Sunday, 10th October, 2010

Yesterday was a quiet day but we did venture down to the southern part of Chengdu by bus to have a late lunch. Jim was set on having a Mexican meal but once down there spent nearly an hour looking for this restaurant, only to find that it was no longer in the place on the map, so ended up having a 4pm lunch in another establishment. Decided to take the new Metro train back to the hostel but on the walk to the station we found the Mexican restaurant we were looking for - nowhere near where it was positioned on the map.
We left the hostel at 7.30pm and caught a local bus up to the station to catch the train to Xi'an. We had an hour and a half wait but while there Joy and I went to the ticket office to get tickets back from Xi'an to Chengdu for Wednesday. Our train left dead on time at 9.40pm and this time we had a sleeper and all had the middle bunks but in separate compartments which was okay. We all slept reasonably well and we finally arrived in Xi'an at 2.45pm - was supposed to arrive just after 1pm but there were many stops waiting for other trains to pass. We saw some great scenery from daylight on today and there is more rail tracks being built for the bullet trains. We have not seen one level crossing since being in China, the roads either go under the railway line or over the top. Unfortunately we woke up to it raining this morning and by the time we got to Xi'an it was quite wet and we walked the 1 ½ km to the hostel we are at for three nights from the train station. We have thought the hostels/guest houses we have been in have been great but this one here is probably the best but then again it is twice the price of where we stayed in Chengdu. One thing though the Chinese are not good at bathroom planning, water never seems to drain from the shower like it should - the bathroom here looks good but the water from the shower goes everywhere and was not far from coming under the door to our bed which is on the floor.