The Chinese money we used was different from the local money. We shopped at the Peoples Department Store where only visitors were allowed. In the restaurants, we were seated in the Visitors area where there were no locals. It was 1986.
There was a young woman from New York in our group. She and Pat did not heed the advice about not wandering around the city by themselves. They would go out early in the mornings, and shot a lot of pictures of people going about their daily lives. Pat even visited with some of the locals. I am sure they had taken some very interesting photos.
We were scheduled for an overnight visit to Chengde, where the site of the Mountain Resort was.
That morning, we were having breakfast, I overheard our French guide having an argument with the local guide. They were speaking Mandarin, which I knew. There was something about the train. I had a feeling that we might run into some unexpected delay. So I asked the waitress to get some sandwiches and some fruits for me to take on the train ride. She got me four or five little sandwiches and some shriveled up oranges. I took the sack.
We each took a small bag with us, leaving our large luggage in the hotel since we were only going to be gone overnight.
It was during Chinese New Year time. The street was crowded with people, so was the train station. I believe, many people were going home - the rare time that they were allowed to visit their families.
We got on the train. We found some seats.
I noticed that it did not look like a first class car. There were merely rows of hard seats. There were lots of people trying to get on the train. So, we took what seats we could find. Soon the train pulled out of the station.
Our journey was to cover no more than a hundred-fifty miles, I believe.
We soon found out that our train was not an Express Train.
We stopped every twenty or thirty minutes or so. Every time the train stopped, more people came on board. People with boxes, presents they were bringing to their families?
People came on board with live chicken.
People came on board with crying children.
People with large bundles of 'heaven knows what.'
Soon we realized that we should not get out of our seats for whatever reason - because it you did, you would not get your seats back.
Pretty soon the train was so crowded it felt like some of the people were sitting in our laps.
Some of us decided that there were good photo taking opportunities. Some of us had Polaroid Instant cameras! Soon we were swamped by the crowd. Everyone wanted to have his or her photo taken. They also wanted to keep the pictures.
They were fascinated with the instant cameras.
We were mobbed by the children particularly.
My husband shouted, "Don't leave your seats."
It took a good seven hours for the hundred some mile journey. A Slow Train In China!
We had no water.
I shared my pitiful looking sandwiches with my husband and our four friends. the others in our group shot us with looks of envy - they wanted to know how we manged to have something to eat?
I shared my shriveled oranges with some of them. But there was not enough for everyone.
And, no restroom breaks.
When we got to Chengde, it was getting dark.
Our French guide emerged. He had been in hiding throughout the train ride.
Several cars took us to the hotel, a big four story tall Art Deco building that looked like it came out of by-gone days.
The whole hotel staff were lined up at the front door, receiving us, as if we were royalties. It took some of the Sting out of the Slow Train Ride.
We were ushered into the huge dining room and ballroom combination, where they fed us with a lot of fresh vegetables - treasured dishes in the wintertime in this part of the world.
The hotel looked like it was built in the thirties. But we found out it was only seven or eight years old, built by the Russians. Beautiful examples of Art Deco details but so run down.
The plumbing was not in good condition. The walls were dingy and there were big cracks in many places.
But the Staff was wonderful.
They had prepared for us to dance after the dinner. None of us did. We were worn out by the Slow Train ride!
The next morning, we met our guide for the historic Chengde. It turned out that he was a scholar and knew a great deal about the history of the place. He was tall and lanky, extremely well-mannered, and soft-spoken.
I forgot about the Slow train and the dingy hotel.
Chengde is near the border of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning Provence (Manchuria), where I was born.
It was exciting for me.
I tried to remember the haunting scenes I saw from the train. I remember seeing the cabbages being dried on the flat roof tops.
They never tell you about these things in the history or geography books.
I remember the little mud houses, the few corrals with some animals in them, the vast distances between homes, the flat lonesome looking prairie . . . They looked surreal.
Chengde was mainly a mining town. But the Mountain Resort was the summer palace and hunting grounds for the royalties.
Building of Mountain Resort started in 1702 and was finished in 1790. The Resort covers an area of 5,649,000 square meters. Wow!
It was the largest royal garden in China. The wall of the Resort was over ten thousand meters in length.
It had lake areas, plains areas, and hills areas. There were 8 lakes at the resort. And there were hundreds of palaces and temples.
Empress Dowager Xici held horse races and the emperors hunted in this Resort. The royalties came here to escape the summer heat in Beijing.
This was a multi-ethnic culture area - Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and others.
There was integration of the different beliefs - Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and others.
The buildings were of a combination Han and Tibetan styles of architecture.
The buildings were integrated into the natural environment, beautifully done.
Much of it was in disrepair, yet the beauty was still there. I loved it.
I loved the mountains.
We were taken to Putuo Zongchong Temple, which resembled the Potala Palace in Tibet. There were a number of buildings around the temple. All of them were most intriguing.
I said to myself that I would like to go to Tibet.
Till this day, I still would like to go to Tibet.
Our train back to Beijing was an Express one. We had little white lace edged table clothes, hot tea, and different snacks. The ride did not take more than a couple of hours.
Back at the Hotel, Pat and Mayra, our New Yorker, found that all their films were gone.
They did not make a fuss over it though.
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