<A> Guangzhou Spring Festival Interlude

To Guangzhou by Train

If you are ever going to travel long distances in China and you want to go overland I highly recommend travelling soft sleeper class on the train. With four beds (2 bunks) in a compartment you get the most comfort, privacy and security available on China's rails. This Spring Festival we were heading to Hainan Island for the holiday and had decided to go overland to Guangzhou for the first part of our route. We settled into our soft sleeper compartment, stowing our masses of luggage (“travelling light” and “musician” are mutually exclusive concepts – we had a guitar, violin, 2 harmonicas and a penny whistle with us when we left and a strange gourd wind instrument added to the mix by halfway through the trip) under the beds and on the shelf above the hallway.

Our group consisted of two Canadian teachers and a young Chinese business student and we spent some of our 21 hour train ride learning Chinese songs and practicing phrases when we weren't sleeping in the comfortable beds. The ride flew by and we found ourselves pulling into Guangzhou before we knew it.

Beneath Guangzhou

Arriving into Guangzhou in the evening, finding a suitable hotel was our first order of business. Not as easy a proposition as we had imagined it would be. Our compartment-mate on the train had suggested a hotel to us that was slightly outside the downtown area and would therefore be cheaper for us (who really didn't know how long our money would hold out as we knew nothing about hotel prices on Hainan over the holidays). Getting outside of the downtown area entailed a subway ride. This was quite convenient as there was a subway stop at the train station. I was quite impressed with the modern, clean station we found. What particularly impressed me was that this subway had suicide jumper prevention in full force. There was a glass wall between the platform and the rails and the subway cars would pull up even with doors in this glass wall. Then the doors on this glass wall would open in sync with the train's doors. A very slick system that would not be out of place in any North American city.

We fed the entrance machine our yuan and then we were into the subway system. We could have ridden anywhere in town then. Though the temptation was there to just go off exploring, we did want to get our copious amounts of luggage stored safely in a hotel. Exploration would have to wait.

Intersections of Conversation

We did have what felt like a pleasant little walking tour once we reached our subway stop and made our way out onto the street. We admired how clean the street and sidewalk were and breathed in the cleanest air we had had in far too long. But what we didn't have was any luck finding the hotel our compartment-mate had described for us. We wandered on foot for a while, but the luggage soon became tiresome to drag around with us. So we jumped into a taxi thinking that the driver could just take us to the hotel.

Well, the driver had other ideas. He had his own thoughts about what hotels should interest us. In fact he was so intent on trying to convince us to abandon our own ideas that he stopped the cab to discuss his thoughts with us. Well not really with us, he limited his talking to only our Chinese friend. But the two of them must have talked for at least 10 minutes. Now when I say that he stopped the cab many of you are probably picturing him pulling over to the side of the road and possibly even turning off the engine. Well, you must remember that this is China. He stopped right where he was – halfway through an intersection, diagonally across the oncoming traffic lane blocking the way in two directions. A police car with lights flashing pointed its nose right at our side but took no more notice of us than a hawker notices rejection. And no one else seemed to care either. “Wo men zai Zhong Gua” (“We're in China”) our Canadians' mantra sounded in the backseat.

No Mixing

Guangzhou did not throw its arms open and welcome us. It took us three tries before we found a hotel that would let foreigners and a Chinese person stay in the same room. There seemed to be a provincial regulation about this that we finally got around when a hotel gave us a room with a sliding room in the middle. This could divide the room into 2 rooms at will making it somehow acceptible.

Leaving is Hard to Do

While we weren't welcomed, it was not as easy to leave as we would have liked either. We had wanted to take a ferry from Guangzhou to Hainan, and we snagged a taxi the next day to take us to the ferry office. So down to the port area of the city we went, only to find out that the ferry is now defunct.

So what now? We still want to get to Hainan. Well, we had a nice time on the train getting to Guangzhou, perhaps a train could take us. We redirected our taxi to the train station, only to discover Spring Festival travel fever had hit rail travel hard and there were lineups around the block at the train station. We heard that some people were in line for more than a day – not for us. So, back to the hotel and the travel office in its lobby. It seems that flying would be the next leg of our trip.

Universal Airport

It was not so long ago that people were warned about flying in China – disorganized, hard to book, unsafe, old and worn out. Well that is not the experience now at all. From booking to boarding was under 5 hours. The airport was as modern as any I've been to and had all of the standard airport procedures. It was just sort of 'universal airport'. It didn't feel like Chinal, – I mean there were lineups, even single file ones.