The group's first calamity!

We had quite a lot of spare time in Guilin beofre our train left at 8pm. We got a chinese meal together and then went to the supermarket to get train supplies (water, crackers, biscuits, pot noodle, crisps, breakfast rolls - all that good healthy stuff). A few of us then went to the internet cafe to use up the last hour - Qimin had asked us to be back at the train station by half past 6.
Chris, me & Kate were sat together and decided to leave at around 6:15 but Ali and Paul hadn't quite finished so we said we'd get a taxi for 3 and they could get one for 2 as we wouldn't all have fitted in one taxi anyway.

The 3 of us waited for a while but all the taxis coming past were full so we decided to walk the 20 minutes back to the station. We were a few minutes late but collected our bags from the luggage room and got our train tickets in plenty of time.

Then we waited...and waited. Where were Ali & Paul? Even if they'd decided to wait for a taxi surely they'd be here by now?

We waited a bit longer. No one had their mobile number and we mostly didn't have phones with us.
We were all getting pretty worried as time to board the train got nearer. At around 7:15 Qimin told us all to go into the station and get on the train, she would wait as long as she could and then leave their tickets in the luggage room if they didn't show.

Members of the group started to et a bit panicky, looking round every 2 seconds to check we were all together! We left it as long as we could and then boarded the train without them. Ali & Paul were great members of the group, lots of fun and we really didn't want to leave without them.
A few minutes before the train was due to leave they boarded. Hooray!

They had been completely ripped off by taxis. Qimin had written "Railway Station" on slips of paper for us to get taxis. The taxi they had took them to the wrong station - even though Paul kept telling her it was the wrong way. Then they had to get anoher taxi back into town and run for the train! Very stressful - we'd had a pretty smooth time of it unti then!

But we all managed to be on the last train of our trip. It was the nicest yet. We played Mahjong in the beer car, I mean dining car until 1am and then slept our way across the country.