Transport Hell

Why, Oh Why, can't life be simple?
After Xi'an, I wanted to head south again to ChongQing, to get myself on a boat for the Three Gorges.A simple task usually. Give someone money for a train ticket and moments later....A ticket for the train. I, for convenience, organised my ticket through the hostel. Well, moments before I had to board the train there was, still no ticket. Apparently there was a problem at the ticket office and the conductor had the ticket for me on the train. Being a trusting soul, I actually believed the guest house owner. He was even kind enough to take me to the station and put me on the train himself. Even to the piont of finding one of the police and telling him my predicament. Moments later I was put on the train and shown to a sleeper. Hot and bothered I was in no mood for people to be staring and certainly in no mood for what came next.
A man came along and motioned that I was in his bunk and to move. Not actually giving me time to move, he proceded to kick me. This infuriated me and you could only imagine the reception he received from me. Ater a little tussle, I moved on to one of the seats provided for eating meals. After some time the conductor came along and I showed him my piece of paper which had my information written in Chinese. Basically it said...Can I have a hard sleeper? When he shook his head I asked for a soft sleeper. When he shook his head again and motioned to the hard seat area. I shook My head. No way! No Bloody Way!
Defiant and very pissed off, I sat there absolutely seething at the guest house owner.
Along came a guy from Melbourne. " I can't believe you got on the train without a ticket! Do you actually have a guide book for China? What are you doing? Do you have a travel plan" Basically I said " I can't believe I have survived in Asia for 7 month with out you" "Piss off" I was in no mood for meeting and talking to some guy who had been away from home for 2 weeks and was telling me how to travel. I think I was able to take care of myself!
About an hour later the original police man returned, demanding a certain amount of cash from me for a ticket. Being the sceptical person I have turned in to, I was very dubious that he was going to return with a ticket. However, Moments later he comes and collects me and ferries me off down the train. Wondering where the hell I was going, we eventually came apon a nice soft sleeper, filled with train workers and a cloud of smoke! What? I could be sleeping here tonight! Anyway. I was issued with a ticket and ferried back down the train to be shown my bed. It was in the staff section of the train and definately not the nicest area either, but I was happy to have a bed and not be stuck down with the rest of the population, in a hard seat. The only advantage to being stuck with the staff was, that they were poliet and as soon as the lights were out, they were snoring soundly and all was quiet. Also I didn't have to worry about some creep staring at me all night!