Trains

Not much exciting here - I'm taking trains like crazy trying to get everything done in time before I go home on July 2. Perhaps Longyan wasn't a smart location to start biking from, as it is kind of off the beaten train track - it isn't on one of the main lines between large cities, so trains going to and from it are a little sparse. Anyways, I was fairly lucky to score the train ticket that I did from Guiyang to Longyan - it is a new train that just started about a month ago, and really shouldn't stop in Longyan, but it goes out of its way just to make the stop here - luck! It was the slowest class of train, which means it stops at just about anywhere possible, making it extremely slow, and the 1500 km trip took about 32 hours - and the train also didn't have airconditioning, so it was a little toasty. Still it was somewhat sobering that the ticket for a bunk was only 230 yuan - less than the cost of my bike, and just a little bit quicker. So right now, I'm in Longyan for about 4 hours to pick up my luggage that I had stored at a hotel about a month ago (in fact, I think it is exactly a month ago.....I hope it is still there!), before I get on a train that is taking me to Ji'an, Jiangxi - I'll get there around 7pm, at which point I'll transfer trains to get on a 9pm train that will get me into Jingdezhen, Jiangxi at 4am the next day. I'll then get a hotel for one night, buy a bunch of junk and another suitcase to put it all in before heading out on a train to Shanghai that I'll get to on July 1st (Happy Canada Day!) before I get on the plane to Shanghai on the 2nd. Crazy.