 |
| Source |
The Night train is an essential
experience to have while travelling in China.
Or so I kept being told. We
sprung for hard sleeper cabins but the night train was still the part of our
Silk Road trip that I was least looking forward to. And by least looking
forward to I mean that I had an actual panic attack in the hotel in the morning
before we packed up for the train.
I have taken night trains before in
Europe and they were not pretty there.
Bathrooms on trains are pretty horrific (easily clogged and the train is
you know, moving) I was not looking forward to the Chinese version. I could not imagine that the whole train
toilet would be improve by making it a squat toilet. We were also sharing the room. Not with strangers than God, but I am enough
of an introvert that this was a major point of stress. Oh, my God what if I snore or something! My brain sometimes does not know when to shut
up.
Reality was much more forgiving than
the nightmare that had been going on in my head. There was a (pretty damn clean) western
toilet and a separate room with three sink.
Tooth Brushing was possible! There
weren’t too many others in the carriage aside from us and there weren’t very
many rooms either. Huzzah!
We entertained ourselves for a couple
of hours by coming up with as many idioms in English that have to do with body
parts. I recommend this highly as a say
to pass time. You can pretty much
randomly name any boy part and find a corresponding phrase. I wonder what this says about English…
Surprise!
I slept astonishingly well. So much better than I had anticipated and I
was shocked. I think that it might have
been the swaying motion or the soothing white noise of the train itself. It helps that the journey was relatively
short. We got on the train about 9:30
and were off by 7 in the morning.
Pretty sure that the sheets in hotels
and on the night train in China are washed with that acid that the Joker fell
into in the 1989 movie. All of my skin
hates me right now. Now, your skin might
be battle hardened and rough enough for sandpaper but I basically have the most
sensitive skin on the planet. You know
those weird hothouse flowers that only thrive and bloom and annoyingly specific
temperature, humidity, and ground conditions.
My skin is basically like that.
68/20 degrees, humid, and with absolutely absolutely no irritants is the
only time that it is happy. Anyway, long story short I have hives.
Final verdict. If you have to take the night train in China
splurge on the soft sleeper. The hard sleeper
had six people in the same place as we had 4 (and it wasn’t a large space) and
much more mankiness. It wasn’t a super
unique experience from other night trains so if you have it on your sis tans have
done a sleeper train before then you already know the drill.
 |
| Source |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell me what you think!