You know, I'm pretty sure I did the Kunming-Chengdu line in 1985, but I'm hazy on the details. Reconstructing : We flew from Guangzhou to Kunming, and our next stop was Emei Shan. It must have been an overnight sleeper, about a 16 hour trip. I'm ashamed to say I can't remember anything much about the scenery... rather, the spectacular Emei Shan and Leshan Buddha must have chased it from my mind.

I remember we had intended to do Chengdu-Chongqing by train, but it was booked up for several days, so we flew. Our other major rail trips in China were Hangzhou-Beijing, then Beijing-Taiyuan-Xian-Beijing, then of course the trans-Siberian (by the Manchurian route).

We had sleeping berths for most of these (stacked three high). On a couple of occasions, when we hadn't managed to book sleepers, friendly railwaymen managed to find us berths reserved for staff. They were eager to speak English. We only did one overnight trip on wooden seats.

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