The Train Experience

We travelled to Hohhot, capital of inner Mongolia, by train, which is far more challenging than it sounds. You can't just board a train in China, because they are always full, so you need to reserve a seat or bunk in advance. If you can't pronounce your destination's name in Chinese – and you can't, because Hohhot is pronounced almost, but not quite, like Hoe-ha-heu-haw-teh – you need to get it written down in Chinese, and somehow convey that you want to get there as soon as possible. (If you do not yet want to get there as soon as possible, leave the reservation centre and do not come back until you do.)

A discussion about the different classes of travel available will follow. There are at least 11 of those in China and you won't understand anything said to you, but that is no big deal: since you're caucasian, the clerk will eventually give you the most comfortable places available. Which, and you can trust me on this, is exactly what you want.

Assuming all that went well, you will end up with a small slip of paper full of symbols, none of them meaning anything to you or anyone else born west of Lhassa. The next step is to match these symbols with those on the departures display screen in the station hall. Note that said display screen is three miles wide. That's because, in addition to the trains' destinations, departure times and waiting room number (i.e. the information you need), it shows the number of tickets available in every class for every train passing through this station during the next week. It's true.

As soon as you reach the waiting room, the hardest part is over. Just follow the crowd, keeping your ticket visible in case anyone you encounter feels the need to fold it, tear it, exchange it for a domino piece or an expired credit card, or do anything else with it seemingly arcane and pointless, and eventually you'll find yourself inside a train. Do not attempt to find your assigned seat: you will fail. Instead, take the first one you encounter that is empty and doesn't look like it was recently used as a nest by an incontinent farm animal. This might take a while. If after sitting down you get yelled at by a stranger, it's either because you took his seat, or because someone else took his seat and now he wants yours. There is no way to tell. When that happens, it's easiest to stand up and repeat the procedure until you're in a seat nobody else appears to want. That’s it! Sit back, relax, and enjoy your trip.

So we spent the morning in a hard sleeper car towards Hohhot. It was a mixed experience. A woman gave each of us a huge fistful of sunflower seeds. Yet another told us she was so happy to meet english speakers because she recently taught herself english. We couldn’t believe our luck, until it became apparent that she only taught herself the one sentence: “I taught myself to speak english.” A third woman brought up a sealable plastic container of what looked like apple juice, then had her toddler take a piss in it. The boy enthusiastically did, and went on to water the nearest five bunks copiously while seven people (us included) sprung in spontaneous dance to avoid the wildly out-of-control jets of piss. The toddler had a really good laugh at this before falling asleep in his mother's arms and a wet urine stain.

After a while I noticed a cute Chinese girl kept glancing at me. I glanced back and we both smiled. I said Hi, she said Ni Hao and smiled again. Micol suggested I ask for her phone number, but she didn't speak english and I didn't know the Chinese for "phone number". Even if I did, I'd probably mess up the tones and end up asking her whether she liked camel penis. But then, maybe she did. Maybe in inner mongolia camel penis is a sought-after delicacy and a very classy entree for a first date. I have no idea. Actually I’d been in China for a week and I still constantly found myself having no idea about anything, anytime, ever. She waved goodbye coyly when we left the train.

Eventually we found ourselves in a huge parking lot in front of Hohhot train station, needing a hotel, or a tour to the grasslands, or something. A man came to us almost immediately and offered to find us a hotel. He was quickly joined by a woman who said she could find us a tour. Two or three people just stood a few meters away, watching us with wide eyes as we discussed locations and prices and activities. Others joined them, then more still, and in a matter of minutes we were in the middle of a crowd of at least thirty who simply stood and stared at us. This would have been a pick-pocket's paradise, but everyone was simply curious and quite a few were trying to help. Eventually we got the name of a well-known hotel that catered to foreigners, managed to get it written down in Chinese, and went there in a taxi.

We wanted to spend a night in a traditional yurt. Well, some of us wanted to. I thought it sounded fake, touristy and rather pointless. When the guide told us the nights got as cold as -10˚ on the grasslands in November, I made up my mind. I was still nursing a cold and really didn't want to catch pneumonia in northern China, so I stayed at the hotel. The others left for the yurt.

I drank five cups of tea and took a long soaking bath then went for a walk. I'd expected Hohhot to be a provincial town, not exactly backwards but certainly subdued. Instead it brought to mind a barely scaled down version of Akihabara, Tokyo's high-tech neighborhood. Megamalls, huge cinema screens and neons everywhere turned the city in a constant light show. Down every side street construction teams were working far into the night building the next generation of skyscrapers, or possibly a ten-line subway system. The entire place was full of techno-like sounds and laser shows, and covered in deep smog, as if the whole city was a huge nightclub and someone had set the smoke machines a bit too high. In a sense, that was perfectly true.

I picked a restaurant at random and faced a Chinese-only menu with only a few pictures. I pointed at what looked like chicken with peppers and lifted one finger. She nodded, then said a word vaguely resembling "rice". I said "yes" and she scribbled something down on her pad. She then said something incomprehensible. I said I didn't speak Chinese. She then showed me an ideogram on her pad, which obviously I didn't understand either. Our talks pretty much broke down at this point and we spent the next five minutes in utter confusion, until she fetched a patron who spoke a little english. He went through the whole routine again with me and then I learned that the meal would cost me five yuans and that I was supposed to pay now. I paid. The chicken was delicious, and I headed back to the hotel for one more contented night’s sleep.