Before venturing to China for the first time I was forewarned by the various anonymous online travel gurus that transport by bus in Zhōngguó was inexpensive, however an erratic frustrating option, but that the country’s intercity train system was also inexpensive and the “bees’ knees” as an option for getting round the country. So, finding ourself in Tieling city in northern Liaoning province, we duly turned up at the Tieling West railway station with the expectation of a timely experience in traversing the 300km to Dandong by rail.

Lesson for rookie China travellers # 1 – do not take the here-say (and well-meaning) advice of civilian locals who say: you can catch the intercity train all day, no problems, the trains go from Tieling to Changchun (north) and to Dandong (east)❅ very regular! Well, they may go fairly frequently to Changchun and Harbin, but the trains to Dandong and Dalian to travel to the beat of a very different drum! We breasted the ticket counter about one in the afternoon, we were greeted with the news that the next train to Dandong was not until 6:43 that evening – leaving us with over five-and-a-half hours to slowly killing!

West Tieling Station with its vastness resembled an airport and the comparison was further accentuated by the baggage check and body scan the staff put us through – every bit as rigorous as any of the mega-sized international airports put you through. They confiscated the metal knife and fork we had innocently included in our luggage case to cut the unleavened bread at destination’s end. To the officials, these items especially the knife were something akin to the heavy artillery of a dedicated terrorist, or so their aghast reactions suggested.

The robotic torture machine masquerading as an automated back massager

So, five hours to sit round in a cavernous waiting hall twiddling our thumbs on our electronic devices. At least the seating was numerous and the seats themselves (heavily adorned with advertising slogans) were of a greatly more comfortable kind than usually found in government railway stations. The seats in fact warrant special mention for their unique feature. The back support of the seat, provided for a charge, a non-human massaging session which should be accompanied by a warning label, instead of the flagrantly inaccurate claim on the seat’s arm that “the massage is very comfortable”.

A false and very misleading product endorsement

I was lured by my wife into sitting on one of these seats…unbeknownst to me she had activated the mechanism by taking a snapshot of the electronic payment grid. The automated back massager proceeded without mercy to attack my back with unremitting ferocity for the next ten minutes. As it coursed it’s way unceasingly up and down my defenceless vertebrae, it felt as if a gang of skinheads had collectively let loose on me with their knees, brutally and unrelentingly kneeing me on every point of my back❂. In the safety of our Dandong hotel room several hours later my back was still feeling the crippling effects of my pulverisation.

“Love seat” – umm, perhaps of the S&M kind?

Finally, as dark was falling, getting close to the belated but keenly anticipated time of arrival of the very fast train to Dandong, the cacophonous station loud speaker blared out this gem of information: what had already been a long, tortuous wait punctuated by endless bouts of boredom, itself interrupted only by the occasional bout of tedium, was topped off by the unwelcome news that the G786 was running behind schedule, it would now arrive at Tielingwi nearly half-an-hour later than schedule, at 7:11 at night. So much for the merits of a VFT which makes you wait extended periods of time just to avoid. I occupied the “extra time” cooling my displeasure by contemplating whether the rail company should fork out a 10% or 15% discount for their tardy supposed VFT train service.

It did arrive at 7:11 and we were herded through the entrance barriers and down the ramp and up to platform 2 where the wickedly toxic smell of consumed tobacco pervaded the entire platform (ironically to get to the VFT which is avowedly smoke-free with constant PA reminders and admonishments on board the train, you have to first pass through this impenetrable barrier of hazy smoke!).

At least one happy traveller on the CRH train

Fortunately the train journey itself to Dandong did go pretty smoothly (dare I say it seamlessly), although we did have an inexplicably extended and unexplained stop at Shenyang for some reason(?). About ten past or a quarter past nine the CRH train finally rolled into the station at Dandong. We and many others peeled out of the station exit into the busy traffic of Jiangcheng Street and made for the single popularly patronised taxi rank.

All manner of distinctive human exotica materialised on the G786

A final word on CRH train food: the years of plane travel have accustomed me to expect a vast range in the quality of in-air meal offerings by the various airline providers. With long-distance train travel, my expectations have tended to lie on the lower end of the quality spectrum. Whereas travelling on the Ghan in Central Australia (Adelaide to Darwin) was a peerless culinary treat, the CRH trip au contraire to Dandong was more in the ballpark of my tasteless dining experience aeons ago on the Cairo to Aswan railway. The food offered up on the G786 was a strange admixture of not very much, comprising dried sardines, some “milk tablets” (labelled Mongolian Milk Food – a speciality of CRH apparently) and a couple of other items claiming to be foodstuffs encased in small plastic satchels which looked decidedly unappealing if not outright dodgy!
Ladies and gentlemen, China Rail High train reminds you that the nexta stop is …
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❅ the ‘dong’ in Dandong means east in Chinese

❂ either that or a detachment of heavily built Russian masseuses had unleashed the force of their powerful fury on me!