I dread the day when I will be back rattling along like a sardine on a train to London and so far away from the glory of train travel in China! The Chinese sure know how to do trains. It begins badly though. Beijing West Station's beautiful and graceful facade is in sharp contrast to the chaos that lurks within.

There are people everywhere; crammed in every available seat and corner and bit of floor with mountains of luggage and plastic bags bursting with instant noodles and dumplings.

Boarding the train is like a rugby scrum, as all these people and their enormous articles of luggage shove to be first through the barrier and on to the platform.

But once you are expelled onto the platform, hot and bothered (and bent double with the weight of your Bag), calmness returns.

A polite China man in uniform checks your tickets and guides you to your blue and white cabin, where your soft bed linen is neatly folded and a thermos of hot water and a chirpy little pot plant smile up at you from the table (yes with a white cloth!).

There are little TVs which screen Chinese movies or strange German circus tricks, while the intercom plays soothing music as you glide past the sweetcorn fields of rural china.

Add in a cup of freshly brewed tea, a good book, complimentary slippers and a GBP1.50 meal that is sold at your door, and you begin to feel like some grand Edwardian lady.

The only thing missing is the pianoforte and crumpets on the terrace. I was so serene and calm that I even managed to ignore the fact that my Chinese compartment buddy was picking pork out of his teeth and burping.

But enough on the journey, the destinations are equally interesting. One train took me south to Xi'an and the home of the terracotta warriors. Although you have seen the pictures, nothing is quite as breath-taking as the sight of thousands of mighty soldiers, startlingly real and intricately crafted, eyeballing you in their tidy ranks.

I struggled to get my mind around the fact that thousands and thousands of warriors were moulded, painted, individually crafted and then buried deep in the earth, all at the whim of a very powerful man. It has to be seen to be appreciated.

The afternoon provided a far more gritty impression of Xi'an, as I searched for some food, dodging the men offering to tell my fortune and the delicate ladies selling huge knives in the shadow of the ancient city wall. I ate in a restaurant that bleated with pop music and the waitress forgot half of my order, before joining the fight to get back on board the train.

Then it was back to Beijing for a few easy days strolling the beautiful bustling parks under blue skies - yes the sky finally found its way out of the smog! The parks here are wonderful; the Chinese people flock there, practising their opera by the pond, gambling on wooden stools in little pagodas and waltzing on mass in the shade of the trees.

I was fascinated, and lingered so long that a smiling Chinese man grabbed my wrists and whirled me around, muttering instructions and nodding joyfully as we twirled and twisted along with the music.

After two weeks, I was ready to leave Beijing and venture onwards. Train 97 chugged lazily past fishing boats bobbing on smooth lakes as I sipped my tea and poured over my map. next stop, Hong Kong.