Got up early and went to the Vietnamese Embassy to pick up my Visa and then back to the hostel to re-pack and downsize once again! Went for lunch at the Curry House where we ordered far too much and had to leave most of it, then back to the hostel to say goodbye and for me to get a taxi to Beijing West Train Station. The traffic was awful and then the queues to get in even worse. I finally made it through and the train was already waiting so I boarded straight away. I was in a hard sleeper, and so shared a sleeping compartment with 5 others - 2 sets of beds 3 high. I was on the bottom bunk which had its drawbacks (mainly that everyone seemed to think it was okay to sit on my bed during the daytime) but overall was a better option than trying to get up the narrow ladder onto the top one! Got chatting to a guy who couldn't speak a word of English but kept borrowing my English / Chinese dictionary to try and construct sentences.