I finally said goodbye to Fenghuang on Monday. I’d spent my last day taking it easy. The rain had descended on the town and there wasn’t a lot to do. I did get up early on Sunday morning and managed to beat the rain in time to climb to the top of a small hill to see the Heavenly King Temple (Tianwang Miao) There is a rather steep and at times slippery path which leads to the top but it does provide great views looking down on the town. Thankfully it seemed that nobody else had decided to do this and [View Full Entry]

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My next destination was to Fenghuang in Hunan province. I knew that it was going to be a long journey there so I'd mentally prepared myself for one or two problems along the way. It started relatively easy by jumping on a bus from Yangshuo back to Guilin. I then had a short wait in Guilin as the rained drizzled down. It was then a ten hour train ride to Huaihua a small nondescript town in Hunan province which serves as a hub for connecting trains. I was lucky enough to meet a lovely elderly Chinese couple on the train who [View Full Entry]

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Well my final day in Yangshuo, I'd read the weather forecast for the forthcoming days and it didn't look so good so I decided that it would be best to make this my last day here. Once again the weather failed to deliver and I would leave Yangshuo without seeing the picture postcard blue skies but on the bright side at least it didn't rain. Having spent the most of yesterday relaxing I was ready to get back out and do some sightseeing. Even more so my bum had recovered from the first day of riding the bike so I felt [View Full Entry]

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I left Guilin early on Monday morning having already booked myself on a early morning river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo. There were two options, one a tour in English with fellow foreigners or two a tour in Chinese. The price difference was large enough to convince me to take the second option. The very helpful “Libra” has also told me that the were essentially the same and that I’d be better off taking the Chinese tour whilst at the same time saving some cash. I did feel a little self conscious once I got on the bus to take us [View Full Entry]

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Another day another overnight train, this time from Guangzhou to Guilin on Saturday night. I was pretty tired when it finally came to getting on the train I was quite relieved to find that it wasn’t too busy. Even better was the fact that the people in my sleeper compartment had no desire to communicate in either English or Chinese which meant I could relax with my book. The train left around dinner time and as I left Guangzhou I felt a bit of regret that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to sample any of it’s famous cuisine. Instead I was [View Full Entry]

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Well as I expected I’m a few days behind schedule with my travel blog! No real surprise! I decided to put my feet up on my last day in Xiamen. Having spent the last day running around the city fitting in as many sights as I could I thought it best before my train journey to Guangzhou to make full use of the excellent DVD store just down the road and furthermore rest up on the extremely comfortable sofa at the hostel. Two DVD’s later and I was ready to go! A piece of advice for anyone who finds themselves in [View Full Entry]

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It's now day 5 on the road and the time is nearing for me to leave Xiamen. Unfortunately the train for Guangzhou leaves in the evening so I have pretty much most of the day to spend waiting for this train. Yesterday was a great day, another early start and very productive day! I seem to be waking up early and hitting the sack early. I headed off to "Gulang Yu" which is only a ten minute ferry ride from Xiamen. Gulang Yu used to have a well established foreign community in the 1880's. I'd heard lots about it before arriving [View Full Entry]

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Well I had planned to keep this blog up to date on a daily basis, unfortunately the computers in the place I'm staying run at a snails pace and therefore its rather difficult to sometimes even get online! I've arrived safely in Xiamen! The train journey wasn't as bad as I had expected and to be honest it passed pretty quickly! I actually met a couple of Chinese guys before I even got on the train who worked in Xiamen so they were able to give me the low down on the place! They were desperate to practice their English as [View Full Entry]

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The bags are packed and I’ve just cooked up some delicious Xiao Long Bao and am pretty much ready to set off on my mini-adventure! I think I’m travelling pretty light but it’s a while since I last did a long backpacking trip, plenty of socks and underwear! Looking forward to the journey down to Xiamen although I’m not sure this will be the case after 22 hours on the train! We shall have to wait and see…… Until later Zaijian Paul [View Full Entry]

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Testing testing 1 2 3! As I'm new to this travel blog business I thouhgt it best to give it a quick test run! [View Full Entry]

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