Feeling fresh after our much needed 4 hours sleep we jumped out of bed, eager to escape the sh*thole of the room we were in. It was not much of a decision to decide to save showering until the hot springs later that day because the shower resembled more of a 19th century horse stables, so we just pulled on some trekking gear and left for the hotel. Breakfast turned out to be as extortionately priced as everything else on top of the mountain so we became an object of fascination for the waitresses as we ordered just one huge bowl of plain boiled rice between the three of us with one dish to use as sauce. This hotel was clearly not used to scabby travellers. The sauce ran out very quickly and so breakfast was pretty much just plain rice - awesome. Feeling full of energy from an overload of carbohydrates, we whacked on our rucksacks and started our descent of the mountain. Unfortunately 11am is apparently peak time for mountain descents so we became stuck behind masses of slow moving Chinese tourists. Being the impatient people that we are, we decided to hop the barrier between the up and down paths and jog down the mountain against the flow of people. The flow of people was about 15 strong - clearly there are not many people as dumb as us to attempt climbing Mt Everest (pretty sure that's where we were considering how bloody difficult it was!) so we were through the peaks and back to the cable car within an hour.

We then had to make the very difficult decision of either hiking the rest of the way down the mountain or hopping in a cable car and getting more time in the hot springs at the bottom. We say this was a hard decision, it really wasn't. We'd have paid a lot more than £6 to avoid dying for a second day running. Turned out to be totally worth it, not just for the time saved but the views were incredible. At the bottom we hitched a bus to the hot springs and headed up to the spa. Luckily there was a student half price deal on so Sam whacked out his Uni card and got his ticket, Josh flashed his Railcard and fortunately got away with it too, George was not so lucky. After showing the receptionist his passport to prove his age and identity and several e-mails confirming his acceptance at Liverpool University and even his online student account, we had to wait for a manager to arrive. After 20 minutes the manager turned up and waved us through within 10 seconds, a waste of time but worth it for the money saved!

The springs themselves were amazing. All of them are naturally heated and filled with different liquids that are supposed to have different medicinal and relaxation properties. The pools included milk, red wine, coffee, jasmine, green tea, chamomile, chrysanthemum, rose and sunflower. There was also a massive pool filled with beads in which we buried ourselves. Not sure what it was but it felt good! Knowing that the last bus back to our hostel was at 5pm and guestimating that there would be a bus at 4:30pm to drive us the 25 minutes back to the bus stop, we decided it would be a good idea to have a long, long, long shower. To be fair, this was very necessary and very satisfying! Leaving the springs at 4:26pm, we sprinted to the bus stop to buy our tickets. Unfortunately it turned out the next bus was at 4:50…Thankfully there were some American girls who had done the same as us and they phoned their friends on the other bus who were able to communicate to the driver for them to wait. These American girls were the same as those with whom we refused to join in the "pre-huanshang photo" - a decision that we do not regret. They were SO annoying. We briefly considered staying in Huanshang for one more night for a big night out with them but the sleeper train seemed like a much more attractive activity. One was from Chicago which was a minor disaster for Josh because it meant they had something to talk about - not an appealing activity. With Sam and George jumping in to embarrass Josh with some elitist chat, it made things all the more funny for a few moments. Fortunately the bus journey was short lived and soon we were on the bus back to our hostel with our headphones in being as unsociable and judgmental as ever. Sick man sat behind us and joined in with some laughter, turns out he just drank too much the night before; still revolting.

Arriving back at our hostel in the early evening we headed to the train station to check out the train times to our next destination. The queue for tickets was long and we assumed that our destination would not be particularly popular (we were just booking a train to a connecting station which was apparently in the middle of nowhere) so we noted down the train time and price for a seat (23h08, 238RMB) and went for dinner, confident that the tickets would still be available when we went back later that evening (you can probably see where this is going). Just next door was a back alley street packed with Chinese stalls. Eventually finding an English menu we ordered a Chinese feast including shredded pork, sweet and sour spare ribs, and garlic morning glory (Miranda you will be VERY jealous!). There was also a chicken claw dish that was horrendous but we'll skim over that. Once we'd finished, guess who we see - again?! Sick man! Slightly odd, he may be stalking us. Next we decided to head back to the hostel and exploit the amenities on offer. They thought we were staying another night, we saw no need to tell them otherwise. After hanging up our wet clothes from the springs around reception, claiming that it added atmosphere to the hostel, we sat down to use the internet and update our blog/check emails etc. It was then that we heard for the first time "oh my god I have stayed in some terrible places" resonating from reception in an annoyingly British accent. Over the next 20 minutes we heard the same statement made to about 15 groups of travellers. Turns out it was one of those "HEY GUYS!!! MY NAMES DEREK!!! I'M TRAVELLING CHINA BY MYSELF! WANT TO SHARE STORIES? LETS GRAB A BEER!" solo travller guys - i.e. friendly and interesting. Two qualities we detest. When Sam and Josh headed out to buy some pot noodles for breakfast on the train, they avoided eye contact with the man in order not to hear about the "terrible places" he had slept. Writing this, we can assure him he has NEVER stayed in as terrible a place as we stayed this very evening…

With 30 minutes before our train we ran out the hostel door, "forgetting" to pay for the Wi-Fi usage and made our way to the train station. We certainly managed to skip the queues from earlier, since there was no one else there, however, this came at a price. All the seats were fully booked and there were only standing seats available for 154RMB. After a long debate we decided to man up and take the tickets. After all, it would be an interesting experience…Sam was less than impressed with George and Josh's enthusiasm for the 17 hour journey ahead and kept on repeating the horror stories he had heard about people taking similar "journeys from hell". The train arrives and we run down to carriage three excited to set up camp before anyone else got there. Turns out no one else was dumb enough to choose to travel this way and so there wasn't much of a fight for space except for between the three of us…. all we had was a small 1 metre square patch by the door…shi*t. Trying to make the best of what we had we emptied out our dirty washing from our bags and tried to make the hard floor more comfortable to sleep on. This definitely didn't work.

A few hours in, Sam found a seat in the next carriage leaving George and Josh with enough space to straighten their legs slightly, on top of our luggage. We were woken up at every stop to find crowds of fascinated Chinese people standing over us staring. As time went on and we penetrated further into rural China, the crowds grew! To add to the pain of our journey, it turned out that our "cabin" was also the smoking area for the entire train. This meant that by the time we arrived in Huaihua we had passively smoked around 3745 cigarettes, could barely walk from the pain in our asses, and had managed only a couple of hours of "sleep". Nic and Chris this was probably as bad as your bus journey with Josh in Vietnam - feel our pain. At 16h05 the train stops and after being stared at for 5 minutes by the CREEPIEST and UGLIEST man we've ever laid eyes on, we pushed our way off the train to breathe in some fresh air. Fortunately we only had 2 hours to spend in this small city in the middle of nowhere, so rushed to the ticket office to buy our train to our final destination Zhangjiajie. There were none left. The next train was at 05h36 the next morning. We are stranded in Huaihua with no accommodation and genuinely no idea where in China we are - where the hell are we?! This isn't a rhetorical question - if anyone sees this please comment and let us know where because Google maps is banned in China and Huaihua isn't particularly prominent on Google searches. This was a historical moment for this small city in the middle of the mountain as their first ever Western tourists emerged from the train station…