Stories on a Train - Xinjiang 1995

As I stand on a crowded train platform in Beijing, baking in the summer heat waiting for a train, one that hasn't arrived for an alarmingly long time, a very tall Western man with long graying hair approaches.

“We should travel together, it’s safer that way,” he says with a strong Australian accent. I was a year out of graduating university in the US, and had never met an Australian before.

“What do you mean?” I stall, trying to figure out who he is and why I should need to travel with this widly exotic individual. That I'm possibly lost, and don’t speak the local language, pop into my mind. “My train should have left 20 minutes ago. I’m not even sure if this is the right platform.”

“You are going to Urumqi, Xinjiang?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are in the right place. The train will arrive when it wants to,” he says, speaking a bit philosophically. He gestures at the people waiting around us. “Everyone here is going to Urumqi.”

“You have a great idea. Let’s stick together,” I say. This man looks like he knows what he’s doing.

I find out that his name is Gary, and while waiting another hour for the 10:45 am train to arrive, I fill him in on what I have been doing in Beijing up until now.

Three months earlier, outside of a one day trip to Canada, I had never left the United States, and had barely been out of my hometown. I had recently graduated university, and not having a job, when I unexpectedly won $10,000 in a lottery (that has never happened again since) I deemed this might be a narrow window of opportunity to see the world before responsibilites of life tie me down. I picked up a stack of Lonely Planet guidebooks at a bookstore in Milwaukee, the "LP" being the only source of info about cheap world travel in the 1990s, and the next week booked a flight to China. My ambition was to start in Beijing and travel to Europe, by land, the cheapest way possible.

In Beijing, at the crowded train platform with Gary, people around us begin picking up their bags.

The Xinjiang-bound train arrives and everyone pushes for the doors. People getting off the train do battle to push their way out against the flow of people pushing in. Gary, with commanding height and bulk, powers through the melee. I follow in his wake.

Marching down the aisle of a 2nd class train carriage, he soon commandeers two bunk beds. The car is completely open, but partitioned into groups of 6 beds stacked 3 high. A narrow space between them holds a small table. The top bed is 7 feet above the ground. A local man climbs up to it, and disappears from our view for the next three days. Myself and Gary take the 2 bunks below.

Across from us, a Chinese family, a middle-aged mother and her two teen children, spread their belongs over their 3 vertically stacked beds. After they organize their belonging, they convert the bottom bed into a chair, we do the same, and we soon all sit facing each other. The Chinese mother smiles at me.

“Hello, I am Chen, I am a doctor,” she says. ”You are American?”

She talks while writing Chinese characters, then translating them into written English. She seems more comfortable dealing with the English language when it's written down.

“Yes. Ni Hao,” I say.

She smiles, and then jumps quickly into asking questions. Chinese are a curious and inquistive people. “America is rich...” she says, “what is your salary?” Her two children are waiting to hear my answer.

I reply, “I don’t have a job right now, so I don't have a salary.”

She looks disappointed, and then shares the full details about her income. “As a doctor I make 200 renminbi, a month. But the government gives us an apartment and food coupons.”

I calculate that is about 20 US dollars a month. "It’s great you have a free apartment," I tell her.

She continues to probe my financial status, and asks, “How much money do you have in your bank account?”

I avoid answering. My answers could make them feel bad about themselves. Is $10,000 a lot of money here? Or could it attract criminal attention? I wasn't sure. I pull out my LP travel guide and flip through it. She goes back to organizing her family’s belongings.

Gary nudges me and looking at my book, says, “I’m a journalist. Right now, I’m freelancing for The Lonely Planet.”

“Wow! That’s fascinating,” I say feeling fortunate to have such a knowledgeable travel companion. “So you're a writer! Where have you been to?”

“I’ve been on the road 7 months. I’ve written parts of the Laos and Cambodia editions,” he says. “China is an amazing country. Have you been to Yunnan, Chongqing, or Yangzhou?”

“No, as a tourist, I’ve only been to Shanghai and Beijing.”

“We are not tourists. The proper word is traveler.”

“Yes. I am a traveler! That does sound better. We are travelers." I smile at this new definition I can give myself.

He explains, “Tourists go somewhere for a few days and stay at 5-star hotels. They have perfectly clean clothes and take a few photos. Travelers live with the people and experience the culture. If our clothese are unwashed for a days that's ok. If we wait an hour for a train, that’s not a problem for a traveler. As a wise man once said, the pauses in the music are also a part of the music.”

Gary has an enormous backpack. I ask him what he has brought, but he doesn’t answer.

For the 3-day 2-night ride to Urumqi, I brought 3 cans of Pringles and 2 packets of M&Ms, bought from the street vendor below my hostel in Beijing. I also brought 2 flat breads purchased from a street vendor, who packaged them for me in a loose plastic shopping bag. Checking the bread, I see the bag has opened and the bread is covered in street dust.

The train begins moving. Soon, my bowels are also set into motion. I often eat street food, and have had no where to wash my hands before I eat.

I venture down the rattling train carriage and find a toilet at the far end. Inside, the toilet is a mere hole in the floor. The railroad ties are flying past below at 70 miles per hour. Defecating over this commotion feels unsafe but I have no choice. I squat down holding onto the railing tightly. The sudden lurching movements of the train has caused a lot of previous toilet goes to miss the target of the whole in the floor. My sneakers rest in the muck around the hole, and there's no water in the toilet to wash them. For the rest of the trip, I drink as little as possible to limit trips my trips to the end of the hall. I don’t realize it now, but I will have the worst dysentery of my life 3 days later.

When I return to my seat from the toilet, Gary is in a talkative mood and tells a story. “China is a wild country. Last month, I took a bus in Tibet from Lhasa to Nagarze. There were 2 buses. We were in the front bus. After a three hour drive we arrived at the village but the bus behind us never showed up. We sat eating and drinking beer at the local cafe late into the night when we saw lights coming up the road. People from the other bus were walking into the village carrying flashlights and their suitcases. A foreigner told us what happened. Going down a hill, the bus driver yelled something in the local language and jumped out the door. The locals on the bus started jumping out the windows. The brakes were shot. Well, the foreigner didn’t know what the driver said or what was happening, but thought he’d better jump out the window too. A few seconds later, the bus went off the road and rolled down the mountain. Luckily, it stopped about 50 meters down the slope, so they climbed down and fetched their suitcases off the top of the bus.”

I’m gripped by the ethical dilemma within the story. “I’m surprised the driver jumped out first instead of trying to guide the bus,” I say.

“Everyone for themselves here. Life is cheap.”

Later that night, when I take my shirt off to change clothes, everyone else looks away, but I see Gary looking at my torso. It feels odd.

On the second morning, I run out of Pringles and M&Ms. I must have looked forlorn as without asking the Chen family begins to offer me things to eat. It starts with watermelon slices, then sunflower seeds and hardboiled eggs from the bag they’ve brought along.

She asks me to sing and begins humming ‘Yesterday Once More’ by The Carpenters. The song fills me with nostalgia for weekend drives in Wisconsin with my parents, and I sing the words I remember.

Later that afternoon she gives me an instant cup of noodles made with boiling water she obtained from somewhere while telling the other 30 people around us she is feeding The American. Gary refuses her offer and says he will stick to his own food supply.

I eat the cup of noodles hungrily. After I’m finished, I hold the empty styrofoam bowl in my hands. Mother Chen gestures to throw it out the window. I grin sheepishly not wanting to litter. She gestures toward the window again. I give in and throw the plastic cup out the window.

“What the fuck are you doing mate?” Gary grunts, and stares at me with a mixture of shock and anger.

“They, are throwing them out the window,” I say.

“We need to set a good example for them,” he says sternly.

He walks over and makes a show of putting the plastic wrapper from his packaged meal into a dustbin in the aisle.

After lunch, we watch the desert terrain west of Xian fly past, enveloped by the sounds of rattling windows and doors, and the aroma of watermelon juice roasting in the sun, day-old roast chicken, machine oil and a distant stench from the toilet.

I notice a cleaner coming into our carriage doing a superficial attempt to pick up the worst of the watermelon refuse and eggshells on the floor. When she reaches the middle section of the carriage, she picks up our dustbin and carries it away.

Out of curiosity, I wonder where she is taking it and poke my head into the aisle. The cleaner walks to the end of the carriage, holds the dustbin out the door with two hands, and shakes out its contents, sending them flying in an airborne trail fluttering in the wind alongside the train.

Gary is reading a book and hasn't seen all of this. I consider telling him, but decide it's more diplomatic to save this information for later.

The train goes past the industrial city of Lanzhou. The scenery has gradually grown drier and dustier as the train moves West. The nights are now frigid cold while the days have become scorching hot.

“Keep on eye on your belongings at all times,” Gary says.

I turn my gaze from the window and listen what he has to say.

“A mate of mine, Paul, was on a train like this, travelling alone. He went to the toilet and told the family next to him to watch his bag, but when he came back the backpack was gone. The family said they didn’t know anything.”

I ask Gary, “The family was there, did they take it?”

“Good question! So Paul goes and finds the police on the train. Every long-distance train has two policemen on it.”

“Did they help him find it?”

“The police come talk to the family and put the screws in. They point out another man on the train. They search the guy and sure enough, find the backpack and give it back to Paul.”

“So all was fine?”

“The story’s not finished yet. The train was travelling through the middle of nowhere, somewhere like here.” Gary points out the window. “The police stop the train. They take the man into a field. And shoot him dead.”

“Oh my god. Did they just leave him there?” I ask.

“Yes, just like that. Bam. The man who had his backpack stolen said there wasn’t even anything important in it. He never would have asked for it back had he known that would happen.”

“This story is almost unbelievable. Shot a man dead for a backpack?”

“I knew Paul. A solid guy who would never lie about anything. True story mate.”

The next day, we arrive at Xinjiang’s central city of Urumqi. The Chen family politely says goodbye and wishes me the best on my future travels.

As we’re getting off the train Gary asks, “I’m staying at the best hotel in the city, the Grand Hotel, do you want to split a room, $50 each?”

“That’s out of my price range. I’m going to a $10 hostel,” I reply.

“Well, We’re going in the same direction. Let's share a taxi.”

We get into a car and Gary directs the driver to drop him off first.

After a long ride through the sizeable city of Urumqi (which appears divided into Chinese and Muslim districts with a heavy police presence throughout) our taxi finally arrives at the Phoenix Hotel’s palatial entrance. For a man who has been very verbose the previous three days, Gary says goodbye very tersely, grabs his bag and walks toward the entrance. Perhaps he’s eagerly looking forward to a hotel room and a warm shower. Then, I realize he has forgotten to pay his share of the taxi fare. I get out of the taxi and chase him into the lobby. He says It's slipped his mind, and hands me ten dollars. As a backpacker, ten dollars pays for another day of travel.

For the next several years each time I go to a bookstore I visit the Travel section, find a shelf of Lonely Planet guidebooks and flip through the front pages looking for Gary’s name but never find it.

Was Gary a spy using me for cover? An international drifter telling stories to impress rubes? Is receiving food when hungry more important than issues of geopolitics? And is plastic waste thrown out of a train window any different than that sent to an unseen landfill? I simply don't know. This story is merely a retelling of my personal experiences on a train journey in a unique and vast country 27 years ago.