Part 1 – On the Train with a Toddler

When we last left off my husband had just purchased a hard seat, one top bunk hard sleeper ticket for myself, himself, and our 1 year old son to travel from Hainan to Beijing. I knew this would be a nightmare before we even boarded the train. There was no option except for our son to ride in the seat section with my husband, as a 1 year old on the top bunk, you might imagine, isn’t exactly a bright idea. I had thought I might find someone in the berth to trade with me, but alas, when we boarded the train it turned out that the bottom bunk occupants were an elderly couple. Well, we thought, we’ll just have to make the best of this, and my husband bid me farewell at the platform and I promised I’d come by and visit later in the evening. I settled into my top bunk feeling a bit lonely – it was, silly as it sounds, the first night I’d ever spent away from my son since he was born; even if he was only 9 train compartments away, it still felt odd. After a few hours I decided to pay them a visit and see how they were getting on.

As it turned out, my son was at this point having a grand old time being entertained and plied with goodies by a jolly couple seated with my husband. Another woman had graciously vacated the seat next to them so that my husband could have more room to spread our son out and let him sleep on the seats. It seemed they had it all under control so I went back to my cabin, saying goodbye to my son, and for the first time I can remember, he actually said goodbye back. My little heart was just melting. As I climbed back into the top bunk I curled up with a book and tried not to think of my son in the other compartment. Would they sleep well? Would my husband sleep all?

In the morning first thing I went to visit them and found that indeed, my husband had not slept at all. What’s more, my son had, at some point during the night, rolled off the seat and landed on the ground below. He was uninjured and enjoying being petted and pampered by the jolly couple (who, in the course of my visit, had given him an orange, chocolate, and a cookie). My husband was desperately trying to trade up tickets for a sleeper, having been exhausted by the night before and not sure he could take another whole night of sleeplessness and danger. Although I had seen many free beds on the way over to the hard seat compartment, we were told that those were all reserved for people who would be boarding the train in Changsha. I decided to come back at lunch time and check on them again, and maybe bring up some eats from the dining car. But when I started making my way back, I was stopped by a train attendant.

Train attendants, I am convinced, are like would-be flight attendants who, for whatever reason (maybe not good looking enough, or maybe because of their surly personalities), couldn’t hack it and so were stuck on the rails rather than flying the friendly skies. This particular guy was of the ultra douchey variety, and he stopped me and asked for my ticket, which I had not brought with me, having stowed it in my luggage for safekeeping. The guy made like he couldn’t let me back to the sleeper train because, you know, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already seen me come and go several times, and he really couldn’t be sure I wasn’t just trying to pull a fast one. Finally, after a near bout of tears, he agreed, like the troll guarding the bridge, to let me pass in exchange for my firstborn son. No, actually, in exchange for my promising to never let it happen again.

Later at lunchtime, as I made the long trek back to the hard seat compartment for yet the third time, I was met with a surprise along the way – my husband and son! They had managed to get a ticket finally, and we celebrated with lunch in the dining car, a real gourmet feast, I might add. From that point on the trip was spent rather uneventfully, although my husband had procured a middle berth, and I could not sleep at all that night out of paranoia that my son would fall out of the bed during his nightly tossing and turning. Never was I so relieved when the sun came up and we pulled into Beijing station swearing never again to take a train with a toddler. However, how soon we forget, because this past month we decided to take a trip to Kunming, and what, you might ask, was our method of transportation? That’s right, the train. Soft sleeper, of course.

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Related Links

On the Train with a Toddler
The Adventures of Train Travel in China
I Want To Raise My Family in China – Am I Crazy?

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