Endless wanderlust

When I thought about it, I felt like a genius. Taking a night train to go from Nanjing to Beijing? It sounded perfect. Only pros, I could have: slept during the journey, spent way less money than buying a fast train ticket (which only takes six hours to get to Beijing) and last but not least I could have enjoyed the view in the early morning hours. I bought the ticket in no time.

When I arrived at the Nanjing train station, it was less crowded than usual but still full of people. It did take me a bit to get to the train.

I entered the teemed aisle looking for my compartment.

I passed by a woman who was trying to calm down her furious kid who wanted to go home. His eyes, already small, became tiny when the mom told him to sit down (I wondered if he could still see her). I tried to smile at him, but he was too busy looking daggers at his mom.

The little boy seemed to be the only one not to pay attention to me. As I moved on, I felt dozens of eyes on me. They were looking at me like a star on the red carpet, or an alien just landed on Earth. Point of view.

Some of them were giggling and whispering, some just staring and others smiling. I must have been the only foreigner in the whole carriage.

I kept smiling and moving when I finally found my compartment. I checked the number and my bunk was the one down on the right, where a young Chinese lady was seated. I smiled at her without saying anything and she instantly got up, like something sharped just bit her butt.

As I sat down I slightly kicked her by accident so I apologized in Chinese. The curiosity exploded around me as soon as my travel buddies understood I could speak Chinese.

People from other compartments, since they were all opened on the aisle, appeared in mine, asking me all kind of questions such as: in which hemisphere is Italy located? Someone offered me food and tea, others tried to practice their English but it soon came out that the only thing they could say was a funny “Thank you” which sounded more like Japanese than English.

We talked and laughed for the next couple of hours, then the lights turned off. Most of the people went back to their compartments and I took the chance to pay a visit to the bathroom.

As I stood up I realized how tired I was but I managed, walking like a zombie, to reach the bathroom. When I opened the door the lethargy vanished in a second for what I saw: a squat toilet.

This was going to be a long, interesting journey.