China is a beautiful place but it can be very, very frustrating.

We had not had washing done in about a week (like, a week after it needed to be done) because we could not articulate to the hotel staff that we wanted our clothes "just thrown in a washing machine" and not dry-cleaned which would cost an arm and a leg. It's for this reason that we've gone back to hostels - the staff are far more at ease with Westerners and travelling types.

Then there's the trains. I just can't get over the numbers. We're in a place called Xian at the moment, and it's stunning - but we wanted to leave here and go to Shanghai on the 9th. So we got to the station to book our train tickets, and attempted to get something.
Each day there are 10 trains from Xian to Shanghai. Each train is at least 18 carriages long with a mixture of seating and beds but contain around 1000 people. Thus, each day, 10,000 people travel by train on this route.

We could not get a single seat on the 9th. Or the 10th. Or the 11th. 30,000 seats had already been reserved. We could not get one on the 12th, or the 13th or the 14th or the 15th.....70,000 seats have been taken. Not one single seat, and I believe it as every train we've been on has been packed.

Instead we've got on a train heading to Hangzhou on the 12th which is about 110 miles south of Shanghai. The plan is to arrive in the morning, hustle around the place and see the sights then get back on a late local train to Shanghai so we can be in Shanghai to sleep. It's not ideal, but we've made the best of a bad situation. This sadly means we're going to have to rush the last part of our trip. We'd planned to have about 6 days in Beijing but now it's only 3.

As for being stuck in Xian for another 5 days, I can think of worse places. We've still to see the Terracotta Warriors, there's a place called OceanWorld (which should be very interesting as Xian is almost the furthest from an Ocean we've been this trip - and that includes the Australian Outback) and there's plenty of old-worlde things to see and do.

14 days to go!

Stu