Beijing fog

After 8 years Jemima and Saskia were going to be playing on the same team for the last time for the foreseeable. The thing was that the tournament was in Beijing. Well, it had to be done so off I went. The UNIS team was inexperienced and error-prone but stuck together well and the girls were a friendly, determined group. The conditions were tough for all-action players: There was smog, sunshine, a sandstorm and constant monitoring of some pollution index. The last game was the most exciting of all, 0-2 with 4 minutes to go, 2-2, and a shootout lost after the 20th penalty, draining for everyone and I was hoarse. It was emotional afterwards to recall the hesitant scuffling around with a football in 2005 on grey gravel outside Nesoddtangen school and how via the Spirit team on KGB and all over Akershus and Oslo, to Gold Star Hanoi, MRISA & APAC, they turned into two fantastic, selfless footballers, spraying the ball about on the big pitch.

Anyway, yes, I was my usual restrained self on the sidelines, sonically booming commands suggestions encouragement in a variety of languages. Afterwards a parent from a rival school said “We couldn’t work out if you were a Norwegian who spoke good English or an Englishman who spoke good Norwegian”. I smiled through gritted teeth and an abrasive tongue. I really have become the Teutonic professor of linguistics who appeared on a game show hosted by Groucho Marx many moons ago.

Marx: It says here that you speak 12 languages

Prof: Yeff, dat es korrekt.

M: Well, which one are you speaking now?

Beijing really was the most difficult place I have ever been to, to get around. The standard script for “Tim in a taxi in Beijing” was approach a driver to explain my destination, whereupon he would turn me down and usher me to an unmarked car with a shark waiting inside who would then proceed to drive me within a kilometre or two of where I was going, turn to me and, with a snarl, demand some Oslo-sized amount of money. Twice in a taxi and once in a cafe I paid bills because of the implied threat of physical violence. One driver came after me and chest-bumped me for money. He had left me at dusk somewhere other than my hotel. I didn’t have many allies amongst the hundreds of passers-by so I paid and wandered through the in-other-circumstances charming 798 art district looking for my hotel. A sandstorm descended as I was on the last lap of my surrealist hunt: “This is not my hotel” etc etc.

Do not get into a car with this man.

Given this background, even more kudos to the director at the Western Academy of Beijing for lending me his driver to take me back to my hotel so that I didn’t have to cause any more trouble for the Beijing taxi drivers by, you know, asking them to drive a customer to a destination for less than a ransom. Actually, a staff member at the Beijing school solved part of the mystery for me. He said that Beijing folk go by landmarks not addresses. When I told the hotel receptionist how difficult it was to get back to it by taxi she said, yes, that’s why I normally give out this piece of paper with directions with landmarks. Doh. In fact, all the staff on the pleasant WAB campus were super hosts, helping us unhouse-trained visitors. Thank you.

So, what to make of China? I had access to BBC on my phone but not NRK (are they still grumpy about the Peace Prize thing?!) There was no Google, no Facebook, and is in fact probably run by L*t*n fans because there was no access to the Watford Observer either. And the lack of Google shows how tied we are to the monster. No maps, no Gmail. Oh, I’ll just look up what search engine they use here. Doh. Oh, I’ll just write to someone to ask. Doh.

After the last match I had a fabulous and hilarious meal with Trinh, then followed Watford on the web all the way to the top of the table and the next day made my way home to Hanoi.

By train.

Why oh why? I will have to plead “rich tapestry of life” or “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” but I accept that it is likely that the court might well conclude insanity anyway. In itself, buying the ticket was a pain in the neck an adventure. A blog had spun an improbable story about how to buy tickets for Hanoi, just that it turned out to be correct in every detail. Don’t go to the railway station. Go to a little ticket office miles away where they will take you to a backroom and chest-bump you issue a ticket in Russian and German. It wasn’t until the Sunday I read the ticket and saw that it said the destination was GIL International Train. Hmmm, that may or may not be Hanoi. Worry worry.

Beijing West station was bustling but not crowded. I was prepared for any standard of train from TGV to British Rail Lincolnshire Chugger. It was much closer to the good end of that scale and I had four beds to myself. Actually, I had the whole carriage to myself. I was Mr First Class. There was limitless hot water for noodles, a bit of muzak to make you long for tinnitus, but it was clean. I sat down for a clear stretch to catch up on reading. No internet, no map (digital or paper), still not absolutely sure it was the right train. I’m sure during the 3 minutes of research I did for this trip I read that the journey was supposed to be spectacular. I didn’t really agree. The first afternoon it was gridlocked traffic, hideous apartment blocks, then grey fields. Some Ha Long-like formations the next day but no sweeping panoramas. Flat is rarely spectacular. But it was comfortable, calm, punctual and unlike me, the time actually flew.

After a mere 23 hours we pulled into Nanning. I wandered towards the exit and a member of railway staff ran after me and told me to follow her. “Excellent,” I thought, “more first class treatment”. We got to the waiting room and she poured me into it. It was full of second-class people. “Wait until 6”. I tried asking whether GIL was actually a Communist joke meaning Hanoi but got nowhere. Everything will be fine, I told myself. If they can’t promise me the thing is going to Vietnam I won’t get on. I’ll just get a taxi to the airport and fly home. (The alert reader may be able to spot at least one weakness with that plan.)

At 5.30 they fetched me (lucky that, I couldn’t hold my breath for much longer) and escorted me to a train that had “Hà Nội (Gia Lâm)” on the side. I was like a GI in reverse. I was almost home. Only 13 hours to go. Again I was the only one in First Class. I loved the solitude. At about 10 pm a train guy told me to get my stuff and go through customs. Luggage was X-rayed and passport checked with about 50 others who gasped in awe at being in the same room as me. There were soldiers with guns and helmets and everything. It was not the time for joking around. Then we clambered back on and waited for an hour with the engine thumping. Frustrating. Especially because soon after we got going, we stopped again and train guy comes on to tell me to get my stuff and go and let the Vietnamese rummage through it. Then we sit there until 2 in the morning turning the engine over before finally setting off for the City of Fair Taxi Drivers. Two border checks, four hours, well done guys. I had a celebratory beer and woke up on the outskirts of Hanoi. The nice taxi driver from the railway station tried to agree a fee off-meter but soon sniffed that I had been around the Hanoi block before and relented. Better luck tomorrow buddy, you might get yourself a first-timer.