I remember waking up a bit during the night, but managing to go back to sleep alright, despite my initial semi-stress over the claustrophobic conditions of the top bunk, they abated and I was able to get my head down for some much needed naptime. Thank you Marcia for the earplugs they were a godsend, there was this grill on the AC unit above me that just wouldnt stop rattling!
Anyway, dawn came and brought with it more flashes of Chinese countryside. We were making pretty good progress but still officially behind time by about an hour; despite this, I was pleasantly surprised to see us arriving into Xi'an at 1200. In my head Xi'an was some kind of northern Chinese landmark, and would put us well on our way to Urumqi. That was until I got my National Geographic map of China out (thanks Marilyn!) and realised that yes, Xi'an is northern, but no, it is not very western, in fact it's kind of central as far as China goes ... but at least I knew where we were so I could follow our journey as we stopped at various places!
About this point you are probably wondering what on earth I did during this train ride ... When I wasn't writing a letter to Lucy, sleeping, playing with the games on my iPod, or trying not to think about the toilets, I was chatting with my fellow passengers. Of the whole train I think I was the only white person ... and though it transpired on Day 2 that some people spoke a modicum of English, they were certainly quite reluctant to use it, and I was pretty much left chatting Chinese. Yes, this was a great way to try and tune my ear to the language, and pick up some vocabulary or be corrected on my grammar, but it was an awful lot of brain-work in a very short space of time and I quickly found my head spinning somewhat. Anyhow, there wasn't a shortage of things to discuss, and if there was a lull in conversation it could quickly be filled by one of the aforementioned activities or by the passing of one of the many (almost continuous) trolleys brought round by the train crew (who I nicknamed the Smurfs because of their blue uniform) serving anything from ready meals to trinkets.
Sticking with the Smurfs for a bit, it was also in their remit to look after the carriages, as far as I could tell they were assigned their own carriage, maybe one between three (to allow for shifts, etc) and they had to do stuff like sweep the carpet, check tickets (and exchange them with customers for the relevant boarding card, a plastic ticket you kept instead of your own ticket until you left the train at which point it was re-exchanged), and last but not least, clean the toilets at every (or most) station stops. This also included locking them on the approach to a station, so people wouldnt flush onto the station tracks while the train was by the platform. God I do not envy those women - 5 days at a time on the train (Shanghai - Urumqi and then back again, followed by a week off), and the state the toilets could get into, well ... it just wasn't nice. I'm no real fan of second hand smoke but when it's covering the smell of whoever has just been in before you I know which I'd rather. Still, I didn't want to very much, and to this end I was avoiding eating the local food, knowing it would send me running straight to the stainless steel pit of horror. I stuck rigorously to bread and topped off with sweets every now and then, drinking juice or ice tea to keep on top of my fluids.
By nightfall we had passed Lanzhou and were heading into semi-desert. I'd been for a walk down the train, seen the Soft Sleeper berths, the dining car, and ascertained there were NO western toilets on the T52 / 53 from Shanghai to Urumqi. This only reinforced my resolve not to go. I think by this point I had broken my golden rule about sleep, and succumbed to a very nice slumber in the afternoon, headphones on, AC above me ... this didn't help my sleep much during Night 2, but hey, I seem to be getting used to this whole tiredness thing!
Throughout the night I could read the ever-scrolling message board opposite me, which had (in among the Chinese) such gems in English as: "NOW TIME 2043" and "TRACK NOW BE LATE", as well as regular updates on the train speed and external temperature. From this I gathered that we were no closer to making up our lost time, and would remain a full 90 minutes late until sometime in Day 2.
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