Well, OK, so I only walked up to base camp but it was the longest 8+km that I've ever done!!! I'd been struggling to walk up stairs in Lhasa, which is only at 3700m - base camp is slightly higher at 5200m. The increase in elevation over the 8km wasn't too great, that said it did all happen at the end... but that combined with the altitude meant I was almost crawling along by the time I got to base camp! For the last few days our jeep had being buddying along with another one - we were following the same route and the drivers new each other well so us passengers all got to know each other too. Me and a couple of the others had talked about the horse and cart option - for ... read more

Having spent several action packed hours in Chengdu watching panda's eat and eat and eat and.... I was rather hungry myself! For my first month in China I'd been v good and stuck to Chinese food.... well, apart from breakfast.. noodles for breakfast???!! Sorry, just can't do it. But a constant diet of rice, fried vegetables swimming in oil (I really don't know how the Chinese stay so thin) and 'would that be an extra helping of MSG madam??' was starting to kill me. I'd heard there was a branch of the French supermarket Carrefour in town and was salivating at the thought of French bread, yummy brie, camembert... ahhh ;0) So as I found my way to the cheese aisle, tucked away between rows and rows of various animal parts (here it seems you rummage ... read more

It was nearing the end of Ann's trip and we only had one full day in X'ian... so of course there was only one place to go...... I'd read various blogs about the Terracotta Army before we got to X'ian - some raved about it whilst others thought it over-rated. Personally I thought it was astounding. Imagine you're an Emperor living some 2000 odd years ago and aware of your mortality your start building your tomb.... which you decide to have guarded by 8000ish life size terracotta soldiers and horses that will protect you in the afterlife.... each piece is unique and brightly painted and the whole lot is lined up in battle formations and buried in underground pits!! The Emperor in question was Qin Shi Huang, who ascended the throne at the age of 13 ... read more

We arrived in Datong at 7am after a rather 'interesting' night spent getting next to no sleep on the sleeper train from Beijing. Somewhat wearily we went in search of the station travel agency that the LP described as being really helpful. We found it easily (....it was full of westerners) and within 30 mins we were booked onto a tour for the day, had a hotel room organised and were sat eating brekky. At 9am we were on a bus meeting our guide and tour group... yep, after nearly three weeks in China spent actively avoiding the follow the flag tour groups here I was on one. Ahh the shame ;0) It was a great day though and considering how tired we both felt it was the only way we could have done it... trying ... read more

For me Beijing was a fantastic few days of historical culture.... well, Ming and Qing dynasty which is 1368AD to 1911AD ish. I'm writing this in X'ian where everything is Shang - Qin dynasty (1700BC - 207BC) so I'm starting to re-evaluate my concept of old and historical.... but that's another blog ;0) And of course I was meeting Ann who was coming out for a wee visit from Blighty!! I was also keen to see how things had changed - I came to Beijing one New Year with Colette, a friend from work. It was freeeeezing cold then so I was looking forward to seeing how different things looked in the summer. Ann and I planned to rendezvous at a hostel I'd booked - I arrived on the night train from Suzhou and she was ... read more