Sunday : sunny

We had a good sleep, but could of slept for a few more hours at least. We have to get up and sort out our travel plans, and go for a walk. We checked out and stored our bags at the hotel.

We are lucky toady this hotel has wifi, it's been awhile. We found out yesterday that there isn't transport to our next destination, we misread the guide. It says we have to travel to another town to get the train, not this town.

We went to go buy train tickets for that train, but the train was sold out. The hotel staff helped us find another way which would be better than the first way.

The first way was 2hr bus north back through all the roadworks, so more like 4hrs. Then jump on a train for 6hrs south. The new plan is to catch a bus 2hrs south than stay a night in Huaihua then take a 4hr train down to our destination, then we can catch two more buses, Yay!

The first plan we will get there sooner by half a day, but we spend more time on public transport.

Luckily we can buy tomorrow's train ticket here today. Saves us rushing around tomorrow trying to buy at ticket, after the bus and finding a hotel, and this train wasn't sold out!

One task done. Next task, find some grub for another breaky/lunch. We headed towards where we had drinks last night. A smell off pizza made us stop short though. It was a pizza, coffee, gelato restaurant and it smelt fan bloody tastic. The place was so small maybe 2.5m W by 4m D, it was two story, and had a spiral staircase leading to were we sat looking out over the river. It was just what we wanted, pizza and coffee.

Now to go for a walk. I don't know what looks better the town at night or during the day. It was less busy at this time of day then last night. We took different lanes today and saw a few different areas and views of the town. We found our bus station during the walk. We walked around a bit longer then we planned, but there were so many places to stop and look at this old town.

We headed back to the hotel, picked up our bags then walked back to the station. We showed our tickets to some locals and got directed to the bus we were after.

It seems a shame to leave this town so soon, it definitely had plenty of character. I loved it, but in the time that we had, we accomplished a lot. It's a small town so that helped.

Well the bus trip was another bumpy trip due to the roadworks. The bus driver kept me entertained he was crazy. Very windy roads and he was going flat out with sheer cliffs to the sides of the bus. There were plenty of close calls.

We got to Huaihua alive, and it was the easiest drop off ever. We hopped off the bus and saw signs with bed symbols pointing the way to hotels. We got to the end of the road turned the corner there was a whole strip of hotels, and a big train station. We went and checked out the station, and its the right one we have to be at tomorrow morning by 06:10 for our train to Sanjiang. too easy.

We split up again to get a few quotes. We got one of $12 a night, sold. After a short rest we went shopping for some breakfast tomorrow, we thought stick to what they are good at, noodles. We also got some nibbles and drinks for the train and buses tomorrow.

We passed a restaurant that did dumplings so in we went for a quick meal. Dumplings are my favorite thing so far about Chinese food. To be honest the food hasn't wowed me as much as a lot of people said it would. I'd have to pick Viet food over Chinese food. We have had a few really good meals but they were pretty standard dishes. It's still early days yet, see what we get Ron.

Back to the room for some ice-cream, and for a tub. Then to get some sleep we are up 5am tomorrow.