Wet Wet Wet

Wednesday 6 June

It's raining today, but still extremely warm. We'll be leaving the hostel at about 1.00 pm for Hangzhou South Station, to catch the overnight train to Guilin – our last few days in China. Next Monday we'll be off to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Yesterday we spotted a very unusual site – a French-style patisserie that sold sandwiches and cakes! This morning after packing up and moving our suitcases to the deposit area of the hostel, and after an English breakfast (though still no bacon!) we take the bus to the patisserie, to buy food for our train journey.

It seems that the Chinese are generally not used to seeing many Westerners, and never more so than in Hangzhou, where we are stared at continually – at the bus-stop, on the bus, and as we walk along. We've even had people ask us to be in a photo with them. Will this be very different in 10 years time, we wonder?

We enjoy choosing our sandwiches and cakes, and buy crisps too, just to make it a completely healthy meal! Well, we did buy lots of fruit yesterday to take with us on our journey.

Hangzhou South Train Station is heaving with people – there's a huge waiting room area as you go in the door, and there are literally hundreds of people in there – sitting in seats and on the floor, eating, drinking, waiting, Looking around, we seem to be the only Western people here. As is usual at Chinese railway stations, you can't go onto your designated platform until the train guards open a metal gate to allow you through, just a few minutes before your train is due. It's a bit like boarding an aeroplane, really. The number of our train, T81, is lit up above our boarding gate; hundreds of people, with all their luggage, are squashed up against the gate, waiting for it to open. There's no queuing system , and when the gate eventually opens, it's everyman for himself – although quite why there is a need to be first to board the train, I'm not sure, as we all have allocated seats. Everyone stampedes towards the platform; our train isn't in yet so we have to wait around anyway.

We are travelling 2^nd class – we don't think you are able to travel 1^st class on the night-trains in China. 2^nd class means a 4-berth cabin; as usual I have a bottom bunk and Reg a top bunk. We are sharing with a lovely young Chinese girl, about 19 years old, who doesn't speak any English but is smiley and friendly, and very pretty. She has beautiful long, wavy auburn hair (dyed, as all Chinese have black hair), and sandals with deep platform soles, which she kicks off before effortless climbing onto the other top bunk like a gazelle.

We all settle ourselves in, managing to manoeuvre our huge suitcase so that it only partly blocks the narrow space between the seats. A bit later on, at another station, the 4th passenger in our cabin joins us; he's Chinese, in his 30's, and also doesn't speak English. He dumps his case under his lower bunk, and then I think he decides that the cabin is already far too crowded for his liking, and chooses to sit alone in the train corridor on one of the little flip-down seats until there's more room in the compartment.  We don't see him again until Reg, who was sitting on my bottom bunk with me, moves up into the top bunk. When the Chinese man does eventually come to bed, he studiously ignores us while awake, snoring gently with the rhythm of the train while asleep. Reg always sleeps well, but I never do when sharing a cabin with strangers, and don't feel comfortable having to sleep in my clothes.

In the morning, Reg and I watch for a while as the train chortles passed mountainous scenery (where some of the mountainside has been cut away – we don't know why) with acres of flooded rice fields nestling in the valleys.

The Chinese man grunts when Reg says good morning to him, but smiles politely when we say goodbye as the train draws into our station; he even helps Reg to lift our heavy suitcase onto the

platform, and we then realise he's getting off at this stop too.

It's been raining heavily, but as we disembark from the train the rain stops and it's incredibly humid, about 30º c. We've arrived in Guilin.