Today a Dutch friend and I got a bus from Dali to nearby village Sha Ping, to go to the village market. The market ws great - heaving with local Bai women in their traditional clothes. Yunnan - the province I am currently in is nearly twice the size of the UK and is home to a large number of 'minority' Chinese people. The Bai are one of the largest groups and they live in an enviable position between the permanently snow-capped Cangshan Mountain and the enourmous clear Erhai Lake. The weather along the lakes shores is pretty good and the land is fertile, so farming is big business for the Bai people. They work hard in the fields and often you can seen hundreds of women all working in lines, growing rice, vegetables, wheat and ... read more

I spent just one day in Lijiang old town, but the experience of staying at Mama Naxi's guesthouse will stay with me forever! Mama Naxi is a ferocious little business woman and runs her guesthouse the way a grandmother would run a house full of grandchildren. I arrived late at night and was presented with a banana and packed off to bed. Mama Naxi even came into the dorm room to turn the light out, practically tucking everyone in. The next day she packed a group of us off in a minivan to Tiger Leaping Gorge and told us when she expected us back, and believe you me, she isn't a lady you would argue with. When we got back we sat down to a family style Chinese dinner, before being packed off to bed again. ... read more

Today I did an internship day with the Chengdu panda research and breeding base. I helped with cleaning out the panda enclosures, supplying bamboo (which they don't half go through), feeding them their treats (apple and a special bread full of nutrients for them) and also learnt about the centres breeding programme and how they are managing the gene pool to increase the population. All in all it was an absolutely fantastic experience, I was able to get really up close and personal with the pandas and although they look pretty cuddly from a distance, when you are half a metre from them it becomes clear that those claws could clearly do some real damage. They crunch the hard bamboo stalks like celery, and don't let much get between them and their food. As I was ... read more

Today I visited the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an - I was asked by the girls in the hostel reception whether my stomach was strong and after walking through the streets in this area I could understand their concern. There was literally hundreds of stalls all selling food, most of which was really tempting and smelt amazing. However we then entered the butchery area and although I have always prided myself on trying anything, I finally feel China may have beaten me! You could take your pick of any type of 'meat' - stomach lining, cow hooves, heart, skull, eyes, up to you... Now that doesn't bother me two hoots, I'm pretty strong stomached in that respect and will happily eat offal, but here you select your offal from piles on the floor, or if you are ... read more

I spent my last day in Beijing wandering around (and getting lost in) some of the hutong, alleyways that criss-cross the centre of town. They are enchanting Yuan dynasty passageways, offering a very real glimpse into traditional Beijing and the lives of people living in the city. The hutong are really narrow streets and were built in the wake of Genghis Khan's army when the city was known as Zhongdu. At the time the city was reduced to rubble and was redesigned with hutong running east to west. In the 1950s there were apparently over 6000 hutong, but construction of office blocks, highrise housing apartments, shopping centres and 6 lane roads saw the majority demolished, and today just 2000 remain. The Chinese have a saying - "There are 360 hutong with names and as many nameless ... read more