The Curse of Buying Tickets in China Continues...

I can't book tickets or hotels for Tibet in April now. No. That's not possible.

In Shanghai, I tried to book train tickets from Suzhou to Shanghai next Saturday. I went to the automatic ticket machine. Typed in the date, the time, departure station, arrival station. There were no seats available on the selected train. Back to home screen. Re-select train. Select number of tickets. Re-type all previous typed information. Message flashes: 'go to Suzhou station. You must buy tickets in Suzhou station.' But I'm in Shanghai? That's not possible.

I want to go to the cinema on Friday night. Today I went there to try and buy a ticket.

"Hi. Can I book tickets to see Avatar on Friday night please?"

"What day?"

"Friday."

"Afternoon or evening?"

"Evening."

"Imax or normal 3D?"

"Imax"

"What film?"

"Avatar."

"You can't book tickets for that film until Friday morning."

"What about normal 3D? Can I book tickets for that now?"

"No. Not until Tuesday."

"So if I come in on Tuesday or Friday evening to book tickets, there will be some available?"

"No. Probably not. Probably too busy."

"So how can I get tickets?"

"Come on Wednesday night."

"But... you just said...?"

I had to walk away, my teeth grinding slightly and my nails digging into my palms.

So that's official: it's not possible to buy plane tickets, cinema tickets, train tickets or reserve a hotel except on a randomly selected day that you will not know about until you have already wasted time, effort and energy on going to the ticket vendor. Not possible.

Just accept it.

Train Tickets for Golden Week

I have just purchased six train tickets to Beijing for the Golden Week holiday in October. Or at least I think I have. It wasn’t simple.

I should make two things clear: there is no simple, one click website to buy tickets on and you cannot rock up at the station to buy tickets.

I emailed approximately 20 travel agents to ask them to book me train tickets. Ponder the range of responses: “you need a Chinese person to call a telephone number”; “I will stop to try and find ticket for you now” and “I can say it’s not possible to find us from Shanghai.” Hmmm…

From my various emails I managed to establish that tickets are only released for sale 10 or 20 days before the train’s departure. Only 10 OR 20 days. Not a month, not a day, not 10 AND 20 days. 10 OR 20 days. 

We wanted to buy hard sleeper seats. There are six of us traveling and hard sleepers have six berths in a room. One travel agent informed me that there would be no hard sleeper seats available. At all. Bear in mind that this was more than 10 and 20 days before the train’s departure so, in theory, no train tickets had been sold yet. In theory, all of the tickets were available on the train. Hmmm...

At last I found a travel agent who was delighted to book me train tickets on a soft sleeper (4 berths), not a hard sleeper. The only glitch was I had to travel to Shanghai to pay her the money. When I told her I was unavailable to travel to Shanghai until the weekend she wrote back: “It's great, we will recommend you visit Beijing in winter not October. It's lower season, some time the weather is not so cold. I have been there in December one year before last year, it's no more crowd people and you may get some good price from hotel and airline. Trust me. I think you don't need to trains ticket of soft sleeper this time.” But I do need the tickets! I do!

I asked a Chinese woman I know why it was so difficult. When she found out there were actually tickets on the train she suggested I had been a complete idiot not to just quit my job and go to Shanghai to get the tickets. It is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and everyone in China is going to Beijing to celebrate. The woman said: “you don’t have a choice about the tickets. You have to take them. Do you know how many millions of people live in China?” Well, duh.

I felt a bit stupid and instantly emailed the travel agent back saying I would do anything to get the tickets. Anything turned out to be dashing out of an aerobics class drenched in sweat; jumping in a taxi; driving through a giant tunnel under a lake; tackling downtown Suzhou traffic at rush hour; meeting a random woman in an alleyway; handing over cash and meeting an Australian man. 

I still don’t have the tickets in my possession…

The Last Train From Glasgow Central Station -

Is full of people with chips. Chips in bags and chips on jackets. And a woman crying. A man giving high fives to strangers and giving up smoking and announcing to the passengers "Ah hope none of youse smoke. Ah hope none of youse never smoke!" And a woman shouting at her phone because her husband won't collect her at the station. An emotional man ranting about how great it is to see his mate after months; how great it is to have a proper night out with him; it's brilliant to see him again: he's his best mate; he's always, always loved him; he respects him. He stands up to get off the train and his mate shouts "Ah don't even know who that bugger is!"