on the rails

When we last spokewe were at the top of Tai Shan, China's most famous Mtn. From there we managed to get tickets on another train to the city of Tai'Yuan. But first a little more detailed description of the first train experience, Xian to Tai Shan.
The train left at 5 P.M. it was very hot and very humid, the outside plaza was full of tens of thousands of people and vehicles. We weren't to sure which gate to enter and with the cattle guard system of entry once you are in a line that is it, you better be right, there is no changing lines. Yes, right entry, and even our gate number on the electronic billboard. Great, except the two rows of "waiting seats" were full of at least 2000 people with luggage (from designer shopping bags with little rope handles to giant plastic/burlap bags that once contained seed or grain tied with country rope) waiting to get on the same train that would not arrive for another hour! Finally the gates open and as in all Chinese gates and doorway or ticket counters there is a dash/push to get through. I was carrying my large backpack the computerbag and a shoulder bag with water, food and a jacket. The surge forward can only be described as, if a space opens in front of you fill it, if a space opens in front on the person in front of you and they don't fill it, you push them to fill it. This process procedes for five to ten minutes and ChaCha and I become more and more seperated, remember we don't know where we are supposed to go or sit. She looks back at me and I shout to her to wait to the left after we pass the gate. Once through the gate there are several long flights of stairs leading to the platform. My backpack is very heavy and it is obvious I am straining to carry it up the stairs so a young woman grabs the other end and we carry it to the top where she continues to want to help but my macho-self declines and she and her girlfriend laugh and move on. Along the platform it looks as though most of the train has been full of people for weeks, they are hanging out the windows eating, smoking, and just living close. Each car we pass seems to be already full so we get near the end of the twenty-plus car train and hand our ticket to the porter, who points to the ticket that has among the Chinese chacters the #10, our car number, so we haul back to car #10 and board. The inside is packed, each car seats about 160 people, there are two cubicles in each row, one cubicle seats four people the other six people. There is a small table in each cubicle that is attached to the wall. The aisle down the center of the railcar is narrow and my pack has about a two inch clearance on either side, and no, the aisles are not free and clear. I spot an overhead shelf open spot and shout to Chacha that I'm going there, she agrees, but as I attempt to hoist the pack up I'm in a bad position, I'm sweating profusly and my hand slips and I loose control of the bag. A very small man helps me catch it just before it hits a woman in the head and the whole car full of people gasp and shout and laugh and offer a hundred different suggestions (all in Chinese) of what to do next. Well the bag gets secure and I find an open seat. A young woman passenger who speaks some english asks to see my ticket, she points to another number that we hadn't seen that is my seat number. There, in my seat, was a firmly planted middle aged woman, the seat was next to the window and she wanted to be there next to the open air, so I sat next to her and was content to leave it at that but Chacha's seat was in the cubicle across the aisle and next to the window, where a woman with an 18 month old baby was sitting, her husband next to her was very adament about not giving up that window to Chacha and there was some tension for awhile but after Chacha flirted with the baby and we all laughed and it became clear we were settled in the middle of a multi-generation family on there way back home all was well, we rotated seats and settled in for the seventeen hour ride. The small table in each cubicle serves as a dining table and also a place to put your head to sleep, the only problem is that is so low that when I tried to lay my head down it was below the level of my heart which doesn't work so not much sleep that night. After several hours and stops the car began to fill with people who didn't have assigned seats, you can buy a cheap "stand-only" ticket. When we finally arrived at Tai Shan there were more people in the car than when we left......... Our next trip was far more pleasant.

So you can understand our apprehension when the next leg of the journey had a standing only ticket for the first 150km, but it turned out to be just fine we got seats in a cubicle with some very friendly people and the experience was fun.
That train stopped at a city called Tai'Yuan a 3,000,000 people industrial monolith on a flat plateau that was solid grey from the ground up. We have been spoiled up to this point in that someone spoke at least a little english, not here. The hotel, the restaurant, the cab driver nobody spoke any english and we had to rely on our inadequate phrase book to get us through. Our most memorable experience in that city was the internet cafe. First, you can't advertise that you have an internet cafe in China (they don't want the youth surfing or playing games) so they are hard to find. The one we did find was on the second floor of a very dark building, the kind that you think would house gambling or prostitution endeavors. The term internet cafe would miss the mark by a long shot, it was more akin to an internet barn. 100's of computers in tight rows with dozens of young Chinese playing games listening to loud music, talking on the net and smoking. It was unique but we lasted only about an hour.
The next day we boarded a bus for the area known a Wu Tai Shan a national park and home to the largest Buddhist concentration in the country, there is a Buddhist Nuns College located there along with many temples and historical points. The park is in the mountains, the Wu Tai Shan area has it that there are five sacred peaks and the "bowl" below the peaks is where most of the large temples are located. The main pagota, sorry I forget the name, was built in 1067 to house sacred texts. The building is giant, several hundred meters high and painted white with lots of white marble near the bottom, very impressive. But by far our most memorable experience of the park was the hike to Quan Yin's cave. Quan Yin an immortal that lived way B.C.and is a favorite of ours and has been for many years, so to be able to go to the place where she gained her enlightenment was really a thrill. The hike was about an hour from our hotel, up into a canyon that seemed separate from the rest of the park (more on this in another blog). We paid our 4 yuan entrance fee, 60 cents, and went through the modern temple and up the rock cliff that the emperor in the Ming Dynasty had built to honor her. Also there was some description about the VI incarnation of the Dali Lama spending a lot of time there. We hiked the carved stairs straight up several hundred feet an found another temple, small with only some carved statues and prayer alters. behind the temple carved into the rock was a small cave that had a locked wooden door on the front it was only about four feet tall and three feet wide. Next to that was a niche where Chacha prayed. We marveled in silence for a while and were about to leave when a monk appeared form a small room where he had been in meditation. He showed us the inside of the temple and then as we were about to leave motioned for us to follow him to the cave. He unlocked the cave door and inside was a spring with a ladle that he dipped and motioned for us to cup our hands and drink which we did. Could it be......... We left there, went down a few stairs and found a platform where we ate apples and meditated in the warm sun. Once outside the area I commented to Chacha that the common image of Quan Yin in her flowing gown no longer held any weight. She was less than five feet tall lived in rock and ate spring water.

This is all too much computer for me for now so I'll let Chacha continue.

love
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