Tran No. 2

Pingyao to Xi'an: 12 hours in "hard bed compartment"

Dave and I prepared for our long journey by limiting our water and eating very little. Limiting/preventing trips to the bathroom were to be paramount to our enjoyment of this ride.

Note: Pingyao was wonderful, but the best way to describe is through the plethora of photographs we took. Provided we find an Internet connection that doesn't inch along, those will be posted soon.

We boarded the train around 8:30. Others had boarded at the train's origin so the crowds were few. This did, however, mean that the passengers had already staked their claims and gave us a little hassle over us taking the bottom and middle bunks (the ones we had paid for and had been assigned). In the end, our ticket prevailed and we settled in for the journey -- our bags stowed beneath us, our bladders and intestines empty and our iPods in our ears. The lights were soon turned off and everyone retired to their narrow sleeping quarters lining the train cabin partitions.

Under normal circumstances I am a SOUND sleeper. I have slept through fire alarms, fireworks displays, chase scenes, fights, etc. However, my above average sleeping ability was no match for Car 5, Row 10, Top Bunk. His super-hero strength snore was enough to keep me awake for a good portion of the night. It can be most accurately likened to the gutteral sound of a chainsaw starting up. To complicate my complete distraction from slumber, the sounds of 5-10-Top were complimented by a persistent mixture of smells including poop and cigarette smoke as well as the jolting motion of the train that threatened to throw me from the middle bunk at every late night station stop.

I was extatic to get off the train when morning came and even more grateful that the no food/no water scheme had worked and that persistent wafting smells from down the cabin were my closest contact with the unthinkable.