The Reasons To Love Human And Physical Geography

A train journey to Chengdu!

China has one of the biggest and busiest railway networks in the world, linking almost every town and city. And unlike most westerners who travel this huge country, we spent our overnight train journey to the panda city of Chengdu with the local people sitting on incredibly hard seats.

Being the only two blonde and blue eyed people in the cabin, it took a while for all the stares to stop. Sat opposite was a young woman who couldn’t stop smiling it almost felt like we were famous with the constant sideways glances.

We kept our attention focused on the scenery whizzing by, rice fields with farmers still hard at work, even though dusk was falling. Then the woman opposite started to make contact using a smile and some hand signalling. The offer of food was made, but being a stranger and feeling exposed, we declined. She then proceeded to contently nibble her way through a bag of chickens’ feet.

Sichuan province uncovered mountain ranges like shields protecting the beauty within. If only they could have protected us! To escape the attention, we ventured to the restaurant cabin for some light refreshment.

The cabin was empty, that is until word spread. Before long we were joined by the chef, drinks porter, cleaner, conductor and even the train police! But with Tsingtao flowing, the atmosphere soon turned into a party. The cleaner told jokes, we had photos taken with the toothless smoking chef and all this was done in fluent Chinese!