29 hours on a train!!

Having stocked up on supplies for our epic 29 hour train journey to Guillin we headed to the train station. This was the longest train journey during our tour of China and we had cottoned on to the fact that there where hot water points on the train so we could join the locals in having chinese pot noodles and tea rather than just snack food we had got before. I'm not gonna lie, we still had got plenty of chocolate and biscuits to keep us going too!

It was a mad crush to get through security at the station with everyone pushing a shoving like cattle in a pen to get through. Once we all got to the other side we found a spot to sit on the floor of the waiting area whilst we waited for our train to come in. This station was much more dark and dirty than the ones we had been to before and let's just say you could easily have a face to face conversation whilst in the loo if you wanted to (or be stared at) and lets leave it at that!! Once the train was announced it was everyman for himself as again we joined the crowds to pass through the ticket check. We were swept along in the hoards of people and soon were all separated from the group as you were bumped and shoved along. Soon enough we had found our carriage and our bunks for the journey.

Having done several train trips here with the group will definitely help Dan and I when it comes to doing them on our own!!

So how do you pass the time on a 29 hour train journey...

Name game

Sleeping

Peeping

Reading

Looking at trains

Cards

Trying to escape

Journal writing

Eating noodles

Looking out the window

More reading

More cards

More noodles

Ok so I think you get the picture.....

What you won't get from the photos is the constant noise on the train of people chatting, eating, snoring, shouting from the food trolley as it goes by every 10 minutes and worst of all the incessant screeching from this box which was like nails down a blackboard to most of us!

All in all though it was not a bad journey and as the train pulled in at 11pm the next day we were all surprised that the 29 hours had passed quicker than we had expected....we must have been having fun

Sxxx