I thought it would be interesting to go to Hong Kong before the rally start, in Chengdu. That way, we could enjoy a couple of days in HK, before taking the new super high speed whizzo train to Guangzhou and then on to Chengdu.

HK was rainy, but still fun. Then it all went slightly wrong. In theory, the new service to Guangzhou should have been amazing, but it was all a bit hard work. When leaving Kowloon, the train is in a tunnel until it reaches mainland China, we emerged not just to China, but to thick smog. We had arranged to stay close to the station in Guangzhou to facilitate our early departure the following day. At the last minute though, our train was changed to an entirely different station, several miles away. No bother, just book another hotel. I chose one for its proximity to the station. The one that had the least worse reviews.

Arriving at the huge Guangzhou South Railway Station is a confusing thing. We had to go down the longest escalator ever as there was no lift and walk for miles with no trolleys or porters, and with luggage, that was tricky. I’d taken a screenshot, in Chinese, to show the taxi driver the address of where we were staying. We joined the very long taxi queue, when we eventually found it, taking 35-40 minutes to snake our way to the front. We had already realised that we would need two cars as the boots were completely taken up with a gas cylinder. We grabbed two cars and showed the drivers where to go. There was much talking at us in Chinese and they wouldn’t let us in the cars. Turned out we were in the wrong queue. After the all the tribulations of our journey from HK, that are too tedious to go into, it was a bit grim.

We got to the hotel eventually and were greeted by a Happy Christmas sign. Two sweet girls were sitting surrounded by mounds of detritus and I showed them our booking, hearts sinking even more. We conversed through google translate. It was raining and we had to go outside, down the road and around the corner to take the shaky and filthy lift to our room. What a room it was and rather different to our gorgeous harbour view room at the W in HK. It was huge, but depressing, very dirty but rather wonderful in that it had a massive t v screen, showing strange programmes, a washing machine in the shower and several cod philosophical platitudes and floral murals on the walls. Who couldn’t love that? Oddly, the cliches were in English. God knows why. It was hardly a tourist place. I didn’t want to put my bare feet on the filthy floor but the sheets seemed to be clean. I tried not to think too closely about that. It was not a good night.

9

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast and needed some nosh. The only place around was rough but it had grainy pictures of the food so we pointed at a few random things and waited. They had beer, which was very welcome. I tried not to think about the hygiene, but the food was quite tasty.

This morning, we got to the unbelievably vast station, and had breakfast at McD’s (there was a limited choice) where, oddly, everything was served with a cup of sweet corn instead of chips. We boarded the train for the 10 hour journey thinking at least we would be able to see China rolling by. Except, our allocated seats were in row one, with only a quarter of a window and very limited legroom. A bit like flying to Bangkok from London in economy without a g&t to ease the pain. Not good. We’re over train travel in China, even Mr S train man is finding it all a trial. Never again. We have had some glimpses of interesting scenery, including staggering limestone karsts around Guilin.

We’re about halfway to Chengdu now and it feels like the never ending journey.