Carriages reek of stale sweat, cigarette smoke and spilt alcohol, the aisles are blocked by aching limbs. Li Xianmin and his two friends, migrant workers traveling home to China's most populous province of Henan from Beijing for the family-reunion Spring Festival, were lucky.

The other two members of their five-man group could not squeeze onto a train that resembled the capital's subway in rush hour. They were stranded on the platform with a useless scrap of paper that up until five minutes ago was their ticket home.

"We spent the whole night squatting on the toilet floor. When someone had to take a leak we all had to stand up and let him or her in," says Li, recalling last year's nightmare journey back home for the lunar New Year.

Hailed as the "greatest human migration on the planet", the 40-day "Chunyun" transportation period during the festival season brings agony and relief. The majority of the country's 150 million migrant workers join college students in a rare opportunity to return to their families but, as the transport network buckles under the strain, some journeys reach Odyssean proportions.

Deng Tiejun, 45, has bought a standing ticket on a slow train to his hometown of Nanchong, a city in southwest China's Sichuan Province. The journey will take 26 hours and then he will need to take a five-hour bus to his village. Before he boards the train, he will sit in the waiting-room for 21 hours. "I can't wait to see my wife and sons," he says simply.

At least he has a ticket. Li, 30, finished a construction project last Friday but is worried he will not receive his year's salary. "The boss told us we have to wait several days before we receive our pay," he said. He is reduced to scanning the red electronic boards at Beijing West Railway Station and hoping tickets to his hometown of Zhengzhou do not run out. He only receives a pay packet once a year. Without it, he can't go home.

Other migrant workers are more fortunate. Half a dozen construction workers from central China's Henan Province pause for a break on a site near the second ring road in the west of the capital. Their hands are covered in calluses and dirt is a permanent fixture under their fingernails. But hard work can reap annual salaries of 1,500 yuan (less than US$200), far higher than the average migrant wage.

(Xinhua News Agency February 6, 2007)