Falling out of love with overnight train journeys

Before this trip, I had done three overnight train journeys in comfort, and by that I mean with a fully horizontal bed. First there was Krakow in Poland to Budapest in Hungary, via Slovakia. That was the best - I was in a cabin for two, but the other bunk was empty. It seemed glamorous and exotic to be woken up in T-shirt and boxers in my own private suite twice in the middle of the night, first by armed and uniformed Slovakian border guards, and then later by Hungarians. (I had a sheltered upbringing.) Then there was a Moroccan train from Casablanca to Tangiers, and recently Faye and I took an overnight train back up towards Bangkok from southern Thailand.

Those second two weren't quite as glamorous, as we were in large compartments sharing with numerous other people, but they still had a huge appeal. I don't know, I think it's because I struggle so much to get any sleep on planes or buses, whereas on a properly horizontal bed, and with the gentle rocking motion of the train, I sleep like a baby. And also, you wake up and look out of the window at somewhere entirely new, a long way from where you closed your eyes.

So I was looking forward to our onward journey from Guangzhou, an overnight train westwards to Guilin. More so than Faye I think, who was rather more concerned about the number of strange people sleeping within about two yards of us. Getting onto the train was a feat in itself - the Chinese are apparently now being taught how to queue by the authorities, who are worried about what foreign visitors will think of them during the Olympics next year. And of course few of the signs at the fantastically huge train station were in English.

We got hard sleeper bunks, second in the pecking order of Chinese rail classes behind soft sleeper, but much cheaper, and not actually that hard. The bed was comfortable enough, though extremely narrow even before you place your small bag of valuables against the wall, and just not quite tall enough for a (Western) adult to sit up on. So to cut a long story short (sorry, it's raining here in Guilin and the internet is 35p an hour), I didn't get much sleep, and in those restless hours, realised that the prospect of several more of these epic train journeys wasn't quite as exciting and romantic as I'd been thinking. Still, the people around us were very friendly even though we could only manage to communicate "England" and "China" to each other. Apart from one bold-as-brass 12-year-old girl who decided unilaterally that Faye was to be her new email friend and English teacher.

Guilin sounds beautiful in the guidebook - it's surrounded by spiky limestone rocks and waterways - but as I say, it's currently chucking it down so we can't see anything. We plan a cruise down the river to a chilled out Westerners' enclave called Yangshuo, but may hold off until the weather clears a bit.

Right, time for another cup of tea.