Punchlines

I’ve long believed life is one long joke punctuated with punchlines. Yesterday they hit me like the machine gun delivery of Max Millar. Punchline number 1: British Rail (or whatever they call themselves these days) suggested I might like to relieve myself of ½ of £100 if I wanted to get to Stevenage by 11am, thus snaring the last train of the rush hour from Farnborough (which, incidentally leaves 1 minute before the end of rush hour).

Punchline number 2: the train was so crowded I had to sit in the corridor and look longingly at a row of luxuriant, unoccupied seats, in First Class.

Punchline number 3: I found myself apologising to a young French girl on the Northern line for forcing my rear end onto her open palm and not removing it for 3 stops. The only alternative to her unwanted feel up would have been to thrust my crutch into the hips of a large black man who was muttering to himself and sweaty profusely onto my suit. He carried the look of a man with a freshly prodded wasps nest behind his eyes.

All these punchlines but I wasn’t laughing - ½ of 100 quid? My first wage packet was for less than half of that and it had to last me all week.

Stevenage is an interesting place if you’re the sort of person who likes collecting and cataloguing toenail clippings. It doesn’t help that the railway journey to it starts at Kings Cross, and believe me if a King visited he would be cross. What a shit hole. It’s easily the worst mainline station in London. No wait, why stop at London. This time last year I was travelling across Europe & Asia on my way to Saigon. Kings Cross makes the Vietnamese/Chinese border-crossing look like Westminster Abbey.

All this talk of trains reminds me why I started this Blog in the first place – my book. We’ll you’ll be pleased to know I still haven’t found a publisher stupid enough to print it. No matter, as it’s the anniversary of the trip I’m offering you another excerpt. I am travelling from Beijing to Hanoi, heading south on a Chinese train. The Vietnamese border is most of the day away and I have found a new best friend called Tie and his sister Twee, who are both lucky enough to be sharing my cabin.

Day 15

… I am woken by a tinny electronic voice wishing me a lovely journey. It’s the automated announcer at Changsha train station. This disemboweled Chinese lady, with an American twang that would pass mustard in Mississippi, goes on to say how nice it would be to see me again. Its six o'clock, an hour normally filled with surreal dreams involving cats with zipped pockets and giant orchids pulling planes out of the sky. Nevertheless I'm keen to rise and see what the world is like outside. Careful not to disturb my slumbering sharers I grab my wash bag and step out into the corridor. It’s my first real look at the train interior and I discover it’s rather shabby. The clean contours of the train that took me to Beijing have been replaced with British Rail rolling stock circa 1970. The red carpet running along the centre of the corridor bares testament to an army of shuffling passengers’ eager to find the bathroom. In places it curls up like stale bread. Any self respecting Health and Safety Officer would declare the whole corridor a trip hazard. The cream walls are grubby and the light outside show more than a few imprints of outstretched palms on the windows. Outside rice has replaced the corn of the north, taking up every available inch of land. Paddies buttress the track, steam rising as the warming sun melts condensation trickling down the fronds of heavily leafed trees. It’s hard to tell whether the rice paddies have followed the contours of the land or shaped them. Even at this early hour I see farmers hunched over, up to their knees in paddy water, or leading reluctant water buffalo, tugging aggressively at ropes attached to the beasts nostrils. Snorts of breath are expelled with force and forms small clouds floating upwards to an evaporating death.

The bathroom door is locked so I stand a while and take it all in. The vista is much less wealthier than the north. The villages and towns we pass are well established, the buildings older, and there is an absence of suburbs. All the activity is in the center. English signage is practically non-existent. Gigantic spring onions and leaks compete for space with washing flapping gently on balconies. I notice that most have a birdcage hanging from a hook and I can just make out small finch like birds hopping from perch to perch. When we leave the towns the water buffalo count is significantly higher than cars. What is the delay in the bathroom: don't they know there's a queue out here?

While I wait, I consider this part of my journey. Beijing to Hanoi is about 1700 miles as the crow flies, but I know little about the regions I'll be passing through. And I'm on my own from here. No travel agent assisted itinerary and no being met at the station. When I booked my Hanoi accommodation from the UK I asked them about meeting me at the station. They would be pleased to, they said, for more than the cost of the room. I decided I'd get my own taxi. How hard can it be? Thinking about it, all I really know about this part of my train journey is that I am scheduled to arrive in Hanoi tomorrow morning.

I notice a five star general, who an Asian would recognize as a carriage attendant, walking towards me and I take the opportunity to ask about the bathroom. He looks at me confused: maybe he’s struggling with my English. I up the volume, that should help. ‘BATHROOM…’ he holds up his hand to stop me and opens the door next to the bathroom. It’s the bathroom. I've been standing outside the toilet. This bathroom is palatial in comparison to the Russian offering. Three shining aluminum sinks in a row and plenty of running water. I have a choice of cold or instant frostbite. Selecting cold I make short work of stripping down to my under-crackers and set to work. Two minutes later the door flies open and a woman so old she may have been the original Eve shuffles in. She is stooped like an upturned hockey stick, but not quite as broad. She clocks me and her eyes widen in the same way they might if she’d walked off a cliff unexpectedly. She retreats in what I suspect is, the fasted backwards shuffle ever recorded. I hope I haven't offended her because you just don't know what you’re dealing with in this part of the world. Don't forget people like her fought off the mighty Americans armed with only a hairpin, three boiled sweets and inscrutable guile.

On the way back to my cabin I'm nearly trampled by a platoon of five star generals. In perfect formation, eyes ahead, backs straight, they march past at the double, in metronymic unison. I only just manage to stop myself saluting, and dip back into the cabin before I’m trampled. Still no sign of the Chinaman, dirty little stop out, but my new friends seem to be stirring, albeit, slowly.

Soon I hear the sales call of the trolley girl. I discovered this little gem last night. Basically the buffet car doesn't function like the one traveling down to Beijing. On this train they package up whatever they're cooking and bring it around on trolleys. I have no idea what's in her sales spiel, or indeed what's in her trolley but I stop her anyway. The trolley is essentially an oven on wheels, with a storage area on top that houses the condiments, soy sauce, chilli powder, sugar and so on. The front of the trolley displays the content and price. So I know it’s going to cost me five Yuan (about 40p), I just don't know what it is. The trolley lady looks about fifteen and her hair is rolled into a bun, which is partially covered with a small white hat. She's wearing a green tabard and tries, without success, to avoid eye contact with me. I point to the sort of plastic box you get burgers in. She opens it to avoid any translation issues and I'm relieved to find its full of noodles nestled in like a pit of blanched vipers. I stick a thumb up and she smiles a little pointing to the chili sauce. I offer my thumb again and her eyebrows knit together. Obviously she was expecting thumbs down. Nevertheless she ladles on a healthy dollop. I grin, trying to look like I always have half a pint of chili on my breakfast. Finally she spoons on a steamy beef broth with tofu and spring onion. Et voila - breakfast.

My sharers linger in their beds as I work my way through it, the boy eyeing me carefully. Which is how he comes to notice I've spilled some on my bed, and offers me some tissues to mop it up. I do my best but it leaves a brown stain on the sheets and now looks like I've shit the bed. I put my flannel over it so as not to upset his sister.

'What food is this?' he asks.

'Fang,' I reply, offering the only word the waitress had said. For all I know she could have been calling me a shit and I’ve told Tie I’m eating shit.

'Chinese food?'

I give this due consideration. Let me think, I'm on a Chinese train, in China, being served by a Chinese waitress.

'I think it might be,' I say.

'Oh, Chinese food no good, ' he says waking his sister. They tuck into a couple of cold McDonald's apples pies.

Punchline number 4: why can’t our trains be like this?