Chinese Trains

The Chinese haven't always loved trains. When they were first introduced during the last dynasty they caused a popular insurrection for fears that the trains would harm the surrounding community's feng shui. These days though, China has what is probably one of the worlds better passenger train systems: It goes basically everywhere. It's usually on time, or close enough. It's clean, by Chinese standards. And it's really really cheap. The biggest problem is that you can only get tickets a few days ahead of time, and with a few exceptions, only from the city you are currently in. But I've written about that before. When I was in Taiwan, though, I found that they also had an amazing train system. The best part was their fairly new, my guidebook was missing some of it, High Speed Rail system. There's only one line for it going from Taipei in the North to Kaohsiung, the second biggest city, in the South. I was also going to Kaohsiung so I got to ride it twice. One time I got the "local" which makes all eight or so stops between those cities, which means the ride takes about and hour and a half. But when I went back I got the "direct" train which only makes one stop. As a result, the train covers the 350km between Taipei and Kaohsiung in almost exactly an hour. To put that in perspective that would be Beijing to Shanghai in three hours. It takes more than three hours to go from DC to New York which is also only about 350km. There's a faster Maglev train in Shanghai but the track only goes about 10km and it's more of a toy than anything. That's sort of Taiwan in a nutshell, like China but better.