Hard Sleeper - The Way to Travel in China

Hard Sleeper - The Way to Travel in China

by Lisle Veach

During the few years we lived in China, our favorite mode of long distance travel was by far the train - especially hard sleeper class. We still highly recommend this to anyone thinking of taking a trip to China. While tickets are sometimes snatched up quickly, with some advanced planning and a good travel agent, they can be had.

Train tickets in China come in four classes: hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. Hard seat coaches are the most common, and since cheap tickets without a seat assignment are also available in this class, these coaches are frequently extremely crowded, especially during the holiday seasons, often with four people squished into each of the three-person seats, and weary travelers standing and sleeping literally everywhere when seats are not available.

Soft seat cars are much more regulated, comfortable and uncrowded, but they're normally only found on tourist trains for day trips. Soft sleepers contain enclosed compartments with four bunks and a small table and window in each. They're quite comfy, and the view out the window is nice, but you'll be isolated from the rest of the train population and miss a rare chance to experience the real China during your jouney across the country.

If you're adventurous, whenever possible, try to get hard sleeper tickets. Less expensive than soft sleeper, and certainly cheaper than flying, it's a wonderful way to meet Chinese people on a very personal level. While the beds are not really soft (They're more like the leather exam table you'd find in your doctor's office), they're economical, comfortable enough and you'll be saving the cost of a hotel on the overnight ride, to boot.

A typical hard sleeper coach is made up of a long row of 66 bunks, contained in eleven open-ended cubicles of six beds each along one wall of the car, each cubicle comprising an upper, middle, and lower bunk on facing sides, and sharing a window and a very small table between them all. The opposite side of the car is lined all the way down with tiny fold-down seats and tables.

The bunks are ticketed by number and the middle ones are always the best ones to get, if you can. The top bunk is a bit too close to the ceiling to be able to sit upright. And during the daytime, everyone will sit on all the lower bunks, regardless of who is the rightful owner of the bunk's ticket, so there's no way to catch a nap until lights out time in the evening. But with a middle bunk, you can always clamber up the ladder and stretch out anytime you like.

When full, the atmosphere in a hard sleeper car can take on the feeling of a mobile camping trip, and if you're the only foreigners in the car, you'll be sure to catch people's attention. On a long trip, as interest in the world outside the window gradually wanes, curious travelers with some English skills may begin wandering over to ask questions and entertain you with stories about their lives. Some might even share their fruit and tea with you. It became our family's habit to travel with a deck of UNO cards, with which we'd attract a group of children on the train, who were delighted with the new game and the thrill of meeting someone from another country. Moms, dads and grandparents would usually also gather around to watch and offer sage advice. Every day spent on the train in hard sleeper was loaded with priceless personal photo opportunities.

By immersing yourself in the little traveling mini-community found in a hard sleeper car, you're likely to learn more about China and Chinese society than could ever be gleaned from a professionally guided tour.