On the train

I travelled from Shanghai to Guilin. Nine hours on the train means I don’t have many photos to choose from for today. I left the hostel early and the main pedestrian shopping street that was packed with people every other time I walked past was empty. Apart from a group of women doing tai chi to music in the middle of the street. Unfortunately the shots of them I took on my phone were badly out of focus.

During the train trip I felt like I was going back in time. Not in the sense that the places I was passing looked old or old fashioned. It was time travel by a few weeks or maybe a month as winter rolled back into autumn. More green and yellow appeared, the landscape looked softer. There were still some fields waiting to be harvested; not everything was brown mud like it was further north. This was taken just before sunset as we passed (very quickly!) some lovely countryside.


And I discovered the best time to attempt to buy train tickets at a Chinese train station – 7pm on a Sunday night! When I arrived in Guilin I went straight to the ticket office. It was virtually empty. I was easily able to secure an unusual ticket that you can only book in three places – Guilin, Nanning and Pingxiang. And if you look on a map at where those three places are, you’ll see a big hint as to where I’m going on Saturday!