The washroom on the train to Xi’an was cleaner than I expected. Its steel sinks functioned, and a grated black floor was less grimy than other trains I’ve been on. In the next stall was a squat toilet, and the whole two-room facility smelled unsurprisingly of urine. Neither the toilet nor the washroom had a door.

I stared into it for several long minutes as the train rattled, then began its slow overnight trek from Beijing, China’s modern capital, to its ancient heart in Xi’an. The washroom seemed an awful place to spend my first night on a Chinese train.

I took the wrong train to Xi’an. I missed mine, the T55, which left at 4:50 p.m. The T231 left at 5:33 p.m., so I hopped that one. I still had to run to catch it. I was dripping sweat as I ducked on board. I knew it was the wrong train, but I flashed my pink ticket at the attendants who pointed me to car 12. No one checked what train I was supposed to be on until we were moving and I didn’t have a seat. A passenger about my age offered to help as I stumbled past him. He looked at my ticket and pointed to the other end. He spoke English with a heavy accent, but he was perfectly understandable. His English name is Kent. I walked to the far end of the car, finding every bunk occupied. Only then did anyone look closer at my ticket.

Kent returned. “Why are you standing?” he asked. I showed him my ticket, pointing to the train number. He offered to let me sit on his bunk while we sorted out what I should do. He thought I’d have to buy a new ticket, maybe pay for a hard seat in another carriage.

“I think this ticket is probably useless,” he said, but he offered to help mediate a solution. He found the attendant who had let me on the train, and after a brief exchange, returned with her.

She told me, through Kent’s translation, to stay in the empty bunk below Kent’s, “and maybe no one will come.” Don’t tell anyone or ask anyone else for help, she added. About an hour later, she gave me a plastic card assigning me to the top bunk in Kent’s compartment.

I didn’t sleep well that night. The train lugged and lurched forward, like a car with a faulty transmission. When we turned, I felt the cars tip and thought for sure we were about to derail. I imagined myself the next day telling a gripping survivor story to a TV news magazine as part of an overblown expose on the horrors of traveling by rail in China. I don’t pray often, but several times that night I whispered to no one in particular, “God, if you can spare a moment, maybe keep this train on its tracks a few more hours.”

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