Silk Road - Day 2 - Famen Temple, Baoji, Train

Breakfast for Champion Tour Members
We were excited on Day 2 because it'd be the first time we'd be going on a train in China. When you drive around in a car all the time, sometimes getting on public transport can be exciting. Really.

Anyway, got up early, had a pretty decent West+East breakfast in the hotel. Would have enjoyed it more if we'd had more than half-an-hour to eat, but we still managed to wolf down lots of goodies. The fried rice noodles was good. So was the bacon, but then bacon's always good. What is it about sizzling fat that just gets the appetite going...?

Famen Temple
We got on the tour bus, relieved to see that they'd changed it, and we actually could wriggle our legs around instead of having them jammed up against the front seat, yay! And off we went to our first tour site, Famen Temple.

It's a Buddhist Temple holding Buddha relics. Hundreds of temples in the world claim to have Buddha relics (which could be a finger bone, or bits of bone, or bits of ashes... I'm making this up, don't quote me). But this temple has an amazing story to back it up, along with 'live video footage' of the incredible event: the relic (or the tray it was on, I don't remember which) elevated into the air like a couple of meters. And light came from the heavens and shone on it... And a booming voice started up: I am a TRUE BUDDHA RELIC, go forth and worship me with full trust and belief... Okay, there was no voice, but the elevation and light apparently did happen. I saw the picture.

The relic is stored in an appropriately ancient tower, underground. It's in a little glass box, wrapped up in gold cloths. I had exactly 3 seconds to look at it before I was bumped aside by the crowd.

Incidentally, mid-Sep to mid-Oct is major major peak for Silk Road Tours, mainly because it's the best weather around this time. Lots of people though.

Train Ride
Back on the bus we went, and off to the town of Baoji (Precious Chicken literally). We had lunch there. And the train we were taking would be taking off from there. And that's all I know of Baoji.

The closer we got to train time, the more anxious our tour guide became. Lots of warnings: keep close together, keep up with the group, keep this ticket on you and don't lose it, get on the train quick cos they won't wait for you... He got our hearts pumping and sweat pouring as we got ready for battle!

Why battle? Well, you know how train stations all over the world have stairs, lots of them? Baoji Train Station was no different. And there we were a bunch of tour members on a 13 day Silk Road Tour. 13 days. Everybody had giant bags, some as tall as tall kids, I don't kid you. And 16/19 had hard cases. Heavy hard cases. The owners had to lug them cases up them stairs and into the train, by themselves. K and I were the 2/3 without hard cases, we had a small trolley and a mid-size canvas case, and even we were puffing up them stairs.

Moral: pack light for travels, seriously.

And now a rant about China Train Stations, or this train station at least. Passengers aren't allowed on the platform until the train arrived. We were stuck in lines, long lines. The train was only stopping for like 5 minutes to pick up passengers, and we weren't allowed on the platform until the train arrived? That is seriously... ahem, going to be a problem.

Tiny train doors + oversized bags + lots people = STUCK.

Oh did I mention we weren't the only tour group trying to get on this train? There were 3.

I think we delayed the train by oh 15 minutes or so.

And when we got on, we had to cuddle up to our bags (trains don't have baggage compartments), and rock on for 2 hours.

I actually enjoyed it. Hadn't had exercise in a long time, and this was pretty good.