Following a grand lie in at Yichang in a rather comfortable room, we headed down to the central station with plenty of time to buy supplies for our trip. Muc was still feeling rough which was not very nice to see... The train station was rather hectic; much rushing around and faffing over tickets. We made it through the gates and laid our eyes on a marathon of a train; stretching beyong our line of vision. Our hard-sleeper birth was in carriage 3. Just our luck - miles away!! Lugging our backpacks for what seemed like an eternity we came to the correct carriage. We were greeted by a large carriage divided into births of 6 beds, all really clean and relatively spacious. Unfortunately our tickets were not together, but after a kind word with a ... read more

So...we board the train...hundreds of people flocking all over the place...fighting to get onto the train first... I dont understand though, as we all have reserved seats. The Chinese just feel the need to rush around. They have the desire to be the first in every situation. You will never get anywhere in a queue if you dont push. Fact. The train is a double decker and has about 15 carriages. Huge. We are sat on the upper deck; most likely the only western people on the whole train. Walking down the corridor we get a few glances with our backpacks/homes. All locals carry huge packages full of god knows what. No chickens squarking around as we sort of expected. They were probably squashed at the bottom of the box somewhere... The trains seem to be ... read more

Greetings... This blog is for the city of Xian. Home of the infamous Terracotta Army and former capital of China. We originally planned to arrive here via the overnight sleeper train but unfortunately we were unable to get a ticket so we had to fly. Due to the vast number of people currently travelling by train the network is hectic and that number will only increase in the run-up to Chinese New Year! Without being here it is near impossible to comprehend the sheer number of people in China. I didnt know what to expect having read many articles on the population. Now I can understand a bit more the size of this nation and we have only seen 2 cities! It is said that at any one time over 10 million people are on a ... read more