13 November 2011
Returning from the great wall
The train station at Badaling is tiny, has no timetable in English, no facilities and is full of people.
I lined up for about 45 minutes and once they let you onto the platform, the crush to get out there was dangerous. At some point they stop letting people through and then you have to wait an hour for the next train, hence the general panic, screaming, pushing.
Once on the platform, a guy yells through a loudspeaker system that doesnt really work, I have no idea what he was yelling but he seemed very concerned.
Once on the train, its absolutely full, people crouch on the floor and in the aisles, the toilets were hilarious! A sea of urine sloshing about. The dining car was sold out of everything, including water.
Not to worry, I wandered the full length of the train until I found a door with no one in it and enjoyed the excellent view.
Rolling back into Beijing right on dusk, we went past some great looking areas of the city I plan to go back to tomorrow.
The useless and tiny station.
The crushing line, that french looking guy you can see there, he was following me like I had an idea where I was going.
The train stopped here in the middle of nowhere and some of the staff got off and seemed to get into an argument with each other. The passengers got pretty restless at this point.
Final photo for today, its been a couple of days since beef noodle soup, and I found this place claiming to be the national champion. It was pretty good!