Train to Chengdu - Overnight...

What can I say… Well to start with the train is well organised with great efficiency in getting travellers onto the train - we wait in a large room with hard seats until we are called for and then are checked through onto the empty platform, unlike India this means that it is easy to locate your carriage and get settled in without having to negotiate sleeping people, the crush for other trains or touts. The trains are HUGE electrically powered engines towing very long rows of carriages ranging from soft sleepers to hard seats (I was in a hard sleeper costing 219Y/£22). My bed was the bottom bunk in a group of six and meant evicting a lady who was in residence there - However, no clean sheets!! So backpack stowed away under the seat I settle in for the 16 hour train journey!! As with most things in China the train pulls away spot on time at 12.54pm exactly and wends its way up into the highlands south of Xian accompanied by the sound of coughing and loud conversation. I am the only westerner in my carriage and only one of 2 on the train 0_0 and with no Mandarin conversation is no more than sign language which does not translate well… Still, settled in with a crossword book and Hellgate novel I while away the hours until the lights are turned off at 10.30 (a bit like being at summer camp and told to turn in - there are no reading lights). Throughout the night, loud snoring from the neighbouring bunk keeps me awake. However, the train has a very smooth ride and quietly runs at a constant speed between its stops. Overall, if you can afford to then fly - it is less hassle.