Wicked weather adds torment to a train

In June last year, I took a ride on a century-old meter-gauge railway in Kenya that I thought was the worst travel experience ever. The train was running eight hours behind schedule. Waking from a sleep of four hours, I found it had moved only about 16 kilometers.

I wouldn't have expected a worse experience in China, but I got one, thanks to the heavy storms in the central areas of the country.

I was rushing to Xianning, Hubei province, to report news about flooding. Almost all trains were far behind schedule. Luckily, I had a ticket for another train, and the conductors allowed me to board at 9:40 am, minutes after I arrived. No seat was available, but that was acceptable. It was supposed to be only two hours from Changde to Changsha, Hunan, where I would change to a high-speed train.