Sleeper Buses- the Chinese way.

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We originally planned our trip across China by train. With the combination of the Chinese love of train travel, a massive floating population, and the peak of summer holidays train tickets have become a rarity, selling out mulitple trains within the first hour of opening. This forced us to change some plans and to take buses from Xi'an until we arrive in Urumqi. Luckily for most of these journeys the bus journey is only slightly longer...apparently.

So our first bus from Xi'an to Lanzhou and we were somewhat excited and nostalgic remembering a very funny and terrifying sleeper bus nearly four years ago through the south of Laos. We were anxious to know how the Chinese experience would compare. Good point to note, we weren't two people crammed into a largish 'single'bed this time and instead each person gets their own pint sized chute to lay in (notice i said 'in' not 'on' as you literally have to tuck your feet into the end which goes under the head of the person in front). Lucky for us being barely 5ft3" we seem to slide perfectly in with enough room for a water bottle at the side, very snug. We travelled barely 20 minutes before we stopped for gas, another 30 and we stopped at another station to take on passengers and hawkers. Intersting to note was the magazine seller who very convincly introduced some of the stories and content insisting they were really quite good and scoring a few sales with Sexy Girl magazines. When we finally left there we stopped again to take on a giant cage of small puppies by the side of the highway and then again for what looked like a large box of tissues and milk, before letting a woman on with a drum of soy sauce. At this point we wondered how long this was really going to take but before we knew it we were streaming down the freeway and dreaming, or having nightmares about stopping for a dreaded toilet break. We had purposly limited our fluid intake for this reason.

Can also say that the sleeper bus allows for greater appreciation of scenery, particuarly when not having to listen to any loud speaker annoucements or Thai Karaoke. Oh and the rule that you must remove your shoes and put them in plastic bags every time you get on and off is more than appreciated when you pull up at a brick wall toilet in the middle of nowhere that looks like a war zone and upon anxiously entering is possibly worse than you imagined with just 4 holes in a wall and a faint light from the buildings behind leaving you hoping and praying that your not stepping in anything.

Rounding the final large bend on the highway at 3.30am and waking up to a sky full of stars, a moon and huge neo signs saying 'Lanzhou' we were relieved to finally arrive and helped off the bus straight into a taxi to our hotel. Unfortunately our 'honeymoon suite'...(the photo of the circle bed was too funny not to book!) was not ready and we booked the cheapest room, despite the girl telling us we wouldnt fit, having spent 12h crammed into our little 'shutes' it was well spacious enough to share the king single.

So all in all would probably say that a Chinese sleeper bus is better than a Laos sleeper bus (surprise surpsise Nicole is saying something is better than in Laos!).

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