Our flight from Chengdu to Lijiang went very smoothly. We got an English newspaper to read, a meal (nasty dried tofu), water to drink and during Donna's security frisk at the airport she got her bum squeezed and felt by the female security guard! We were wondering where the Chinese were going to get rid of their spit and hocking when on the plane, but we soon realised that the sick bags would be their solution. Donna's rucksack had yet again been covered in unknown liquid...to date she has had dead llama juice, beer, rotten fish juice, dog wee, oil and [View Full Entry]

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Xi'an train station was awful, as usual all baggage had to go through the x-ray baggage scanner but the Chinese here were worse than other places, almost pushing us over (with big rucksacks on our backs) to get their stuff on the machine before us. Waiting for the train was funny, Neil sensing Donna was in donkey kicking mood, he wisely decided not to brave the waiting room and found us a corner with plenty of room so we could wait until the train boarded. Literally within minutes were were surrounded by a family squat sitting eating their tea...of all the [View Full Entry]

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Our 'taxi' to the pick up point for the bus to Xi'an arrived and this time it was a cross between a milk float and a golf cart, but it didn't have any material around it to keep the cold out and it was freezing...when we say freezing we do mean below freezing! This cart went 10 mph at full speed and it drove us through the streets of Pingyao new town, dodging the cars, buses and lorries and had the locals laughing at us freezing, shivering and sitting on this cart! We arrived at the toll gates of the motorway [View Full Entry]

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After much debate and discussion between us and the hostel staff we took the easy option of a £2 taxi ride to the monolithic Beijing West railway station rather than the 30p metro ride and 1 hour walk option! The usual push and shove later to get on the train - which we are becoming more accomplished at - we found our middle hard sleeper beds only to be confronted by the most grumpy and cantankerous old woman we have ever come across. She huffed at everyone and everything - Neil got an angry mouthful in Mandarin because his duvet touched [View Full Entry]

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After our push and shove experience on the metro in Shanghai where Donna had somehow lost her flip flop, we were a little traumatised. A little more prepared this time we used the 'elbow, blocking with rucksacks and a Donna donkey kick' manoeuvre to good effect, working in unison to get where we wanted (i.e on the train to Beijing)...we surprised even some of the Chinese with our skills. On board the train we were shocked at how nice it was compared to our hard sleeper experience...but it should have been nice for the amount we paid for the ticket. The [View Full Entry]

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We were up not so bright and early for our train to Shanghai. Boarding the train we experienced our first real push and shove from the other Chinese passenger trying to get past us, despite us carrying 30 kilos each and almost falling over. We don't know why they were rushing as everyone had seats/sleepers pre-booked but as anyone who has visited China will tell you, the Chinese will queue for nothing! A few elbows in people heads later and we found our sleepers. If you can't beat em then join em! The sleeper sections are divided into compartments of 6 [View Full Entry]

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After 3 nights in Yangshuo, we decided to move onto the city of Guilin, 34km away on a local bus. Approaching the 'bus station' well car park with buses in it, the conductor started waving frantically at us as if we were going to miss the bus. Naturally worried we put on a spurt and threw our bags into the luggage hold and hurried on board...only to sit there for another 20 minutes waiting for the bus to leave. Grrrr, bus conductors in Asia have continually done this to us, we really should learn not to rush! Finally under way we [View Full Entry]

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Our 'express' bus to Yangshuo only took 8 hours and evidently included a meal for free, so we were told by a Chinese woman who spoke a little English. At some point between peeing into a trough and comparing buses in the car park to see which was best (ours was of course) we both must have missed out on the no doubt delicious (ahem!) meal. Before we tell you about Yangshuo please do check out our videos. They include, Neil trying an outdoor Chinese gym to an audience of Chinese, holding the camera whilst filming on a bike whilst being [View Full Entry]

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We walked to Hung Hom train station in Hong Kong to catch a train to Guangzhou. The train was very good and fast at 2 hours in length but was quite expensive. At some point in the journey we crossed from Hong Kong to Mainland China...we guessed we were in China by the change of building type (ie large grey high rises containing hundreds of apartments) and only Chinese characters on buildings were evident. Guangzhou is not a large city by Chinese standards but with a population of 3.24 million it was no surprise that it had a brand new - [View Full Entry]

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Our flight landed in Macau, casino capital of Asia so us not being gamblers, or having much money for that matter, we decided to high tail it out of there as soon as possible. A public bus to a ferry terminal and a 1 hour ferry ride took us to the Kowloon area of Hong Kong where we planned to stay for 3 nights. Getting to Hong Kong went very smoothly and as we will write in later blogs, this was typical of most of our transportation around China. Coming from the Philippines it was a huge relief! We had booked [View Full Entry]

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