Thurs 17th

Breakfast (museli) and coffee at hostel. Lele said before she left that would give us 25% on our drinks for the day. She said even though she couldn't quite understand the lyrics to some songs, she very much enjoyed the music. We were given gum from a smiling  Chinese man from last night - he obviously enjoyed it...or he thought our breath smelt. One or the other.

Had lunch (vegetable bake) with Dan and Louise who had decided to get married in India (November 2019). We spoke about where we were all heading to next. Guilin and then Hong Kong, but at different times. They headed off for the day and we got down to deciding where to go after Hong Kong... Malaysia was the choice. During booking our flight we had a good chat with Oliva and Maddy, again more travel stories, 'buffer face' and last night. They said goodbye and went off for their day out. We spoke to Alison and said goodbye to her too. Just before we headed out the door we said goodbye, and thank you, to the staff who had looked after us so well.

People were relaxed and pleasent in Xi'an train station's waiting area. I was fixing Frank's bag, (we bought a shoe lace to replace his missing cord) and was being watched by two Chinese ladies. Finished, I stood up,

"Perfect." I said.

They agreed, giving me a nod, thumbs up and a big smile, then pointing to Frank (saying something in Chinese) and Frank nodded too. We had a laugh with them in the few minutes before their train arrived. We had a little chuckle with a guy when I was preening Frank's beard. And Frank was offered a boiled egg by an old couple who sat next to him, while I was in the ladies. On the train, brushing my teeth a Chinese lady was chatting away to me (thinking I was someone else), she looked round - "Oh!"

I smiled, with a frothy mouth, and said "Ni hao." and we both laughed, "Ni hao."

Having told Frank, we then overheard her tell her friends in the next compartment the same story ("Ni hao. Ni hao!") He he. Great, cool warm people.

Our sleeper train to Guilin left at 19:07 and would arrive after 26 hours 11 minutes at 21:18. Our longest train ride yet. Then only a 12 minute /1km walk to Wada Hostel after. So, with a day ahead of being sat on the one train, we bedded down and relaxed, hoping more for a rest than a good nights sleep, having been on a sleeper train already we knew what to expect.

What we weren't in the know about, ladies and gentlemen, was that our train was not arriving at Guilin Railway Station as we had presumed. It was arriving at Guilin North - 9km/2 hour walk to the hostel across the city at night, the train was also delayed and our phones were blocked to boot. As I said, we weren't to know any of that...