Building Character on the overnight upright seats!

After trying all options over three days to get a sleeper train from Xi'an to Chengdu we decided to "suck it up" and buy 4 seats for a 16 hour overnight train journey!  We were convinced we had a bench seat with no padding so were mightily pleased to board at 7.30pm and find we had padded individual seats - no incline but we were happy!  That is until around midnight when we were lying face down on our blow up airline pillows and the train kept jerking violently and our noses were in danger of hitting the shared table!

Added to that Kim's pillow kept deflating and after blowing it up several times she gave up....

We tried sleeping on the table, leaning left, leaning right, sitting upright and we have decided that sleeping sitting up is not as easy as it sounds.  Brent didn't even try, he read the whole of The Hunger Games in one night!

Kim was determined not to use the facilities and believe it or not didn't for the whole 16 1/2 hours.... Talk about mind over matter.

One of the highlights was meeting a lovely young guy Iwei (I-Way) who though he had limited English joined in our conversation and even played dice with us half the night!

When we finally got in half an hour late we all had elephant-itis of the ankles and calves and were very relieved to see the staff from Sims Cozy Garden Hostel there to pick us up... from now on its sleepers at any cost if we have anything to say about it!!!