So long and thanks for all the ...shiz! (Marcus)

So long Xi'an and hellloooo Chengdu! Well we can't really give any impressions on Chengdu yet as we only just got here but....staying true to itself, we saw Xi'an out the way we saw it in....absolute hole of a place!

So we went and saw reception at the hotel on Tuesday or so, requesting to extend our check-out by half a day - a facility it seems most places in China are happy to do. This was really helpful to us as the train left around 8pm and like in Beijing, saved us plodding around all afternoon without a base to return to etc.

We wanted to pay for the room extension then and there as Courtney has most of our funds budgeted away. We also wanted a receipt as you can 100% guarantee that come midday on the day of check-out, they will NOT have a record of us extending the check-out - payment or no payment. So she couldn't give us a receipt so we didn't pay - we'd settle it on check-out. Come 12:20pm Thursday, I am lying on the bed and get a phone-call, "Hello Sir, What time were you planning on checking out?" Colour me super surprised! We went through this song and dance in Beijing also.

So we went out for the afternoon to get some lunch and on the way out I checked the card in the door to make sure it would still work - in Beijing it was disabled and we had to get it re-adjusted to the new time of checkout. We go out, get lunch, yadda yadda, come back, bam, cant get in. Wishing it was just dejavu by this point - so back down we go again to get it corrected.

6pm rolls around and we're all packed and ready to go. I spent the last 5-10 minutes in the room filling out their feedback form - i heaped praise on the smiles and polieteness of the bellboys and the young guy who would make up our bedroom on a daily basis. I like writing feedback for these guys, naming them specifically if possible as it's basically a thankless job and I feel sorry for them. A little bit of curtesy and politeness from their part goes a long way in my book. So I fill out praise and offer a few minor suggestions about the hotel as a whole - ie it's an 'International' Hotel supposedly but they will in no way assist guests with the purchasing of train tickets - something that can be very difficult for those who are not Chinese.

We get down to check out, wait at the counter for a few moments then at 6:03pm we are attended by a woman at the front counter. (*Note - my good feedback did NOT include these front counter women). So now she wants to charge us for an entire day as it's 6._03_pm - 3 minutes after the 6pm cut-off. We told her we had been waiting at the counter for several minutes and thankfully she accepted that. Had she not, I would have been informing the manager about firstly that, secondly waiting a minute or two for the damned lift and finally that I had spent at least 10 minutes in the room before leaving it filling out good feedback for them! It's ridiculous how utterly to the letter the Chinese can be. There is a line where their customer service transforms from being nice and punctual to absolutely unforgiving if something such as being 1-3 minutes late occurs. This is something they really need to change. It is not the first time we've come across it.

Anyhow, all good, we get out of there and are on our way to Chengdu - or so it seems. We have our packs with us so ask one of the bellboys if he can assist us with getting a taxi - if you are up to date with this blog you will recall the absolute pain we have had with taxi's in this city. Well spank my ass and call me charlie - here we go again!!

Absolute classic - we're standing on the side of a really busy street and our bellboy is having a HELL of a time hailing a cab. Oh they stop, but when he tells them we want to go to the train station? Nup, see-ya later, they wave their hand and get the hell out of there. The first taxi he hailed was ready for us, then 3 Chinese men just pushed straight in front shut the doors and away they went. I lent down to the open door, saying, "Thank you! Thank you! XieXie! Thanks!" looking the closest guy dead in the eye - he looked away and wouldn't look back. Absolute pricks.

I figured it was because it was too short a distance to the station from where we were...of course, not worth the effort. It was busy between the hotel and there - but the whole city had shocking traffic. In China, you hop in and there's an immediate minimum cost. In Xi'An it's 6rmb(Wuxi/Suzhou - 8, Shanghai/Beijing - 10). This covers the first 4 kilometers, then it's I think 1 rmb per km/minute - something like that. A trip to or from the station was really cheap, only 7rmb or so - definitely not enough for them to bother having to carry two westerners I figured.

Courtney was thinking the same thing. As taxi number eight or so was making to bail on us, I told the bellboy - tell him if he takes us to the station we'll pay him 20 rmb - whoa surprise, he accepts and off we go. He of course does NOT look happy at having to take us. He's driving like a fkng maniac and doing absolutely every rude thing he can to make us know he's not happy; everything short of smoking....Driving like crazy - and i mean crazy, purposelly spitting out the window - something taxi drivers rarely do as I think even they know it's rude in front of western passengers - and then finally of course, lights up a smoke.

At the station we got out handed him his 20 without word and pushed into the station and away from this dump of a city and it's pricks of taxi drivers. So long forever.

Inside the station it was busy as always but at least well air-conditioned. Here is where we experienced the true contrast in Chinese people - as we sat and waited for our slightly delayed train, we spoke to a young Chinese guy who was majoring in English. We covered all the usual topics but it was enjoyable - he showed us photographs of his father and was asking me if he lookd like him - to which I stupidly said, Yeah you guys have similar eyebrows...hey i was tired!

The train was delayed around 30 minutes and thank god it arrived as poor Courtney was approaching toilet disaster phase. The joys of being able to stand as a man are a real privillege in the train stations as the sit down toilets...have no walls on them. Long ago we became adjusted to the fun that is the squatter toilets. Now it's not about whether it's western or squatter(i'd rather use a squat any day for the record), it's about whether 1. the toilet has a door, and 2. the door has a lock. I think i'd actually fill my pants with little surprises rather than whip them down in a public room and do the business like the chinese do. Courtney needed to go alright..and off she went. "They have no doors," i told her, but she wanted to check it out for herself. 30 seconds later she's back, "Not a chance," she said. The women's toilets were not only wall-less(well tiny walls that hid nothing), they were also in a line facing each other - completely open bathroom area with smoking men hanging outside it in full view. Worst toilet's ever.

China tip - if you are going to a train station and think you MAY need to do anything that involves sitting down - do it before you go to the station - seriously.

We board the train and are welcomed into the world of the Hard Sleeper carriages. China has many classifications of train, from soft sleeper luxury - which is a private cabin with four nice padded matress bunks and clean pillows/sheets, to hard sleepers which are padded mattresses in open rooms - 6 per room. The hard sleeper pillow and blankets do not appear washed - we lay there thinking about lice potential...brr. The lack of the door means you get all the outside noise of babies crying, people walking around, chinese guys talking at full volume at 3am etc. Having 6 per the room/dorm also meant there was a much higher snore chance also.

Like the soft sleeper, the train was still bumpy and noisy and very hard to sleep in. The Chinese seem to be able to sleep during anything..and do. There was a russian guy above me(i was in the middle) and Courtney below me. We had a panic attack before heading onto the train when we realized we were both Carriage 4 - Berth 14....basically this meant(or so we thought) we would be sharing the same tiny matress! Thank god it was different to the soft sleepers in this regard. Three people would get no.14 - bottom middle and top. It didn't say who got who but middle is the most expensive, bottom second most, top the cheapest. The russian guy seemed to know he was top so slept there. Middle wasn't too bad but i was paraoid of rolling off in the middle of the night - the train would bump hard at certain intervals - i think when two tracks converged and it'd totally jolt me to wakefulness.

Unlike the two previous trains, this train stopped a LOT. It would stop at stations for at least 10+ minutes. At this time it was oh my god, must try and get to sleep! No movement, no sound! But avast! of course it didn't work like this - for when the train came to a complete and silent stop...you suddenly became aware of the snoring..... The russian guy above me was snoring like a truck, the guy opposite like a smaller truck and even the young kid who was sleeping with his mother opposite Courtney below was kicking his snorevibe in the mix also. It wasnt constant the whole night but it made it very hard to sleep.

Courtney and I just cant master the sleeping on train thing. It was a 16 hour train trip so we're both really tired now. We have one more sleeper train left and it's similar in length. We're going to try our damndest to get a soft sleeper this time round at least.

In the soft sleepers you have control of the lights and personal lights above your bunks if you wish to read etc. In the hard sleeper it was lights out at 9:40pm sharp. At 7am sharp on came a blaring bloody Chinese radio show over the trains intercom. Christ that's annoying! The Chinese are all up and bounding around at 6:30am or so, but bleh, what can you do! We just lay on our beds until midday when we finally pulled into Chengdu.

Chengdu involved us getting a free pickup from the hostel - so painless. But man is it hot. Very smoggy, the sun up there but not really visible and muggy as hell. We have come back to the hostel which has moved from it's original location and now is further out than we had hoped and in what looks to be a pretty ordinary area. The hostel itself though looks not bad. The room is mediocre but the grounds are full of nice seating areas and cheap as hell food! Just ate a burger here for 20 rmb - super cheap for what it was. We were both ravenous from not eating much more than snacks on the train.

We plan to explore the surrounding tomorrow as we're both tired and it's just started raining HARD.

Later!