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Published: April 25th 2008
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Well, we spent the night in Yichang after our cruise up the Yangtze, but it was fairly uneventful and not that interesting...until we left Yichang on a sleeper bus to Xi'an.
First, we get on and think it may be a pretty good deal since it's not too crowded and we each get a nifty little lounge type seat/bed (bedding included). The timing was better than the train as well so it seemed like a no brainer. Okay, that's where the good stuff stopped...
I should mention that the "lounge seats" we were in were just barely long enough for us to stretch our legs out, and obviously this was a worse setup for Trevor with his long legs. This would have been bearable except that our driver felt the need to alternate between flooring it and slamming on the breaks, causing us to constantly fight the forward momentum that would squish us up into the ends of our loungers and smash our toes against the ends which were not quite as tall as our feet were long (again, worse for trevor). Our driver also felt the need to swerve violently around every vehicle he could, sometimes causing us to play chicken with oncoming semi-trucks and busses. It was better not to watch the road, too scary. So the swerving volleyed us back and forth between the side bars obviously designed to keep us from toppling out of our "beds". As if all this weren't enough, several people on board felt it necessary to light up throughout the ride, making for a very smokey and unpleasant journey. At one point one of the drivers (we actually had 3 on board that took turns) noticed I was coughing a lot and motioned for me to us the blankets (as if I were sick and should keep warm)...I motioned back that it was the smoking making me cough and he said something to the lady who was smoking at that moment. She did stop but then that same guy was one of the worst smokers throughout the rest of the trip. Nice. Yeah, don't get me started on the smoking here...we are very spoiled at home as we actually have clear air to breathe most of the time.
Needless to say we didn't get much sleep during the ride. We stopped at one point for a food and potty break. After checking out the menu we decied to play it safe by buying the handy ramen noodle bucket (like a cup of noodles but bigger and a staple around here). The "toilet" was more like a trough that you just squat over...really, no stalls, no holes in the ground, just a cement trough where you pick a spot and go. The question I had was are you supposed to face the person next to you or turn your back to them and have them stare at your bum... The toilets in china have definitely been the worst on our trip, but this one took the cake.
Thankfully we survived the whole ordeal but I would definitely recommend to other travelers to go for the hard sleepers on the train over this option.
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