China Interuptus

The Chinese train to Beijing was two hours late arriving at the station. That gave us time to observe the masses that poured forth from the local trains. We sat on our packs in the middle of the train platform and watched a world of Mongolians revolve around us.

They came off the trains with jugs of araig (fermented mare's milk), with buckets of yogurt, with bags of cheese. They carted away canvas bags too heavy to lift. Their legs buckeled under the weight. "Argh!" they yelled as the back-bending loads were hoisted over a shoulder and a arm extended down to pick up another. Goats came off the trains, sheep, cart loads of truck filters and gear shafts. People squatted in conversations around their dairy products and spit the shells of roasted pine cones everywhere.

At 10:30, our train finally pulled into the station and the travellers that had been growing in numbers on the platform queued at the doors. We were off to China.

A rather dull, dusty landscape pulled across our windows for the first several hours. After we became acquainted with our French bunkmates and with the American's next door, we went to sleep.

CLICK! On went the lights. Our cabin door was pulled open. "Custom Declarations!" the woman at the door stated. She stood with her feet held apart, hands on hips, staring at us, waiting. I couldn't find them.

"I don't have them," I said. "I think someone in UB already collected them." I couldn't remember.

She waved the wad of forms at me and re-stated her command,"Customs declaration!"

"Yes, I know. But I can't find them." I bit my lip and dug through my pockets, my pack, my books. I shrugged my shoulders in defeat. "Sorry," I said. Oh God, I was in trouble now, I thought. I'd be forever stuck in that no-man's-land between borders. I'd heard it's happened before. One Nigerian was stuck for two years when he couldn't produce a valid passport. But my predicament wasn't as grim. The lady walked away to collect the papers from the other passengers and exited at the end. We had been forgotten. John and I sighed in relief and went back to sleep.

CLICK! Our cabin door was slid open again. The lights went on. "Passports!" came the call. A young man stood there, his rubber stamp at the ready. Cerchunk! He left. I turned out the light and went back to sleep.

CLICK! -Ugh, this was getting to be a nuisance. Now what. It was customs, come to check that we were taking nothing illegal into China. Then the train attendant came to give us our meal vouchers. None of these things could have been timed to occur simultaneously could they?

The final interruption came at midnight. A sudden bright light came like a cannon-ball through the window. I heard interupted intervals of the song "Funky Town" as we passed enormous loud speakers. The train shifted forward, lurched and let out a sigh. It was here to stay. Funky Town faded to Paula Abdul and other hits of the 80s.

We had reached the wheel-changing portion of our journey; a two hour event where the train cars are jacked up, the Russian wheels are rolled out and the smaller guage Chinese wheels are rolled underneath.

The passengers poured to the windows, camcorders poised to record the event. There was a lot of clanging and banging. The train cars were so slowly levitated that I didn't notice it had occurred until the cars were linked back together with much lurching and crashing. Intervals of silence were punctured by loud screeches and the ear-numbing sounds of metal slamming against metal.

At 2am, our new Chinese wheels slowly backed out of the garage and moved us south toward Beijing. As we picked up speed and slipped across darkness I finally fell back asleep to the rhythmic rocking on the rails.