$25 or $50?

Day: 251

Now I pose a question. Would you pay $25 for a 17 hour overnight train ride on a “hard sleeper” crammed in with six people in a cabin or would you splurge for the 1 hour plane ride for $50?

Thats what I thought also. Perhaps it makes me somewhat less of a “hardcore” traveler, but it also leaves me sane; and $25 is barely an hours pay.

It did leave me with one last day to kill in Xi’an before my flight tonight, but that was realitively easy to do.  Some meandering around the markets, looking at the Great Mosque (the biggest in China!), getting my picture taken for being big and white, and eating a few MSG filled meals.

Sophie and Luke were heading off to Chengdu and I am off to Xining, our flights were only 10 minutes apart so we split a cab and headed off to the airport.

I broke one of my cardnial rules about never arriving in a new place in the middle of the night by showing up in downtown Xining at 11:30pm.  I went to the only “budget” place listed in my Lonely Planet -The Post Hotel-, and of course they no longer have dorms, only doubles for 65y.  What a gip.  I ponied up and figured on finding a better place manana.