Traveling from Jiujiang to Shanghai via Train – It’s an adventure sport.

The least expensive and most common form of travel between Jiujiang and Shanghai is by train. This serves as a great advantage to the travelers wallet and as the greatest discomfort to the travelers back, legs, arms, neck, shoulders, and … well, you get the idea. The trip [by slow train] costs about 64 RMB depending on the time of year.

I traveled during the most expensive time of the year for travelers – National Day. National Day is a week long holiday the first week of October when many people travel. National Day is also the height of the shopping year.

The slow train is an overnight 16 hour trip with many stops along the way. For a few Yuan more you can buy a berthing unit if you plan in advance. These seats are the first to sell out and the rest of us travel in the seating cars with three people to a padded bench seat facing each other and a half table extending from the window.

There is no AC and as the train picks up speed the person sitting at the window riding forward will invariably shut the window since that seat bears the brunt of the winds force. You can imagine the temperature in the car. I had the window seat riding backwards – which makes for a gentle breeze and comfortable ride until the man facing me shut the window to block the harsh wind.

During a 16 hour period the average person will eat two or three meals minus any sleep time. Like U.S. air travel, train conductors will pass through the cars routinely offering noodles and a beverage cart but the cost is considerable compared to purchase off-train. Many of the passengers will bring their own meals of fresh fruits, vegetables, and snack food. Not only is this allowed, I was encouraged by everyone I spoke with to bring my own food. At some of the larger train stations along the way vendors will have carts full of many beverages – alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks, fruits, and snacks. They will walk up and down the loading platform selling their goods to passengers through the windows. One of the more interesting treats vendors sell and passengers swarm on is bird wing – possibly chicken, maybe duck, braised in a local derivative of BBQ sauce and speared on a stick. At a glance it looks like a delicious treat of cold popsicle but once I grabbed a hold and felt a greasy slippery heat my mind did a backflip on itself and quickly demanded my hand return the stick of food to the vendor.

To describe it mildly – sleep is a challenge. When we departed from Jiujiang every seat was taken and the train will sell standing tickets for passengers to ride the train with no seat. This gives a whole new meaning to the term “standing room only.” As the train made its way closer to Shanghai more seats became available as passengers debarked at stops in between, making it possible to lie down across a seat. Even with this option the closest association I can make is to the space available if you had the back seat of a standard size car to “stretch out” across. I slept off-an-on through the night often interrupted by the heat, a crying child, the blasting horn of a passing train, or a sudden lurch of our train. It was, as you can imagine, a lot of fun sleeping. I was very concerned that the lack of a good nights sleep would have an adverse affect on my stay in Shanghai. I think maybe I was lucky or I was too excited to be traveling because I did not feel tired from the trip once I arrived in Shanghai.

When the sun rose I was able to see some beautiful countryside, farms, villages, and cities. Without a detailed map of the country I had no way of knowing which towns and villages I was traveling through but names did not matter to the beauty of the view. Just past noon on Tuesday I arrived in Shanghai – exactly 16 hours later than my departure from Jiujiang.

Next: Arriving in and walking around Shanghai…

Tags: adventure, China, international travel, Shanghai, train travel, travel, travel information, travel information in China