Thursday 4 February 2010

Guangzhou again...

Finally managed to collect our visa and then it was back to Guangzhou to continue our travels. Decided to make Chengdu in Sichuan province our next stop. Only problem was booking the train tickets, which had been growing increasingly difficult as Chinese New Year and Spring Festival approached. At this time of year you can only book train tickets for the same day or next day, and only from the station you're departing from. So Karen and I made our way over to East Train Station but really weren't prepared for what we saw. The sheer volume of people queuing was overwhelming. Because the train station building couldn't handle the number of people that had to be processed (each ticket has to be matched an ID card/passport to prevent ticket touting) they'd set up huge temporary holding pens in a vast carpark area outside. There must have been several thousand people waiting in lines out there, sitting on bags surrounded by all their luggage, just waiting to be processed so they could get through to the station waiting rooms to queue again. It was honestly like walking through a refugee camp. Luckily a policeman saw how lost we saw and took us to the ticket office. We couldn't get the 3 hard sleeper tickets we wanted so had to make do with 2 soft sleepers, while Helen had to take a plane to Chengdu to meet us there.

Got to the station next morning, but waited at the metro gate under the station, rather than the holding pens, so it wasn't as bad as we'd expected. After passport and luggage checks, and more queing, we finally got on the train and looked forward to arriving in Chengdu – the relaxed capital of beautiful Sichuan province. P.S. DON'T try to travel close to Spring Festival..

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