Leaving Xian behind we make our way to the station to travel to Chengdu - again by overnight sleeper. We bought these tickets as soon as we arrived in Xian and again had trouble buying 4 soft sleepers together. Atleast we had tickets and we have always been able to exchange them before so we are hopeful that we can change again. We have a short wait in the "soft sleeper waiting room" and the girls are fascinated by an older Chinese chap and his snacks and flash him a smile or two! Amused by the attention he shares his little sachets of assorted pickles with us and produces tissues and wet wipes at just the tight moment! He is also travelling to Chengdu and co incidentally and, as it turns out, rather fortuitously is also in carriage 9 with us. It is only when we are on the train that we suddenly realise that we have tickets for all top bunks, 2 in one compartment and then singles in 2 others... hmm, not sure that is going to work! Clutching our trusty piece of paper with "Please will you swap tickets so that we can be together with our children?" writtten in Chinese script, David approaches the "gentlemen" in the compartment where we have 2 beds and begins the negotiations. It is clear from their response that they will not be moving and one chap, obviously not getting his point across verbally while speaking very LOUDLY and S L OOOO W L Y... starts to write it down in Chinese script just to make it extra clear! At this point we are wondering how this journey will play out, one single bed is in a compartment already home to a sleeping family with a baby, toddler and paying child, the other another group of single men. At this point the lovely man from the waiting room approaches, he cannot speak much English. He ushers the children, Nicole and all our bags into the sanctity of his empty carriage and he telephones his daughter who speaks to David in broken English to say that her father will sort things out for us if he can. David remains in the corridor and we sit and wait and wonder how the night will progress as the train pulls out of the station. The man shows David his Press card which in our predicament is sufficient to convince David that he can hand over our tickets to help him sort this out and then begins a dialogue with the train guards. After much negotiation it appears that this man has kindly given up his cabin and persuaded the guards that the owners of the other three beds which will be accupied later on the journey will be persuaded to fill our other beds in the other various cabins. The guard then gives us our cards (which are always exchanged for tickets when you get on a train in China) which clearly confirm we have this four bed compartment to ourselves. David thanks the man (& the guards) profusely for his help and retires to the cabin with the good news, locking the door behind him. Everyone heaves a big sigh of relief! Once we have left the 'good samaritan' knocks on the door and shows David a text (in English) that his daughter has sent us on his phone confirming what has happened. What amazing people there are in the world! To say thankyou the girls draw him pictures and write "Thank you" in chinese script copied from the guidebook to give to the man. He is overjoyed and a bit overwhelmed and shows their pictures to everyone, taking photos of us all to show his family! Our only sadness is that he wont be able to access our blog or emails from China.
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