Today we only had the morning to go out and do something as we were heading off to the train station again, this time for a 17 hour overnight train to Shanghai. We all met for breakfast at the hostel and discussed what things people wanted to do. Everyone wanted to do different things so Roy, Craig & Jess and I went off to hire a bike and cycle the 14km around the top of the Xi'an city wall and the other guys split up and did other things.

We walked around to the South Gate of the city wall which was only just around the corner from the hostel, bought a ticket so that we could get on the wall and then once on the wall we hired some bikes. Roy and I got a normal bike (a little old, and no suspension to be seen) and Craig & Jess hired a tandem. This was another point where I would have liked my camera to film video, watching the two of them on the tandem trying to get going and in a straight line, it was hilarious!

Half way around I swapped my bike with Jess and Craig and I took the tandem, Craig on the front and me on the back, what a sight. We decided to see how fast we could get this thing as we had a long straight ahead of us, so the two off us set off. Boy, did we get some funny looks from the other people up here! We managed to get up to quite a good speed and were soon at one of the corners where we waited for Roy and Jess to catch us up, still laughing at the sight of us two going off like that. Jess and I swapped bikes back and we finished our route in just under the hour and returned the bikes.

We left Roy at this point and the 3 of us headed off to the Muslim quarter of town for a walk around and a spot of lunch. Craig and I kind of talked ourselves in to the fact that some more meat on a stick would be a good idea, not taking any notice that we would have to spend all evening on a train.

The train journey this evening was 17 hours from Xi’an to Shanghai, I had the middle bunk this time and after a few beers in the dining car with Craig & Jess again and the use of my BA eye mask and some ear plugs, I managed to get a fairly decent sleep. One good thing this time around, although the train seemed older than the previous one, it didn’t have the same foul smell of toilets.