Shanghai, China, Asia Good news and bad news: The bad news is that I got almost no sleep at all on the train last night. The good news is that it was my last long distance train ride for my whole trip! All-in-all it was a pretty good way to travel. I liked that I could pay for a cheap ticket, fall asleep (hopefully) and wake up in another city, while also saving a night’s accommodation at a hostel. But…
Xi’an, China, Asia Well I officially hate dorms in China. I think I’m getting less sleep in the dorms than I am on the hard sleeper train rides. The strange this is that down south I could get a single room at a hostel for about $10 a night, but up north I’m struggling to see any for less than $25. When I can stay in a dorm for $7, it just makes no sense to pay that much more…
Xi’an, China, Asia Well I was right. They were all Chinese in my dorm, and I didn’t get much sleep again. Some guys came in around 11:30pm, put the light on without caring that I was asleep, and then left the door open for a ridiculous amount of time so all the mosquitoes in the world could come in. When they finally turned the lights out, they decided it was the perfect time to call their best friend and have…
Xi’an, China, Asia I didn’t get a great night’s sleep on the train last night. They turned the lights out at 10pm, but a bunch of people stayed awake until about 1am chatting quite loudly, right at the foot of my bed. One guy sat on my foot twice, but I guess that’s to be expected on a bottom bunk. The train was scheduled to arrive in Xi’an at 7am and again, it was right on time. I hopped off…
Yichang, China, Asia I got a phone call at 1am to say we had arrived at the shiplock so I went outside. It was a bit pointless to show us this without explaining to us how it worked, because we were all outside just looking at the ships in front of us not realizing that up to six can enter at once, so we weren’t just in line, we were going through. I only stayed up for about ten minutes…
Badong Xian, China, Asia I was woken up this morning at 6am by the annoying woman on the intercom. There was an optional excursion that you had to pay another 220 yuan ($37) for, so Jessica, Staffan and I decided not to go. We’d spent enough money on this trip and didn’t want to open ourselves up to more disappointment. Of course, because this boat is crap, they still only have one breakfast time, even though half of the people…
Wanzhou, China, Asia I was woken up by soft Chinese music coming out of the speaker in my room at 6:30am. I was actually pretty happy to hear that music, because the only other things I had heard come through that was a lot of Chinese babble, and nothing in English. So at least I didn’t wake up to that. I went to the dining room and sat down at table 12 and eventually met Staffan and Jessica, a Swedish…
Chongqing, China, Asia I woke up this morning and grabbed some breakfast in the hostel. It was a much better night’s sleep in the single room than I had had in the dorm. It’s usually worth that little bit extra money to know you’re going to get a good night. I checked out of the hostel and went for a wander through the city center. These big cities are just so unappealing to me now, and in China it’s damn…
Chongqing, China, Asia I had a horrible night’s sleep last night! I was in a six person dorm but with five other Chinese people. I wasn’t able to speak to any of them, and I have found that they can be incredibly rude. A girl was talking on her phone through the night. It didn’t matter if someone called her at 3am, she answered it and talked for at least five minutes. Two other guys were snoring the whole night,…
Chongqing, China, Asia I woke up this morning and met Greg for breakfast down at the restaurant before he headed off to see the pandas. He was not too happy about being here after that long journey, so he just wanted to move on as quickly as possible. Unfortunately there were no sleeper trains to Xi’an available until tomorrow, so he’s going to have to spend another night here and leave tomorrow. A girl he had met on the train…