Trains 2.0
Bullet Train to Anywhere
In 1986 I spent two months visiting mainland China.
I never could have imagined then that 20 years later the country would embark on creating the world's most modern and extensive rail system.
Independent travel on the mainland was difficult back then, but a college friend, who was living in Tokyo at the time, and I decided to meet in Hong Kong and figure out a way to travel in China. I was on for the adventure and I booked myself a one-way ticket NY-HK, on a courier flight. Prior to 9/11, travelling as a commercial airline courier was a great way to travel if your timing was flexible and you had only carry-on luggage. You essentially were giving up your baggage allocation space in the hull of the plane to transport a parcel/documents from one city to another. You were then rewarded with a low fare for the trip. I think I paid USD200.
We spent a week in HK and were able to get a tourist visa to travel on the mainland and decided that flying to Beijing would be the best way to start. Then we planned to take trains back down to the south passing through Shanghai, Xian, Guilin, Yangshuo, then over to Kunming and Dali. It was an ambitious routing, neither of us spoke Mandarin at the time, and first stepping out of the airport in Beijing was daunting. With no smart phones at that time, we had only our trusted Lonely Planet guide to figure things out.
We wanted to travel local, so the only way to do that was to exchange FEC (Foreign Exchange Certificates) for RMB (renminbi). FEC was the currency that was issued to visitors to stay in official hotels and buy things only in official Friendship stores. I think FECs were phased out in the mid 90s. With RMB in hand, we were ready.
People were so friendly.
And curious.
Every step of the way, we were guided to places to eat or stay, where to rent a bicycle, where to get a train ticket. This is all without being able to speak Mandarin. Usually there would be a crowd of people around us, with one person who could speak some English, enough to translate questions from both sides.
There are so many anecdotes to share.
To start to get a feel for how steam rail travel really felt, I'll leave you with this link to photographer Wang Fuchun who took photos of train travel in the 80s and 90s.
