We've had to dedicate another blog to a train journey so we could do it justice, here it comes.....

So generally I'm not a queuer, I always think if you have an allocated seat there's no need so I'll be the last person on the plane/bus etc that is unless I'm in China in which case I've turned into one of "them people"! It's so busy here that I massively have the fear of missing the train, going to the wrong station, being in the wrong queue etc so I've been making sure we get to the station in plenty of time for our trains. However our next train to Datong was at the start of the holiday period and I knew the train was fully booked so I took getting to the train station early to a whole new level.

We were a 10 minute walk to the bus stop and a 10 minute bus ride to the station, our train was at 22.53 and we left the Hostel at 20.45 meaning we could technically be there 2 hours early. Casson was taking the mick out of me the whole time and I tried to explain how busy it would be as the train was fully booked as not only do all the people who have seats need to store their luggage but all those with standing tickets did as well.

We'd been at the station about 10 minutes when they started to queue for our train (it wasn't going for another hour and twenty minutes) but I insisted we queue with them. You should have seen it, it was like a rugby scrum, we weren't at the front but we were closer to the front than the middle of the queue. People were literally stood on top of each other, there was no room to move and people kept crossing our queue to get to the toilets which basically meant pushing people out of the way.

After about half an hour the queue behind us was HUGE! Casson turned round and said "you were right about coming early, it's horrendous" so I was no longer the sad woman who queues for the train for hours, I was the wise woman who made sure a) we got our seats and b) we had space for our bags.

Whilst in the queue Casson started talking tactics about how we'd get our bags on without worrying about taking anyone out with them (when you swing them onto your back with people as close as they were to us it's never going to end well) I said be careful of the woman behind as she was wearing glasses and he started to give me a pep talk "it's them against us and there's more of them than us so if we have to take them down we will"

You might think we're exaggerating but we're not, the pushing and shoving is awful, if we'd been in England there would definitely have been a fight that night.

The gates opened ..... CHARGE!!!!!! I'm much better at getting in front of people than Casson, I do a semi shuffle walk then turn and block people trying to push in from my right so I'm through the gates before him. He then takes over as pace setter and races down the platform and I try and keep up, I undertake someone and he cuts me up and I stub my toe on his suitcase, there's no time to feel sorry for myself I carry on.

Eventually we get on the train to find out even though we have seats 9 and 10 they're not bloody next to each other. By this point I'm a sweaty mess and I'm just glad I have a seat but Casson's having none of it and arranges a swap with the guy next to him ..... and breathe!

We spend the next 16.5 hours on a train that is packed to the rafters with people sitting and standing in the aisles the whole way. The only time they move is when they're forced to when the food trolley comes through so our tactic was to tuck in behind the trolley to get to the bathroom.

Our final train in China is only 6.5 hours so we think the worst is behind us but who knows what could happen?!!!!