Day Seventeen

Leaving Xi'an for Chengdu

Up late again but who cares were on holidays so to speak! Bags packed ready to go we checked out & left our bags in reception as a little trip to the supermarket was in order before we got on our 16 hour train journey which will take us to Chengdu. In the supermarket & with time pressing on we couldn't have picked a slower queue.
With supplies bought the rush was on to get back to the hostel, grab our bags & fetch a taxi to take us to the train station. In the taxi & speeding in & put of traffic, scary business as there are no real road rules. At the station & barging threw lots of people we got in to the waiting hall to see the queue for our train getting smaller & smaller. Finally on the platform & heading for our carriage & seat number we were extremely surprised that the lady on the ticket desk had booked us soft sleepers instead of soft seats! Andy was made up with his little bed! We had our own room which had 2 sets of bunk beds in it which meant that we were sharing. In the sleeper room we realised that we will be sharing with 2 woman, one of whom was quite old so we didn't mind too much.
The train took off along the track & we swear it's the slowest train we have ever been on. No wonder it was going to take is 16 hours to get to this place - what a joke! We settled in to the little cabin & was trying to chill out. After a little sleep on our designated beds we woke up hungry. Oh yeah it was poop noodle again as that's pretty much the only thing you can munch on the train. After sitting off outside the cabin in the aisle walkway Andy went the loo & when I came back in the cabin the nice Chinese were feeding cucumber & crackers, with me being greedy I was made up but then I felt obliged to offer our food & now the noodles were gone we only had goodies left. When Andy came back from the loo he was devastated because I had give one of our cakes away, well it was his cake actually - you don't think I was giving mine away do you!!!
About 4 hours in to the journey & after several jerky stops of the worlds slowest train we started to play Ludo on my IPod for something to do. Bored of that we gazed out of the window & checked out the sights whilst both listening to music through our ear phones.
Unaware to us after it had got dark the 2 women who we were sharing a cabin with had actually got off the train & when the door opened I was surprised to see 2 Chinese men walk in - please don't say they were in it for the long hall? Oh God they were! I don't know whether is was our mind running overtime but these guys looked shifty so I knew that I weren't going to sleep.
Further in to the journey, it was about 10pm now & because we didn't want to sleep yet we decided to have a few games of cards to keep us occupied. At this point the Chinese men had well asleep so the cabin was silent about from me eating crisp extra specially loudly to drown out the noise of one of the men snoring. Better still when he turned over & the covers slipped off his feet they proper wreaked - it was nasty & we couldn't exactly open a window! The smelly git!
Eventually about 3.30am the men got up & left, I presumed the got of the train as they didn't return. Just about to settle back down to see if I could actually grab an hours sleep the door flew open, the light was turned on. Standing full width of the door was the train conductor woman giving our tickets back & getting us ready to depart the train. I have to say at least the didn't rip the window nets & curtains from me this time.
Off the train & walking through the station there was a sea of all different types of characters then just us 2 westerns that stuck out like a sore thumb. Through the station doors & into the dirty air it was time to try & grab a cab to take us to our new hostel!
We wonder what the new hostel would be like.......