October 9, 2024
T-1: 吴堡站 → 中关村
I don't know what the actual rules are about "bikes on trains" cause I almost never try to take a bike on a train.
I do know that if you are polite, and well spoken, and able to show that you can take your bike apart into pieces, most train stations will let you through.
And the ones that won't usually have cargo offices where it's still possible to organize shipping your bike.
Even softened up by Dr. M's passage through their station, which I'm able to document in photos of "you literally let a bike through six hours ago and I can see you in the photo," I've got one of those asshole employees who has, in the space between midnight and 6am, decided that the Rules say the bike must be disassembled and bagged in the waiting area.
He even, oh so benignly, gets me a trash bag which I'm pretty sure is too small to fit my wheels into (let alone my entire bike).
I go with a brusque "I just put my bike back together" from going through the x-ray machine and a "you honestly cannot be telling me you think that I will be able to get an awkward pile of stuff up to the platform and on to the train in the available time if you make me de-bike it."
Then, I ignore him.
Which, I'm glad to say, works.
Cause sometimes the people who know they are talking out their ass get stroppy about having their authority challenged.
In fact, I might even hazard a guess that there is a direct correlation between the knowledge that you are personally a lying wanker who is making shit up and how angry you get over being called out over making shit up.
But I guess, on this occasion, he just wants to bully someone who won't talk back to or stand up to him cause he follows me up to the platform (it might actually be his job) and proceeds to spend the rest of the wait until we're 'allowed'¹ onto the platform yelling at all the other passengers for horrific crimes such as stepping past the invisible line that separates ramp to the platform and platform or not tightly gripping their suitcase handle².
Even if the app had refused to let me³ choose middle, top, or bottom bunk and had thus defaulted to the least desirable top bunk, I've got a bed and it's more comfortable than the waiting room where I'd just been sleeping, so I'm back asleep for another 6 or 7 hours of my 11 hour journey to Beijing.
I'm well closer to the CCTV studio where tomorrow's meeting is than I am to O & A's place and it's late enough when I get into town that I have to hope that since whatever exactly is happening isn't filming, my red dress and Decathlon shorts won't look too tatty⁴, so I book myself into a nearby hostel where I don't realize private room ≠ private bathroom and call it a day.
¹ I put this in air quotes because I've never before been made to wait until the train came to be a complete stop before being allowed onto the platform
² As I'm sure you're all aware, rolly suitcases escaping from their owners and sprinting across train platforms to commit suicide is a serious hazard
³ foreigner name problems
⁴ Better than when China Daily decided to turn "an interview about biking across China" to "an interview about my perspective on the Free Trade Port" and the nicest shirt I had with me said "Eat Pussy, It's Vegan"
Today's ride: 14 km (9 miles)
Total: 1,107 km (687 miles)
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