The train Hong Kong to Beijing

We boarded the train at Hong Hum station in Hong Kong, we've booked a sleeper compartment and are very suprised at the standard. Our train ride to Beijing will take over 24 hours so we settle in for an evening of UNO and pass the pigs. The dining car was serving suprising sensational food and with cans of coke just 40c the duty free scotch was going down well. The soft sleeper beds were very comfortable and we all wake in the morning refreshed. I wake and look out our train window and see the most beautiful sunrise, a huge orange sun rising over a flat plateau of farming land. Birds and everywhere and shepperds dot the land with their bamboo crooks and small herds. We see the occasional village and people riding bikes along the paths between fields. The small mounds dotting the farms are graves and some still bear flowers on the top many are older and are starting to lessen in height. There are many trees although they have lost their leaves now for winter and as we get further north the snow becomes quite thick in the fields. Wow this is not the China I imagined, we know its a diverse country with deltas, plateaus, desert and cities and a massive population so we are certain this serene scene will soon change. Our train arrives dead on time and we walk out into the buzz of Beijing, there is not another westerner in sight, no-one speaks english and not a single sign is anything but Chinese, the challenge begins.... www.byokids.com.au ....your family travel gurus