We've had a busy time travelling around a small corner of China using the trains. We left Beijing and travelled through the day to Datong, famous for some carved caves, and then on to Pingyao. Then to Xian, famous for the Terracotta Army, and finally to Shanghai.

These train journey's are quite an experience, and the experiences we've had getting to these sights have often eclipsed the sights themselves. The trains range from a hotel on tracks in the 'soft sleeper' an air conditionned dorm of four, complete with sheets and blankets. For half the price, a hard sleeper, with open windows rather than ac, a bunk each with a little padding in tiers of 3. For journeys of 6 hours for less, then 2 pounds gets a ticket in hard sitting. Open windows, men chain smoking, all of humanity packed in. I'll post a photo in a couple of weeks. We ended up on one train with a 'standing seat' (a what?) on a 14 hour day journey. - We'd already been on a train overnight, so finding this out at 5am left us less than impressed. I always did better at getting seats than Jim. Occasionally someone would even offer their seat to me for a while (as on these epic train journeys the locals often got fed up with sitting so long!)

There is always a battle to get train tickets. These must be purchased the moment that you arrive at a new station, because otherwise they will be sold out. It would therefore be logical to buy tham a couple of days before...but this is not possible for travellers because tickets must be purchased directly from the station that you are travelling from. A further difficulty is that seats / sleepers can be only booked on trains that originate in that particular ststion. So, if you are a small rural station you must join the scrum to try and get on the train first to secure a seat. Well for us and our big bags, no point in even trying. And the ticket offices! In Xian we queued for nearly 2 hours one day in order to get a ticket. We arrived at the front to finally get to speak to someone, and the blind was pulled down infront of our faces. They had closed. This happened twice. (I'm getting queue rage just thinking about it!!) But, actually, in most places, there were no queues, just a crazy, disorgainsed throng of people. Honestly, the booking system in Boliva was pretty poor, but was significantly better than China! Of course, I mustn't underestimate the strain the Chinese system is under. On our train yesterday there were 20 carriages of sleepers, containing 2400 people in total, and 3 carriages of seats, each of these carriages with 120 people sitting down, and then as many extras that could be crammed into the aisles, into the toliets and between carriages.

Xian is a town of over 6 million people. It has a small airport, but most people do not fly, and it has one railway station. Imagine London, with no motorways, busses or airports, with everyone arriving or leaving ALL from just one railway station. Just in the waiting rooms on the evening that we were there, there were more people than in our home town in Yorkshire! I think that's enough ranting about the trains!

We were generally surprised to find the the places we visited so undeveloped. People still living in huts with grass rooves and mud walls, the many children that did not go to school. I mentionned the spitting before, but that appears to be a nationwide habit, litter is commonly hurled from trains and it piles up, festering along the lines. There are huge divisions between rich and poor - but of course it was the poor that we noticed the most, with the occasional beggar - but most people wanted to do something for us in order to get our money, which doesn't seem so bad - more self reliant. I must also menition baby clothes. Why? I hear you ask. In China, prior to potty training the usual form of dress is shorts with split legs. We saw very few babies in nappies. Whenever a baby needed to do its business it just did. In the restaurant, in the train waiting room, on the train. Right there, on the floor. The parent would then just pick up the child and move elsewhere. Occasionally on the trains an attendent would 'clean' simply by brushing sawdust along the floor. This was in China! - Was this evidence of the greater good being sacrificed for personal gain? (Not having to buy, change or wash nappies) - It did not seem to fit with our view of Communist China.

We also must mention again the friendliness of the locals. Almost without exception people went out of their way to help us, asking nothing in return. Many hours on the trains would pass in conversation with Chinese people - we were certainly an unusual sight on the 3rd class trains, and the real spirit of the people made up for many of the hostile receptions that we so frequently got from the bureaucrats.

China has been a fascinating place, an experience. We are glad we came here, have no doubt, but it has been one of the more difficult places to travel and we will be glad to move on shortly.

I just have to post one more from China - about the economy and the development we wittnessed in Shanghai.