Dandong Part I: Travel by Chinese Train

Shanghai - Dandong

We started planning this trip in a hypothetical way sometime on Thursday afternoon, then on Friday afternoon we decided we were going to go for it. By planning I mean that we booked a hotel in Dandong and we were trying to figure out the best way to get to the non-refundable reservation. We figured once we spent the money, we would figure out a way to get there come hell or highwater.


Once we had a hotel, we started looking at transportation. Turns out we could catch a train from Liaoyang, leaving around 10:30pm and arrive in Dandong in the early morning ~5am, but it was too late to book tickets online or at our hotel. We would have to book them at the train station. In a small town. In Chinese. Luckily our translators are very helpful and were able to write us a note essentially saying "We want to go to Dandong". Note in hand, we head out of the hotel to grab a taxi to the train station. When we arrive at the train station, it is pretty clear we are the center of attention. We are 3 big white guys (Robert is ~6' 6") in a train station in China late at night, there was no shortage of people alternately staring, talking about us, and trying to help us in Chinese. We booked the tickets no problem and head over to the waiting area. We wait for awhile before this guy comes up and is motioning for us to show him our tickets.

Chinese Helper

 After seeing the tickets he starts signaling 2-2 by holding up his fingers. We thought, strange but okay maybe he is trying to help tell us when we should board. Our train was scheduled to come ~10:30 (22:30 in the rest of the world). After a few more rounds of the same act with other people we figured out the train was 2 hours late. Oookay, so not so smooth but not the worst thing in the world. We head back to the hotel drink a few beers and come back to the train station about 1.5hrs later. Turns out 2 hrs was a rough estimate, as we walked back into the train station the cattle doors open and people are pouring out to the platform, headed to the train we need to board.

When it's time to board, those metal doors swing open and Chinese people pour through

Then you have to wait for the last train to leave before you can cross the tracks.

Waiting to Cross

Finally, we can cross and board the train. Seems like a relief, but this isn't exactly an Amtrak or anything. Everything in here is Chinese sized. After we boarded the train, we found a conductor and upgraded our seats to hard sleepers. We had planned on being able to sleep on the train during the ~7hr ride from Liaoyang to Dandong. We got to our upgraded seats and immediately we saw Robert had a (small) problem.

Robert's Bunk

Now that we were on the train I was starting to relax. Until at the next stop Robert dashed off the train with only a little warning, leaving Jason and I a little worried that he wouldn't be back on the train when it left (this isn't like the aiport, if you're not on when the whistle blows, you aren't getting on this train). Thankfully he reappeared in the crowd boarding the train just in time, and he bought a Chinese staple. $2 Baijiu.

Robert and the Baijiu

 If you don't know what Baijiu is:

Wikipedia

 Baijiu (Chinese: 白酒; pinyin: báijiǔ), or shaojiu (烧酒) is a Chinese distilled alcoholic beverage. The name baijiu literally means "white liquor," "white alcohol" or "white spirits". Baijiu is often mistakenly translated as "wine" or "white wine," but it is actually a distilled liquor, generally about 80 to 120 proof, or 40-60% alcohol by volume (ABV).

Pretty much it is a 50-60% grain alcohol and generally it is awful. And I'm not the only one that thinks that, but the Chinese people love it for some reason.

Urban Dictionary on Baijiu:

Pure distilled evil in liquid form. Chinese firewater that could be used to put a man on a moon of a planet in a far of galaxy. It tastes like a combination of the fires of hell, rotten Indian food and the after effect of China Syndrome. Can be drunk or snorted through the nose, even though neither one is recommended. Health warnings do not apply. If you stupid to drink it, you deserve everything you get. All it has going for it is that it burns with a rather fetching blue flame. Other uses can be an engine de-greaser, curry stain remover, glass etcher, Room 101 torture.

We could avert the forthcoming petrol shortage by filling every car with watered down Baijiu.

By the time the three of us got through that "celebration" it was almost 2am. We figured we still had about 5 hours to go until Dandong. Unfortunately for us, despite the trains two hour delay in Liaoyang, somehow the train still managed to arrive right on time in Dandong.

Dandong Train Station - 5am

To make things even better after having slept only 2 or 3 hours, we hadn't had our translator write down the name of our hotel in Chinese. Result, 3 big foreigners in Dandong lost at 5 in the morning....

Dandong - 5am

 In the meantime all of my pictures are up on my Flickr page and most of them are even labeled (!) if you are too impatient to wait.