Down the Lazy River

"Oh, You're so brave", said my liaison in the International Cooperation Department as he agreed to arrange a university car to take me to the train station the night I was to depart, on my own, for a 10-day, end-of-school-term jaunt across China by train and boat. "Not really" I smiled, wondering to myself if he knew something I didn't. "You're taking one of your students with you, aren't you" asked the other American teacher when she heard about my plans. "No", I said, "what I'm really wanting is some time alone and a chance to look at China unfiltered through anyone else's perceptions." Her expression spoke worlds. Was I crazy, or even worse, naive? As it turned out, I was not. I took a train from Beijing to Chongqing, a ferry from Chongqing to Shanghai, spent a few days in Shanghai and took the train back to Beijing, a woman "of a certain age" with no advance reservations except a hotel in Shanghai and almost no Chinese and all the surprises were pleasant ones.

It is once again impossible to get a train ticket in China more than five days in advance (this policy was modified around Spring Festival to allow for more advanced sales and may be modified again next Spring Break so be sure to check). However, I had no trouble getting a hard sleeper berth, middle bunk, for the train and day of my choice, in mid-June. As a foreigner with a hard sleeper ticket, departing from Beijing, you will be directed to the very luxurious and secure soft seat waiting room, where announcements are in English and boarding is a breeze. (This, by the way, is not true at the Guangzhou train station, where you will be sent to the regular waiting room, a bit of a challenge as it is jam packed and there is no information available in English. A good phrase book is advisable.)

The train pulled out of the station, on time and late at night and after a comfortable night's sleep (I've been so happy with hard sleeper accommodations that I've never been tempted to try soft sleeper) I awoke to an amazing landscape, rolling hills full of doorways into the cave homes I'd read about in my guidebook. The whole day was full of scenic wonders as we traveled south and west toward Sichuan, arriving in Chongqing early the next morning. I had brought my own food but rather wished I hadn't as the hot meal for sale from a rolling cart looked better than my cold supper. Once off the train in Chongqing I set out, prepped by my guidebook again, to find the (one yuan) minibus to the ferry terminal. After wandering fruitlessly for 5 or 10 minutes, I rather reluctantly accepted the help of one of the many locals trying to drum up business for the expensive "tourist" boats catering to Westerners who want to see the 3 Gorges. My "guide", with no more English than I have Chinese, managed to understand what I wanted, took me to the minibus, went with me to the ferry terminal, found me a boat that was leaving that morning, helped me purchase a second-class ticket and led me to the correct boarding line to stand in, all very helpful as no one spoke English and there were no signs in English. He earned both my (voluntary) tip and my gratitude, as, one hour after coming into Chongqing, I was headed down the Yangtze river on the first leg of a five day odyssey to the sea.

I had hoped to get a Chinese tourist boat that stopped to give passengers the option of going through the little 3 gorges and visiting various temples along the way. My boat, as it turned out, did not do that. It was a working boat and spent too much time loading and unloading cargo: human, animal, vegetable and mineral, to make the upper Yangtze tourist stops. But it went all the way to Shanghai, so that I didn't have to change at Wuhan. And the life of the boat, the life on the river, the incredible spectacle of the unloading and reloading at every port, the youthful high spirits of the young male stevedores who trudged in and out of the hold with huge loads on their blue-capped bare backs (they were replaced by wheels further down river), the quay side vendors passing food and money back and forth to the passengers in long-handled baskets, the build-up on board of human life of every description, as, with each stop, hundreds of people flowed across the gangplank but always more getting on than getting off, ......it was all so fascinating it more than made up for the sparsity of tourist stops.

The first day we passed a few fishing boats (the only ones I was to see on the whole trip, though there were often people on shore trolling with nets) and many towns that will be partially or totally submerged soon. The countryside was hilly and beautiful but the mist on the river turned to haze as the day went on and visibility, though very romantic, was limited. Day 2, the day we passed through the 3 Gorges, the weather couldn't have been better. Clear and sunny, with just that touch of early mist necessary for atmosphere, it was the perfect day for photos. And did my Chinese companions in second class take advantage of it. They shot roll after roll of film, they shot non-stop, the women changed outfits between gorges, one of them 4 times, a different outfit for each gorge and one for the building site of the new dam. They couldn't believe that I just had a little disposable camera (our real camera had recently died of old age) and took only a few pictures. They included me in theirs and promised to send me prints.

By the way, as I previously mentioned, I understand almost no Chinese and speak even less and from the time I arrived at the Beijing West Train Station until I landed in Shanghai, I did not see a single westerner and met only one Chinese person who spoke English. Yet we all communicated with each other quite adequately and I felt like I was among friends. The 3 Gorges is spectacular, I don't care what your guidebook may say, but the high point of the trip for me was spending the whole 5 days on deck, watching the Yangtze go by. The Chinese, in general, would limit their rail-hanging to a few minutes a day, but there was an "artist" who had come up river on our boat and was now heading back to Shanghai, shuffling around the deck unshaved and in his pajama bottoms, sketching goodbye to the riverbanks. And there was a wonderful couple from Nanjing, who helped the old couples on board (there were a few) and who came out at dusk, so he could sing to the river.

Second class was definitely the way to go, at my age, at least. It was clean and quiet, I had my 2-person cabin to myself, there was even hot water for showers. The boat was so overcrowded that the minute you set foot outside the second class corridor (and you had to go out for food) you were stepping over bodies squeezed into every square inch of hall space and carpeting every deck - I never felt an unfriendly attitude coming from them but most westerners would, I think, be uncomfortable being in that kind of a crowd with anyone. The food on board was not gourmet but it was fresh; I'd watch the kitchen staff carrying live chickens on board at each port of call. Be sure to take plenty of reading material (I ran out on day 5 and had to start reading my guidebook cover to cover). And don't forget the sun screen; by the end of the trip I was not just a big nose but a very red nose and I'm sure looked grotesque to a Chinese sensibility.

Finally, at dusk on day 5, we turned into the Huangpu River and entered Shanghai, sailing past the lit-up facades of the Bund to dock in one of the most inconceivable cities in the world - Shanghai

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