Kramin

So the total journey from Hong Kong was 32 hours to Hanoi. The train to Guangzhou and change on to a sleeper train to Nanning in South West China to catch a bus to Hanoi. Arriving in Nanning at 8am, instead of the scheduled 6am, my first mission was to find somewhere to buy a bus ticket to Hanoi. My first attempt had me in a travel office offering me 300 RMB for a ticket (£30) but while I went to the cash point I noticed the official bus station ticket office and was offered 150 RMB (£15). Welcome back to China I thought, I did miss the constant attempts to rip you off. It just wasn’t the same in Hong Kong. I took the cheaper bus ticket, which included the taxi to the bus station ... read more

So we took the train in the late afternoon, the day after the night out, to Guilin in the south of China. Arriving in sunshine and with slightly warmer weather. The 28 hour journey meant that we were limited to just having dinner with some French guys at the hostel but we planned to go to Yangshuo the day after, an hour and a half bus ride south of Guilin. That day has probably been my favourite day so far on my trip. We arrived about 10am into Yangshuo and after a disappointing climb up a peak where we could only climb halfway we decided to rent some mountain bikes and do a bike tour after lunch. The town itself is a bit touristy, especially down the strip with the cafes, bars, restaurants, handicrafts and knock-off ... read more

How hot? Hohhot! We arrived into Hohhot, Inner Mongolia late in the evening feeling hungry, tired and rather overawed by the garish neon lights and the hundreds of taxis that confronted us outside the train station. Our journey from Mongolia had been trouble free (apart from a temperature gun being pointed at our heads during the border crossing) and the landscape from Mongolia to China didn’t differ. Mostly flat, arid-looking and baron till we reached Hohhot. But with our Honcho to hold our hand we were taken to our hotel, ate and then slept. Next morning we headed to the Museum of Inner Mongolian History, a brilliant museum which helped us to understand the overlap between Mongolian and Chinese History as well as the importance of Inner Mongolia in China. From the Dinosaurs, through to the ... read more

Lake Baikal So .... 3 nights on the train. Oh my god! To make it worse I was ill. Not a cold but a throat infection and I nearly threw a fit when I found out the train was delayed a few hours. All I wanted was to get to a doctor. I spent most of the 3 days curled up in my cabin which I was sharing with the locals as it was my turn in the group of 5 to be cast out to the next door cabin (cabins only slept 4 people). Lemsiped up and drinking so much water, nothing was working. We arrived in Irkutsk in the morning and I begged our new Honcho, Ted (Tulya) to take me to a doctor. Ended up being taken to the hospital in the town. ... read more