Train of thought

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It was with some trepidation we set off for the station. We had had some close up experience of the frantic melee of a railway station in Guilin here we searched every sign and were left none the wiser about which train went where and when...and XiAn is a bigger town!
Sue is a website trawler extaordinaire and I had remembered a blog entry extolling the virtues of the station porters so when the cab drew into the station and a young guy with a flimsy sack truck tried to take my rucksack I gave in and said OK.
There was no way he could get mine and Sues bag on his truck so he called in reinforcements in the shape of a swarthy accomplice and they forsook the truck for manual labour; hauled our bags onto their shoulders and with beckoning gestures led us off towards the station.
For some reason there is a luggage X-ray machine at the entrance and this caused a queue but in a typically Chinese manoeuvre our guys took an outside track and bypassed 200 people. There was a small skirmish which our guys won and in moments we were on our way to our platform.
Each departure had a gate and respective queue; our porters nimbly led us to the front within 5 yards of the gate stepping past countless passive others; dumped our bags and turned to collect their pay. I remembered the blog and the porters 5 rmb payment and peeled the respective amount off my roll of cash; the porrter proferred 2 fingers face down displaying 1” long slightly curling grubby nails; I peeled off a ten for him and a ten for his mate. He protested; pushing for 20 each but with big grins and much back slapping I soon had his friend embarrassed that he had even got ten.
There is no waiting about on the platform; you wait by your gate until it opens; follow the crowd down to the train; keep showing your ticket until a guard motions you into his carriage and then push yourself and rucksack along the corridor looking for your compartment.
Luckily for us JY Wang was in our carriage he is American with perfect Putong hua (Mandarin) and he pointed us in the right direction. Our beds were the top bunks of 6 in the compartment (3 per side).
The top bunk had its advantages in particular the huge storage space above the corridor.
YJ turned out to be a fascinating character with a zealous ambition to make teaching English more natural for Chinese learners. I was convinced but he was looking for someone to invest time with him and I don't have that time. He was good enough to wander by later and tell us about lights out at 9.30.(sharp)
In the morning we managed to clamber down and sit on little fold down seats in the corridor. There was hot water boiler in the carriage so we were able to make a morning coffee and sit and watch Szechuan roll by. Our aluminium mugs have become our most used travel items.

Whilst on the subject of transport I must mention the fine art of crossing the road here.
Stand by a crossing, wait for the man on the sign to turn green; so far so good; but...don't expect the traffic to go along with the concept. It seems there are degrees of red; some drivers go with it others don't. The green man is merely a challenge; certainly not a certainty.
Nevertheless; should you wish to cross the road anywhere just venture out; dare any driver with either eye contact or complete ignorance, to run you over and you will find that; like the red sea; the traffic will part and allow you passage. It is uncanny to the western psyche and totally natural to the native.
I was talking to a young guy; a political sciences major; the other day and our conversation went on for a while debating the democratic model and its place in China and I won't bore you with the details but I did remark that if progress was dependant on the complicit agreement of most of the people then anything was possible here.
Cross the road. That's the test. You have more chance of surviving the experience in China than the west.

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Photos

Sleeper compartment
Top bunk is up there!

Carriage
All compartments are doorless