If you’re thinking of traveling on a Chinese train over a holiday period, my advice would be DON’T DO IT. I knew going in that this would probably be one of the worst experiences during my trip and I was (unfortunately) correct.
I had spent the last couple of days in Fenghuang and was now needing to head to Chongqing. Because it was the Chinese National Holiday Week, we had pre-purchased our train tickets a week earlier, but even then, they were already sold out of both the soft and hard sleeper cabins and we were stuck with tickets for regular seats for our 8 hour overnight journey.
C’est la vie. I figured that it was just 8 hours and we were due to arrive into Chongqing just after 6:00am, so worst case scenario is we have to take it slow the next day and maybe need to take a nap in the afternoon.
Well, the adventure started when we arrived back into Fenghuang much later than expected after a one day tour to an ethnic Miao village. We were about an hour later than expected, which meant we had to rush back to our hostel to grab our bags, and then rush off to the bus station to catch our two hour bus ride to Jishou. Our train was set to depart around 10:00pm from Jishou and we arrived at the station about 5 minutes before that. Upon arrival, we noticed a huge line up to board the train and once we were in line, we were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. It was obvious at this point that the train was not going to be departing right at 10:00pm.
It took about 15 minutes for us to board our train and while I was in line, I remember thinking that this must be a popular train stop, due to the large number of people waiting to board this train. When I finally got close enough to the train to look inside, I noticed hordes of people standing around. I was really confused and wondered why it was so difficult for these people to find their seats. I entered the train at the back of the carriage, which turned out to be a bad decision as my seat was closer to the front of the carriage. I must have pushed through about 50 people in the narrow little aisle to get to my seat, all the while pulling my suitcase. Once I reached my seat, there was a lady already sitting in it and my friend politely told her that it was my seat and she got up for me to sit down. I quickly discovered that all these people weren’t looking for their seats, but had purchased standing only tickets. I had no idea that this was allowed and what was even more atrocious was that they paid the exact same fare as I had, so I was very lucky to have gotten a ticket with a seat.
Throughout the 8 hour journey, I felt like I did not sleep a single wink. The seats on the train were in fours, which meant that my friend and I were facing 2 strangers and there was a narrow little table between us. The table was too small for me to put my arms down on it to rest my head, and I couldn’t rest my head on the headrest either, because the people who were standing around were packed like sardines and leaning on the railing above the headrest and on the tables. No matter how annoyed I was that they were taking up my space, I just couldn’t find it in me to say anything as they were standing the whole night. In fact, most of these people boarded the train before I did, so they probably ended up standing for 12+ hours.
A few hours into the journey, one of the employees walked into our carriage and said that we could pay a fee and move to the dining carriage. I don’t remember what the exact fee was, but I think it was somewhere around 40RMB ($6 CAD). Basically, this “fee” was the cost of a meal that you would have to purchase from the dining cart. Although 40RMB is on the higher end for a regular meal, it still wasn’t outrageous and I asked my friend immediately if she wanted to move. For whatever reason, she didn’t feel the need to as we already had seats. I sat on the outside near the aisle and she sat near the window, so I think I had it a bit worse than her, with all the people leaning on me, making it difficult for me to even sit straight up. I thought that for sure, people would be racing after this woman to take her up on her offer. Why wouldn’t everyone pay 40RMB to buy some personal space? In the end, I didn’t see a single person leave, and now looking back at this experience, I realized that 90% of the people on that train were probably migrant workers who could barely afford their ticket home, let alone any luxuries that would allow them to sit in the dining cart.
All in all, this was absolutely the very worst transportation experience I had in China. I now fully understand why many people travel outside of China during the Chinese holidays, instead of traveling domestically. I learned my lesson the hard way and have decided that it is absolutely not worth it to travel domestically during the holidays again.
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