McIllece Aloha Adventures: Chuga Chuga Choo Choo!

After our day checking out the Terra Cotta Army and the Huaqing Hot Springs, we had to catch the sleeper train from Xi'an to Nanjing - home to our fabulous hosts and tour guides the Littles. We picked up our bags from the hotel, ate a quick Pizza Hut lunch, and hustled to the Xi'an train station. The Littles had tried to prepare us for the chaos that would soon ensue, and we scoffed to think that anything could be worse than what we've experienced in India. We were wrong! It was a much different kind of chaos. It started as we entered the station itself: people were cutting and pushing just to get to the baggage screening station. With 11 people in our party, 7 of them children, I was a big nervous about getting separated. We found our "gate" and were shocked by the masses of people already posturing for the mad dash to their cars on our train. S Little had the great idea to check if they had a "soft seat" lounge, for 1st class cars. Luckily, they did and we were able to sit and wait for our boarding time, which was supposed to be before the rest of the horde. However, we were not first, but were able to get to our car without too much difficulty. Having already traveled by overnight train in Thailand we had our expectations of the minimum level of comfort we could handle. We were very pleasantly surprised by how clean and comfortable this option was for travel in China. We would definitely travel this way again. Check it out...