Part II: Lifestyle and travel
I admit quite embarrassingly that the Chinese roads that I traveled so far have been excellently constructed and maintained. The city roads are wider with spacious footpaths, and separate strips are provided for 2/3 wheelers. Despite of all this, the only problem that seems to have occurred is the increasing vehicle density. Traffic laws are “limitedly” followed by Chinese drivers, the occasional piercing in from sideways or driving across the lanes duplicate Indian driving conditions on better terrains. Ultimately, if Chinese people do not follow traffic laws, then they at least agree on breaking them, equivocally!
Image :http://img.exigo.com/
One rather amazing fact about Chinese car-buyers is that statistically there are more Sedans and middle-end luxury vehicles than small hatchbacks. It tells a thing or two about Chinese people and the government. Chinese customers are preferring luxury over affordability, or Chinese government, in a bid to hail the economic growth, is offering healthy tax rebates or subsidies in other forms proportional to the car prices. The latter has been forthright rejected by my Chinese colleague. Ultimately, there are more of Audi A6s, Volkswagen Boras, Buicks and BMW 5/7s. Of course, Chinese roads can now accommodate Honda CRVs, Audi Q7 or BMW X5s!!!
The importance of Railways in personal transportation is the most profound in China. To deal with the vast territory and large population, Chinese government has been consistently taking massive efforts to make railways more affordable for the working class. During my stay here, I traveled with 2 different kinds of trains for 4 times, and my experience, in 3 out of them, has been better than Indian railways! The Chinese fast trains are look-alikes of German ICE (at lesser speeds though) and older trains are rugged machines pulling more than 12 wagons and thousands of people. The occupancy in these trains is staggeringly more than 100%, with tickets being sold to ‘stand’ on the aisles! The figure could go well above 150% on festive seasons, when people travel from inside the train toilettes!
The sleeping coaches are preferred for longer over-night journeys, offering good quality restaurant services with (clean) bed-sheets and pillows. A single over-night journey in such trains costs roughly 150 RMB, a lunch for a family of 5! The only trouble that I and my German colleague had to go through before boarding, is the 5 ticket-checks and 1 baggage-check! A basic engineering flaw that has been overlooked at the railway stations, is probably the stair-cases (up and down) without lifts for passengers carrying heavy luggage! Traveling with buses can only be convenient with journeys shorter than 5-6 hours. These buses are privately managed and seats are not ideal for people taller than 5’2”!
The domestic airways are picking up the heat with affordable and fast connectivity across China. The lower middle class is slowly turning up to this mode of transportation and domestic airports are mushrooming everywhere. But still departing from the concept of Chinese railways seems to be hard, especially when average Chinese likes to carry baggage well over the limits of small airplanes!
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Junta Speaks