As we rose & packed to get ready for the trip to Luoyang the hostel was already starting to feel like home. We handed our main rucksacks in for storage and pottered about for the day, wandering the streets and using the local internet cafe, on the 6th floor of a shopping mall. As afternoon hit we headed for the train station and felt like celebs as we were ushered into the designated soft seat lounge (we'd been warned about the ubiquitous 'hard seat' section a number of times). The illusion was swiftly shattered by the stereotypical American tour group descending upon the lounge like angry hyenas, cackling and moaning as they were, horror of horrors, required to carry their own bags down the steps to the lounge. Thankfully, our prayers were answered as we boarded and they were herded by their English speaking guides along to their own segregated carriage down the train. What stories they must have about the troubles of Chinese travel!

We arrived in Luoyang late in the night and shooed the statutory gaggle of aggresive taxi drivers away to search for our hostel on foot. The place we'd booked was described in the lonely planet as an 'excellent hotel' with 'spacious, clean rooms'. What the guide failed to mention was the illustrious location bang in the middle of the red light district, the 'extra services' on offer as demonstrated by the policeman putting his jacket and watch back on as he descended the stairs at midnight, the fact that the rooms are decaying with damp and lack of maintenance and the frankly terrifying notice on the back of the door that reads 'Please lock the door behind you and use the chain for your own safety'. The place was an absolute dump.

We decided on reflection to forego our attempt to find a nice restaurant to try a fabled 24 course banquet native to the area and instead barricaded ourselves inside the room with a chest of drawers and munched on crisps from the shop two doors down. The one saviour of the night was an amusing English-language documentary about the Chinese Space programme which seemed like a parody of a 1950's American 'isn't our country great' video for schools, though sadly I don't think that was the intention.