Journey to Chengdu

The nightbus arrived 3-1/2 hours early which explains why the ride was so damned bumpy, hence why I hardly slept. We foiled the taxi driver's scam getting the nearby bus to the railway station where we got to sit and wait from 4am until 9.10am for our train, well brokwn by a brief breakfast shopping trip drom which I returned triumphantly carrying bauzers and apples. Yum. By fluke our train was a sleeper so we finally got some rest.

Chengdu taxi drivers are nutters - no sooner had I got both feet in the car and we were off - before the door had even closed behind me. In and out of traffic we weaved and after narrowly missing being side-swiped by a truck (fortunately he slammed the brakes on) and ducking down some dark, narrow back-alleys with an abstacle course of telegraph poles planted along the length of the tarmac we came to a sudden stop outside Sim's Cozy hostel. Amazingly we had a DVD player in our room here so we made the best use of it watching Dodgeball followed by Saw 2 - possibly a bit gruesome for bedtime watching!