four hours in a hard seat carriage can be quite unpleasant. Carriages are usually crowded and dirty, the speakers blare endlessly, lights remain on at night, and the compartments are filled with smoke.” I was a little nervous about being miserable. But it was only 1 night. And cost only ~$15. And at least we had reserved seats instead of standing room only tickets.

We boarded the train only to find people in our seats. No problem, they moved right away when we showed them our tickets - they actually moved to other seats. As the train filled, we figured out the drill. Lots of people did not have assigned seats, so they sat down anywhere right away, in the hopes no one would claim the seat and they would get to stay. Most of them were disappointed and the train was filled with standers as we departed from the station. I didn’t even want to think about having to stand for the 10 hour ride to Luoyang! Fortunately for these people, as the train made stops all night, the crowd thinned out and everyone had a seat by about half way through the night.

Sleeping on the train

Reading on the train

I have to say that the guide book’s description of hard seat travel was spot on, except I would argue that the seats were not “lightly cushioned” because covering a wooden chair with a single piece of fabric does not count as padding it. My butt was literally numb by the end of the trip. The cabins were officially non-smoking, but people could smoke between cars, and since the doors between cars were left open, the smoke went everywhere. It wasn’t worse than your average pre-smoking ban bar, however. There were times where it was very noisy. A guy across from me played an electronic game of Mah-jongg for the first hour or so, so his little Gameboy or whatever screamed out “MAH-JONGG!!” or some other phrase every few seconds. Many people listened to music without headphones. I don’t know if they don’t like headphones, they don’t think they should have to wear them, it never occurred to them they might be bothering other people, or (as it certainly seemed in some cases) they thought other people actually liked to hear their music. It was an interesting cultural experience, for sure. One nice thing about the train was the bathroom. Since the waste was not stored, but rather deposited directly on the tracks as we traveled along, the bathroom was one of the least smelly I visited in China! I did manage to catch some sleep here and there on the train, and we arrived as scheduled shortly after 8am in Luoyang. Thank goodness for ear plugs and sedatives! Despite the noise and the smell and the discomfort, the trip was not as bad as I was expecting. I guess I can thank all the guide books for their miserable descriptions of hard seat travel – it made anything better than truly awful seem ok. I would even do it again if I had to.