If that's the case, then I was stuck in the aisle of a train carriage for 13 hours with hundreds of Satan's offspring. Ok, that's a bit harsh but let me enlighten you in this rich tapestry of my travels.
As you're aware I was in Panzihua buying my time to get the train to Chengdu. With the spring festival around the corner, the only ticket available were 'hard seats' for a decent fare (84 RNB), considering the distance being covered. I check into the waiting area of the station with my travelling companion, Danny. After much deliberation on what provisions we should purchase (we decided on a 2 litre bottle of water and 3 mandarins each), we were sat away from the crowd and wondered why there were so many passengers congregated in front of the station gates. We then decided to check our tickets to see our seat allocation, just so we didn't want to bother with beating ourselves for nothing in that crowd, we realised after comparing one another's tickets that nothing was different. This was bad. We had no seat number allocated, which meant, each man, woman, child, donkey (well maybe not donkey, but if you gave them the chance, they'd bring their entire zoo animals if they had them), were going to be in a mad scramble to get seats. I said to Danny that they would never over-sell/book tickets, to his retort, he rolled his eyes and said, "do you wanna bet?".
Since we had massively weighted rucksacks, we pushed our way through to almost 2 metres away from the gates and just waited, patiently and cautiously, making sure no damn person were going to push in front of us. Then the unthinkable happened, the gates opened and let me illustrate to my readers that this gates is only capable of fitting through 1 (only 1) human being at a time. This is never the case in China. There really isn't an etiquette in queuing system, it's everyone for their own. I said to Danny that he go ahead of me and try getting 2 seats, since I was still a novice at being aggressive in queues (Danny's been to China before, so he knew what it's like). I can't begin to tell you how many human bodies would squeeze themselves through, literally pushing in and shoving just to get to that platform. Then it was my turn. This Chinese man had a 1mx1mx1m denim clothed backpack, that was clearly overpacked and oversized for him and it was a contest between him and I to see who could get through. We were basically wedged at the gate together (this is not an uncommon sight or thing to occur). In the end, because I could see his girlfriend made it through before him, I relented and let him through (anyone that knows me would agree I would have won!). Although, after him, I was not going to let any bastard get in, up, under or around me until I made it through! Yeah, you do start to develop some agitation.
I made it on the platform, recouped with Danny only to discover that this pushing and shoving was pointless as the train hadn't arrived. Once the train did arrive and I got on board, I realised it wasn't pointless after all.
When on board the carriage, you couldn't tell who was coming or going. The carriages were lined with two aisles of seats (2 and 3 seaters facing each other with a table protruding from the wall), all of course were already occupied by men, woman, mothers, babies and whatever else from the first port of call, Kunming city. So the rest of us that boarded, were left to stand in the aisles and endure the 13 hour journey as comfortable as possible.
After much whacking and moving about, I finally got comfortable and was given a makeshift seat on top of someone's basket filled with rice, pot noodles and the like, mind you my generously made seat was half in the aisle and half within the seating area where no one at the outer seats had leg room because of the basket (how kind though?). Danny found a place to store my rucksack in the overhead part (after about an hour though) and found a place to wedge his rucksack beside a table and between people's legs, but out of the way of the aisles. Unfortunately Danny didn't have anywhere to sit.
So during at least the first 6-7 hours of the journey we would be interrupted to move our legs or some body part to make way for passengers going back and forth to the boiling water facility, bathroom or for the annoying on-board food trolleys. The trolleys were the most annoying, they varied from hot food, drinks and snacks and souvenir items. They took up the entire width of the aisle, which would mean to entirely shift not only ourselves, but any bags and other objects lying around. Although it was annoying when Chinese people were continually filling up their hot water flask or topping up their noodle pots with hot water, at least they could walk around people that were in the aisles. It becomes tiresome after a few hours though when your body clock realises that it's midnight and it's about time to sleep, but god wants to punish us some more!
Danny managed to get a free seat now and again when someone would stand up to get more hot water or go to the bathroom. I think at one point a passenger gave up his seat for him because he bought them a beer (bribery does work!). He stretched his luck as much as possible and slept for around 45 minutes until the guy nudged him to indicate that he was more than ready to sit down again.
Throughout the journey, you see people walking back and forth, pushing and shoving their way, inconvenient trolleys passing through, people watching tv, sleeping and snoring away, cleaning every orifice of their body onto the floor - I kid you not! I told my sister about the hawking and spitting out some nasty ones, but the worse of them all is the cleaning of nostrils. The technique is to block one nostril and blow out as hard and as much air your lungs can hold, so basically half your brains, and then repeat with the other nostril. This along with children dressed in crotchless pants were free to roam and piss all over the ailes and let us not forget the amount of rubbish thrown on the floor. One of the train attendants swept the carriages twice (halfway and at the end) during the journey, and it looked like a mini dump-site. Oh, for all you non-smokers, like myself, you can't go on public transport in China without that vehicle ending up as a Dutch oven when it reaches its' destination.
Overall I had a microsecond worth of sleep, Danny managed 1 to 1 1/2 hours, with the last 2-3 hours of the journey being easier on us as a few passenger alighted on a major stop prior to Chengdu.
So has this painted a pretty picture of the way I travel for you? It was certainly an experience and we made it in the end approximately 7am, actually to a very modest guesthouse with the best hot water (on gas too) system, that certainly made up for the journey.
