The joy of slow travel?

October 1st: China’s National Day, when people across the country celebrate the founding of the People‘s Republic of China.

It seems the entire country is on holiday. Here in Xi'an our simple bus trip to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda turned into a world record attempt to stuff as many people into a modest-sized bus as possible.

And out of town, at the Terracotta Warriors museum, we witnessed this world-famous army squaring up to an invasion of epic proportions as a massive and fearsome force of tourists descended on the place, armed to the hilt with Nikons and leisure wear.

Many take advantage of the ensuing week’s holiday to go and visit friends and relatives in other parts of the country. Given that this is a country of some 1.3 billion that’s an awful lot of people needing train tickets.

Not, then, the best time to be travelling across in the world’s most populous nation.

Indeed it‘s beginning to seem particularly ambitious to set ourselves the mission of visiting a fair bit of this vast country during this period, then hopping over the border to Laos and taking in a few more parts of South East Asia, before making it in time to Hong Kong in time to catch our boat to North America.

Judith Chalmers didn’t have this kind of trouble.

But then she flew - something we, foolishly or not, have chosen to eschew. Not for us a short hop over China for us, from Xi’an in the north, to Kunming in the south, no we have the delights of a 36 hour train journey ahead of us.

All sleepers, in any direction, let alone where we want to get to, are booked out. Solid. For a week.

So it’s two nights in seats for us. It seems our visit to China is rapidly turning into the 21st Century equivalent of Mao’s Long March.

But of course this is nothing to dread - merely another fine chapter in our epic peregrinations, each one stuffed with interest and oozing with excitement. Across Russia, we were caged in trains for days and it was rather good fun at times. And surely this time they’ll be no scary drunken soldiers seeking our company.

Rather, as we pootle along, through the heart of China, we’ll certainly get to see some of the country and notice the changes around us. Hoorah for slow travel!

So, with the aid of our stiff upper lips, a large bottle of Scotch and a few ipod-ised episodes of ‘I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’, we head off for the south.