The overnight train from Qingdao to Xi'an was our first experience of the hard sleeper and I must admit that it wasn't too bad at all. The hard sleeper, a carriage with a series of bunks piled three high with little room in between, makes for a pretty intimate experience with your fellow passengers. Fortunately, the train was air conditioned, the beds were comfortable and, most importantly, the guy underneath me in the middle, significantly longer, bunk swapped with me. In the hard sleeper we got a real sense that this space was treated almost as an extension of the homes of the local passengers. Many of the passengers were, or at least gave the impression that they were, complete families. They cooked, they cleaned, they nursed and doted over their babies and let the older
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