25. World like a picture reel

It was early morning, maybe 8AM, and the sun was shining in the window of our moving train carriage. A group of people chatting on the bunks below noticed I was awake and offered their morning greetings. I kept dozing for a while, ignoring the Muzak and the loud people on the train and hoped we were getting close to Shanghai.

I asked the people sitting on the bunks below where we were and they said that we were halfway there. I sat up, checked my watch, checked the map, checked my watch again and did some maths.

“Oh shit,” I said quietly. “This is not good.”

After lying on my bunk doing the maths repetitively for a while, checking the time every five minutes, I rolled onto my side and waved to beckon the attention of the people sharing the carriage.

“The train arrives at Shanghai at what time?” I asked in Chinese, looking at no one in particular.

There were looks amongst the group sitting together, and discussion which I didn’t understand, then a young woman turned to me and spoke in broken English.

“Five o’clock we get to Nanjing,” she said. “Maybe nine o’clock train gets to Shanghai.”

“Nine o’clock,” I parroted, “9PM?”

“Yes,” she said, turning to the rest of the group for confirmation and getting it in the form of nodding heads.

“Thank you,” I said smiling and rolled onto my back, my fears confirmed. “Fuck!”

My mind instantly shot back to Shanhaiguan and began replaying the night Karl, Jan and I arrived in the dead of the night and had been pretty lucky to find a place. It had already been a long train ride, stopping time after time to let other trains go by, but with the advent of this new information, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts about what I was going to do when the train finally got to Shanghai.

I was planning to go to the hostel Five-foot and I had stayed at before, which was very central and very affordable. I considered it might be worth going to the hotels near the train station instead. I would need to get to the hostel as soon as possible in case they ran out of beds. The problem was that if they were already full, I would be looking again. Walking around all night was something I wanted to avoid but I was resigned to the idea that finding anything affordable at that time of night would be a struggle. I found the hotels near the train station always terrible, but maybe it was worth getting a bed for a few hours then head to the hostel in the morning.

The train continued on and the people I sat with explained that we had stopped for six hours overnight, which may have explained why I stuffed up my times. I started dreaming of arriving in the city at 3PM but that made me feel like jumping from the train.

We passed crop fields and small towns, large cities and a few livestock farms. From the window of a moving train and with so much planning and organising running through my head, the outside world looked like a picture reel being projected against a wall. No smells, no tastes and no real sense of what was happening out there was getting through. All that was happening in the world seemed to be in that carriage.

The rest of the day, I spent sitting and dwelling on the situation I had put myself in. I cursed myself for buying tickets for this particular train. I hadn’t asked about the arrival times, in my haste to leave the north. “Idiot” was a label that was beginning to stick.

Finding a cheap bed in Shanghai would be much more difficult and much more energy sapping than Shanhaiguan had proven to be. Being a lone traveller in a major city, I wasn’t prepared to trust a taxi driver late at night as Karl, Jan and I had.

At Nanjing, the others in the compartment disembarked, waving goodbye and wishing me luck. The final run towards Shanghai became the most trying. Outside, the sun began to lower and the fields and towns became cities squashed between hills to the south and the Yangtze River to the north. The train followed the mighty river towards the coast passing by major bridges and ports. Vegetation covered the hills in the south and crops began to grow darker and darker. The concrete, brick and steel of city daytime, became flashing neon lights and vehicle headlamps. Housing complexes signified another uniform civilisation as the train rolled on.

A gentleman came by and interrupted the negative internal dialogue I was still issuing in abundant detail.

“I am a businessman,” he said. “You go to Shanghai too?”

“Yes,” I said, not really giving him much thought.

“Have you been to Shanghai before?’

“Yes,” I said, “have you?”

“No, this is my first time. Where are you from?”

And I was soon in the middle of a conversation that I had been in time and time before. I am a New Zealander. I have a brother. I am on holiday. I have been in China for however many weeks. I have been to all these places. I like Chinese people. I hope you have a good day. I hope you believe me.

Many of these conversations were good distraction, but this one was not and not because of the very friendly, amiable man I was chatting with. It was all me. I was struggling to snap out of my pissed off depression. Part of the problem, I figured, was being stuck in the train. It felt like a prison cell.

The man continued, asking if I could speak any Mandarin. When I couldn’t tell him what day it was, he took it upon himself to teach me the days of the week. Monday to Saturday are numbered from one to six, Lingxiyi to Lingxiliu, and Sunday is called Lingxiri, which the businessman couldn’t explain. For thirty minutes, I practiced the days of the week like a pre-schooler, and he clapped me along, his smile growing brighter each time I got it correct.

The skyscrapers of the city loomed near and I decided, not exactly on a whim, to go straight to the hostel. I figured however things worked out, things would work out.

The train pulled into the station at 925PM. I threw my pack on my back and escaped the Muzak box and followed the herd towards the exit gate with fake confidence etched on my face. I waved farewell to the businessman from the train and walked through the masses in the square outside the station heading for the underground station nearby.

The underground carriages were packed, but I only had to squeeze in with my pack until I got to the People’s Square a few minutes away. Exiting the station, I was surrounded by crowds either shopping, partying or out walking and I headed due east towards the Bund. The crowds thinned out on the less lit streets, until I was one of the few people around. A young man with a clipboard approached offering I wasn’t sure what but I made it clear I wasn’t interested.

“Bu yao,” I said and crossed the street. I had learned the correct way to say “bu yao” which made people leave me alone. Being forceful, being straightforward, and forthright only served to fuel their inclination to sell. The way to get rid of these guys was to say “bu yao” as though I was answering the fifth phone call from a telemarketer in one hour. A dejected, resigned, and put upon voice was what worked more often than not.

At 10PM, the counter attendant at the hostel said there were no beds available.

“Am I able to book a bed for tomorrow night?” I asked.

“Not yet,” the young lady said. “Tomorrow morning you may be able to.”

“Okay,” I said, “are you able to help me find a bed for tonight?”

“No,” she said firmly.

I felt like going upstairs, and sleeping in one of the hallways, but there were security guards on patrol so I may have been found out quite quickly. Stepping outside, I wondered what my next best option was. The train station had been extremely busy and was thirty minutes away yet looking for a hotel room there could be a waste of time too.

All the other hostels in my guidebook were quite a hike in opposite directions and any amount of travel there didn’t guarantee a bed. I decided to walk towards one and check out the hotels along the way. I set off southwest passing the young man with the clipboard again, needing to tell him to leave me alone again.

I stopped at a few hotels having no luck then followed a narrow street to a major intersection until I saw another hotel’s foyer lights inviting me inside.

“Hello,” I began. “I need a room.”

“Now?” said the lady at reception, flabbergasted that anyone would be so stupid as to still need a hotel room at 1045PM.

“Yes,” I said with a smile on my face. “Tonight.”

She and another staff member fluffed about for a few minutes, drawing out the process of me looking at a room and finally grabbed a key.

“No singles are left, only doubles,” she said. “Doubles are Y240.”

“As there is only one of me,” I began, “is there any chance of a discount?”

“No discount.”

“Right,” I said, dropping my head slightly and puffing out my cheeks. I had been travelling under budget for quite a while so this wouldn’t break the bank. I went upstairs and was shown a very nice room. If I were there with a friend it could’ve been worth the price but it didn’t matter to me at the time.

If I weren’t as tired I may have tried to find something cheaper. I had even considered roughing it and wandering the streets all night. I skipped both options, as I hadn’t had enough sleep in the previous few nights and felt that this was what my body was craving. As I perused the room, I felt my shoulders drooping, my knees wobbling and head bobbing. Having not eaten all day then walked around with my pack on my back in the summer heat of late evening Shanghai for over an hour, I was pretty tired.

I dropped my pack on the floor of the room, revealing my sweat laden and stinking shirt. My first stop downstairs was at reception to pay and then I went to the shop next-door. I bought an ice cream, a bag of chips and a bottle of coke for a combined breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I had a quick shower and finally crawled into bed at midnight, eating and chilling out for the first time all day. I watched Chelsea play Arsenal live, complete with Chinese commentators. Sitting there with a mouth full of half-chewed chips, I began laughing.

“I’m NEVER doing that again,” I said quietly to myself through the mashed potato pieces, “and this time, I mean it.”