Leaving Chengdu

The next leg of my journey would take me from Chengdu to Xining, about a 25 hour train ride, quite a distance. My train was a night train, scheduled to leave the North Chengdu Train Station at around 10pm. I was feeling really tired that night, a strange kind of tired, not your normal tiredness. I had an eerie feeling that the big Sichuan hot pot I had shared earlier that day with some fellow travelers from the hostel might have something to do with it.

Hot Pot
Hot Pot is a Sichuanese specialty that kind be found nearly on every street in Chengdu. You sit down at a table that has a hole in the middle of the table where a large metal bowl is placed. A flame is lit underneath the bowl and when the broth starts boiling you start adding ingredients that you selected from the menu.

It's an adventure to eat Hot Pot when your Chinese is bad or non-existent like mine. You end up with all kinds of strange ingredients sitting on your table, and as you stare at them, they almost seem to stare back at you. My favorite ingredient is the pigs brain, nice and raw with the texture of undercooked scrambled eggs.

The previous day I actually enjoyed the hot pot. The color of the broth was brown and it was full of spices, particularly the mouth-numbing one that I love so much. I shared that hot pot with a group of friends from the hostel with a bottle of the watery Chinese beer called "Snow".

The hot pot the next day was a different story, and it is this hot pot that I think made me sick. Even if it wasn't the actual cause of my demise, it still made me sick, just thinking about it. Let me describe it briefly: The broth was clear, and reminded me of dish-water from the sink in the kitchen of the restaurant. The broth, while it was just water, wasn't clear, but looked as if it had soap in it, kind of a creamy white color. There were no spices in the hot pot, just water, and the ingredients we were to add. One of the ingredients was a popular meat in China, which looks like spam, and makes me SICK! It's pink and fake and I hate it. There was also pigs brain and the other strange ingredient that I still haven't identified, though I think it might be pigs ear. It's tough like leather and is almost furry feeling, but it's not hair.

I believe that is what made me sick on my 27 hour train ride from Chengdu to Xining.

The Train Ride

My seat was in the middle bunk of the compartment, with one bed above me and one bed below me. It was hot. And I was starting to realize that something was brewing inside of me, a storm. I could hear distant thunder bellowing inside my stomach, coming closer with each gurgle. I could feel the moisture seeping out from the pores on my forehead, and temples. I could tell that I wasn't hungry, and that I wouldn't be hungry for a while. The workers inside my body that are usually steadfast and hardworking received a notice that it was time to go home and lock their doors, and to return to work in a few days. There was a curfew in my body until the flood had died down, everyone was advised to let the flood run its course and to return back to normal afterwards.

I woke up feeling hot, partly because I was sick, and partly because the train was hot with no air-conditioning. I decided to make a trip to the bathroom while the train had stopped and realized that in China you aren't allowed to use the bathroom when the train stops in a town, only while it is moving. So I waited for the train to move again and went to the bathroom. That is when the first wave hit me. The flood had been gaining momentum and was ready to make it's first exit. One section of the flood was making it's way up Main Street headed north, and the other part of the flood forked in downtown and made it's way down Main Street headed south. The flood headed south exited the city first, and with great rapidity and no resistance, as the workers had made sure to leave the city streets open and unblocked. The second flood movement exited from the north side of town, with a little more resistance. The north side of mainstreet runs uphill, and this made the flood a little slower in it's exit.

I returned to the bathroom many times that day and night, reenacting the same story every time. I told the people near me on the train that I was sick, pointing to my little Chinese-English dictionary to the words "sick", "vomit", and "diahrea", then pointing to myself and nodding my head. One man gave me some herbal tea which felt good, and a little boy tried to be my friend and get me food. I told him all I could eat was bread, and he nodded his head in assurance, and walked to another car on the train to get me some bread. He returned ten minutes later, not with bread, but with something very similar...greasy fried chicken's feet. Well, maybe not that similar to bread. I told him "Thank you very much, but..." and I shook my head and pointed to my stomach.

The scenery outside wasn't very interesting. And the train seemed to move slow, making many stops. I was counting the hours until the ride was over. It lasted 27 hours. I have a recommendation for you: If you are ever thinking about going to Xining...take a plane.