Train travel is a huge industry in China. One estimate that I read puts the number of people on trains at any one time at ten million. I believe it. We haven’t been on a long distance train yet that wasn’t absolutely full. When we were living in Guangzhou, I had to take the train to Shenzhen, about 90 minutes, every week. If I took first class, the car would sometimes be only half full, usually if it was at an odd time of day. The standard seats were always full, and the entire train would be filled up between 7:00 and 9:30 am and again from about 4:00 pm until the last train.

I needed a nap.

For our cross-country trips, we’ve started at various times, and it hasn’t seemed to affect the sheer number of people traveling. The long distance train stations are always full of people, and if you want to purchase a ticket, you’d better do it in advance. Even getting a hard class seat on a 24 hour train ride is all but impossible if you wait until the day you want to depart. We were warned about this, so luckily we haven’t had that problem yet, but even getting our tickets 3-5 days in advance have been a little touch and go at times.

The long distance trains in China have four different classes of seating/beds to choose from: Hard Seat, Soft Seat, Hard Sleeper and Soft Sleeper. The hard seats aren’t actually hard, they’re more like the equivalent of economy class on a plane. Well, on a puddle-jumper from Walla Walla to Seattle, anyway. They’re three seats to a row on each side of the center aisle, with decent leg room for the average Chinese person. That leaves me with just enough not to get too claustrophobic. Soft Seats are only two to a row on each side of the center aisle, with more room all around. On the train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, you also get a place to plug in any electronic devices you may want to operate. These seats are pretty much unavailable after the first day they go on sell for the longer distance trains, as they are a relatively comfortable way to travel, and cost a lot less than the sleeper options.

The sleepers are the way we’ve been traveling, to make use of overnight trips for saving time and still getting to sleep. Both kinds of sleeper cars have an aisle down one side of the car, with the rooms taking up the majority of the space. In a hard sleeper, you get to share your room with 5 others, stacked up on each side of the room. The rooms are about 7.5 feet tall, so you’re pretty much laying down the whole time, if you want to remain confined to the bunk. Usually people make the best of it by sitting together on the bottom bunks and playing card games, eating and talking. So if you ever travel to China and book a berth in a hard sleeper, try and get the middle bunk. You’ll have the most head room, and won’t have your bed taken over by the rest of your bunk mates. It will also help if you know a bit of Mandarin, or else you’ll feel a bit left out.

Soft sleeper is the best way to travel by train, in my opinion, unless you’re traveling on one of the newest trains and have the money to shell out for a deluxe cabin, which gives you your own private room with two beds and a bathroom. But even if you do, you’ll miss out on the chance to practice your Mandarin, or, more likely, let somebody practice their English on you. The soft sleepers have 4 berths to a compartment, and a door that closes, so you can shut out the rest of the train when you’re ready to go to sleep. There’s plenty of room to sit up, whether you’re on the top or bottom berth, and there’s also ample storage room for your luggage, which is most important for me, since there’s no comfortable way for me and my backpack to fit in a berth together.

Some people have asked us about how safe it is to travel by train in China, especially without knowing much Chinese, but we haven’t had any problems. Only one train so far didn’t have english on the menu in the dining car, and that’s been the extent of any difficulties we’ve had. Even so, a bit of persistence and Amber’s handy use of our phrasebook got us fed. Sometimes our cabin mates know a little English, and between that and our slippery grasp of the Chinese language, we can find out a little about each other. But as far as actual danger, I haven’t felt really unsafe at all since we’ve been in China, and the trains have been no exception.

Check out a few pictures of us finding ways to pass the time on the train. You can find them in our gallery.