Walked down to the station early, + straight onto the train. Discovered that despite having consecutive seat nos we weren’t next to each other. We were, however, soon able to swap. Little else to report for the rest of the day – our seats were vaguely uncomfortable, but the time passed reasonably, with reading + cards. I made one excursion to the dining car, where I encountered the usual problem of not knowing what food was on offer. I adopted the tactic, successful once before, of picking out the most expensive item on the menu. It let me down this time, however, for I received an undoubtedly pricey dish of mixed meat + seafood, not at all my cup of tea.
At a small stn along the way, where I’d gotten off to buy goodies from one of the stalls, ran into a familiar face, of Allan, from as far back as it is possible to go in our China excursion. He was getting off there – I don’t know the name, only that it had a couple of z’s in it – to explore for the day.
The night was pretty hellish, as usual for hard seat. I find it virtually impossible to sleep sitting up, even in conditions of relative comfort, + on a crowded train that is doubly so.
And really nothing at all to comment upon, except that China is such a huge country that it does take an inordinately long time to get across it.
