Our final test

We had our final backpacker test last night and survived. It was the 12 hour, hard seat, overnight train ride from Xian to Beijing. Yep, it was us and the locals in wagon 5. The train was packed and they even sell standing room tickets. Seriously, 12 hours of standing on a train overnight\- we saw people do it. It was a little packed and uncomfortable to say the least. I think we are the only tourists who didn't buy the scalper sleeper compartment tickets. We didn't get that memo and are way to cheap for that nonsense, so we suffered. It was our last train ride of the journey and a memorable one. I played name that animal or object game with my camera and a 4 year Chinese boy. He got a 100% mainly because I have no idea if his answers were right. Hey - it couldn't be all that bad - there was air conditioning.