Early stop at Xingxing. photos of station, two Tibetans looking down from a bridge and a snack cart. Wonder if there are awards for this kind of photography?
9.30am. The restaurant car is full of train personnel eating their heads off but for me, breakfast is over. I am offered a pot of instant noodles while around me grown men are stuffing dumplings the size of grapefruit and battered delicacies that are not on our menu at all. I have a coffee. Milky.
The scenery isn't much but we have brown hills and are now below the tree line. I have a new companion, a Chinese chap in Pierre Cardin shoes. he sleeps.
Definitely in China now. The occasional house on the hillside has a Chinese roof, there is green, there are trees and suddenly I am breathing more comfortably, albeit I have a brand new cold. At least now there is some agriculture to look at as I have kinda had my fill of wild brown desert.
5pm. Matthie has just made me cry. We are talking about music and I mention that while in the dentist's chair I hum Tosca to take my mind of it. Next thing he gives me his mp3 player and I am listening to the same aria - great pure flood of sound. Helpless tears of happiness. And more! Callas singing Rossini, Cecilia Bartoli, an opera by Vivaldi. I had somehow forgotten music existed. Later dinner with the kids, then bed tho my new companion stays up to finish his book - at 1 am. We stop at Xian. Tempted to get off and see Terracotta Warriors but resist.
