Train Ride: Nanjing (南京) to Xining（西宁）

For our train ride, it officially marks the beginning of our trip, as staying with relatives and sleeping in really doesn’t count as a ‘journey’. Arriving at the Nanjing train station, I was once again reminded how massive the population of China was, as the train station was like rush hour New York City’s Grand Central, except this was 11am on a Wednesday, at a train station only for long-distance trains….!!!

For the train ride, we brought with us 4 preserved eggs, as grandma had an oversupply of eggs…. and we naively ignored the advice to take on more food with us….. By the 7^th hour we were already regretting our decision as the train had 19 carts, but only 1 of them served food. And we were staying in the very last train, so by the time the food carts got to us the only thing that was left was unappetizing scraps. W T F! We had to wait for the food cart to come back an hour later, and luckily we got the LAST TWO rice boxes. When other people asked about more food, the attendant was like “Too bad, the kitchen is closed there’s no more food for the day”. W T F x 2, but at least we got the last two…

F O O D!

We rationed our 4 eggs carefully, and managed to find 3 CLIF bars tucked away for emergency consumption. And at the next stop, we rushed out to get ourselves some instant noodles. Disaster avoided!

So after a long trek of 28hrs full of sore bums, hunger and greasy hair, we finally arrived in the northwest city of Xining西宁!
After numerous failed attempts getting onto a taxi, and two more failed attempts on getting into a bus (again, rush hour Grand Central, but in a different city), we finally managed to fight our way into a taxi and onwards to our hostel!

Note: People of Xining are extremely friendly, whether it be taxi drivers, asking for directions or eating at old fashioned food shops, everyone was very nice!