The train ride from DunHuang to LanZhou was 6:45pm to 8am. The thing about sleeper berths is that the train cart attendant will remind me when it is time to get off. How does this work? When I arrive at my bunk, I have to hand my paper train ticket to an attendant on the train and trade it in for a plastic card with my berth number on it. The attendant goes around to collect the tickets. When it is 20 minutes before my station of arrival, I have to trade it in for my paper ticket. This system allows the passengers to not miss their exit. Then at the train station exit I have to show my paper ticket at the exit gate.
The same attendant on the train also comes around regularly to sweep the floor and mop the restroom. This person also cleans out the trash and collects it from everyone. The tiny little container for trash is fitting for the train but not all that functional for the amount of trash disposed by passengers, so people make a mess. And when its water melon seeds or pumpkin seeds it is definitely all over the floor. Knowing the attendant will sweep the floor and keep it clean, people do just go right ahead and help themselves. In the sleeper berths, people don’t spit on the floor, and that is a good thing. Seeds, nuts, and instant noodles are found in everyone’s snack bags. People really like spicy beef instant noodles here. Can't find anything else beyond that and seafood flavor. I can smell the very strong portions of MSG in the noodles. Sometimes there is Sichuan spicy instant noodles that is vegan but may have onions unlisted in the ingredient list and it is spicy-spicy.
A young man from the next cabinet was ill. He threw up and had diarrhea all day. By the time he was on the train he was in cold sweat and shivering. There was no doctor on the train and they didn't have the right medicine. The family was on their way to Xi’an. They were seriously worried and it was too late to find a doctor at the next city. I decided to not mind my own business and inquired more about it. It looks to me he shouldn't have eaten 5 skewer sticks of lamb BBQ at the night market. I checked his pressure points for flu symptoms etc... nothing was inflamed other than his colon organ. In my conclusion he was seriously ill from food and nothing else.
While checking for inflamed pressure points on his body he made sure I knew he had a wife and he was not available. I found that to be very funny. Here he was sick, people all think he’d be dying and should get off the train, sweating like there is no tomorrow and a bit feverish, and all he could think of was making sure I knew he had a wife. I tried not to laugh in this very serious scene on the train.
People asked me if I was a doctor, how come I had knowledge of these things. I said it's all available in books and the best part is you can test it on yourself to see if it works. I was mainly concerned if it's more than just diarrhea, if it was then he would need to get off the train and somehow locate a hospital. So he stayed on the train and I had his wife work on his kidney, liver, colon pressure points of his foot and hands and recommended that he drink salt water. Today he was better, he stopped shivering and the fever was gone and he thanked me. Being fully literate is a big deal in China. It is a big deal to make it out of high school, and college, masters or doctors is rare. I cannot tell people I majored in Psychology, it pretty much doesn't exist in China. That's a dead give away that I am a foreigner. I tell them I studied photography, of which I did. People all think I am a tour guide for some reason, maybe it is because I speak English. When I speak English to other foreigners, inner Chinese people look at me with awe and wonder, all of a sudden I am royalty or something. It’s quite an interesting experience.
I recently dreamed I was on a train to Tibet and the scenery on the train was so beautiful that I cried and cried in joy. I have been thinking about this dream and on this particular train ride, I have decided to see if I am able to get a train ticket from Lanzhou to Tibet at the Lanzhou train station.
