Bound for Vietnam by Lydia Laube Page B

streets that went up and down all higgledy piggledy gave it a sense of familiarity. The memory of the two happy years I had spent in Naples will always remain with me.
    Deposited at the train station entrance – I’d had to pay five yuan at the gate for the taxi to drive the extra hundred yards from the road to the building – I enquired after my platform and was shown five fingers twice, which I took to mean ten. Continuing on, I enquired twice more and got two more answers. One man pointed upstairs, but I could see there was no platform up there and another passenger told me that it was the one I was standing on, number five. I settled for that.
    I stood waiting in the pool of harsh light that isolated the platform from the surrounding darkness, my breath steaming in the freezing air, and hoped I was in the right place. The train choofed in on time and to my relief it was the one I wanted. I settled into my soft sleeper compartment for a fourteen-hour ride; we were due to reach Liuzhou at seven the next morning. I had decided to go there and take a bus to Yanshu, where the country-side was said to be fascinating, and from where it was possible to travel to Guangzhou by road or river.
    Departing Chongqing, we travelled among gigantic peaked mountains, part of the great ranges that run east and west across China and separate the agricultural areas. It was still dark. High up here daylight did not appear until after seven. Now and then the train passed small huts that were softly lit by kerosene lamps or candles and it was a strange feeling to look into their interiors as we rode by, like seeing flashes of a different world flicked on a screen.
    The train went through the mountains via tunnels that followed one after the other, some stretching for kilometres. What an engineering feat the building of this railway had been! Considering that the country’s first railway had only been commenced at Shanghai in 1875 and that it had proceeded merely a short distance before being torn up by angry, superstitious mobs, China had come a long way.
    Initially the mountains were just wilderness, but later their steep sides were terraced to an incredible height. Rice and vegetables grew in tiny plots only a couple of feet wide. This was a green but stony province. The rugged cottages and houses in the villages we passed were all made of stone, as were the terrace walls that surrounded the small amount of land that was suitable for planting.
    I went to the train’s dining car to investigate the possibility of fodder. This was quite an occasion. I am not often up for breakfast at the hour that the Chinese indulge in it. I noticed that other hopeful feeders had tickets in front of them on their tables, and approached a small squat lady who, strategically positioned at the dining car entrance, seemed to be the source of the tickets. In exchange for five yuan a piece of paper was issued to me that in due time metamorphosed into a bowl of gruel and some dumplings – neither of which had any taste at all. Showing the small squat one the food list in my book, I did an Oliver Twist and asked for more. At first she said, ‘No,’ but then she relented and pointed to fried rice and egg. I was delighted. Fifteen minutes later I was happily wading through an egg chopped up on rice and a bowl of spicy soup with bits of tomato floating in it.
    Then I fell on my bunk and slept like the dead for three hours. It was the best sleep I’d had for days. After that it was time to put the nose-bag on again. Lunch boxes were brought along on a trolley. For a small fee I was given two boxes, one containing plain rice, the other mangled bits of duck and lots of cabbage. I know the latter was fresh as I had seen enormous baskets of cabbages being brought aboard the train and lined up in the corridor outside the cook house.
    At first I shared my compartment with only one gent, but in the evening two others joined us. My companion and I, who did not exchange one