After a week in Beijing, it was time to get back on a train and explore more of China. The train experience in China is quite different from the transmongolian express. For starters, Beijing's train station is the size of a small airport. After having exchanged my reservation for an actual ticket (a process that requires your passport), I somehow managed to get to the right platform at the right time. My bed in the train this time was a so called 'hard sleeper'. The beds are not that hard, however the beds are stacked 3-high. Luckily, the benefit of a nighttrain is that most of the travel is spend sleeping!

I arrived in Xi'an the next morning, and went to my hostel. After having settled and figured out what I can actually do and see in Xi'an (I tend to not read up on places before I go there), I met Daniel from Taiwan in my room. He invited me over to have lunch together with Liam from the UK, who was just heading to the station to leave Xi'an.

Daniel and I hung out together for the remainder of the time. Being from Taiwan means he could speak Mandarin, which was a godsend after having to order food by pointing at pictures for a week.

The highlight of Xi'an for me was Huashan (Hua mountain). This mountain is known for being 'the most dangerous mountain in China', because of its extremely steep stairs, and the wooden plank above a kilometer deep drop. The whole experience was at times physically and mentally taxing, and the sights on the mountain were beautiful.

After 3 days in Xi'an Daniel and I got a day train to Chengdu. Initially the plan was to get a sleeper train again, but trains sell out really early in China, as I would experience a few more times. We arrived in Chengdu close to midnight, and took a tuk-tuk to our hostel because the taxidrivers tried to rip us off (charging 5 times the metered price). In the hostel I met with Karl (from Wisconsin), whom I met earlier in Russia! We hadn't planned to be in Chengdu at the same time, but happened to both arrive this day and went to the same hostel.

In Chengdu we entertained ourselves by seeing the pandas at the panda research center, taking a day trip to Leshan to see the worlds biggest buddha statue (carved out of a cliff), and exploring the city itself. After a lot of trouble, I finally managed to get tickets to my next destination. I ended up staying in Chengdu a little longer than intended, but the city has enough to offer!