The train to Inner Mongolia

So there we go: Alice, Tamara, Arif, James and I met Leo (our guide from cycle China) at Beijing West railway station at 8pm. We are to take a night train to Jining at 9pm. The train station was packed with people leaving Beijing as tomorrow is Dragon Boat festival, which means we get a day off. As it is a Thursday a lot of people took Friday off as well and are leaving the city for a long week-end. We passed security check and ticket control and got in the train. I was quite excited as it was my first trip in a Chinese train. As it is an overnight train we had booked soft sleepers (i.e. beds) vs. hard sleepers (i.e. a board). I have to say I was quite impressed by the soft sleepers and the first class in general. Although it looked old the beds were long and comfortable enough, with only 4 persons per cabin (as opposed to 6 with hard sleeper). We quickly settled down and ate dinner. Given we were to get up at 4:30am, we chatted a bit and then went to sleep. Yes another record in going early to bed, by 10pm, everybody was asleep. 2 hours later I woke up. Obviously the train being in motion so was my bed, so was my back. Sadly it didn’t like it and as of midnight I dozed on and off. Not to mention the train was noisy. I was actually happy when it was time to wake up. 30min later we were on the platform, freezing. Gosh it was cold and on top it was raining!


The train station was another opportunity for surprising Chinglish.


We then took a van for 1 hour drive to Huitengxile grassland.