The holy mountain of Emei Shan is a sacred site, and has been for the last two thousand years, of the Buddhist people. Though it was originally a Taoist retreat in the sixth century a famous Buddhist pilgrim, who was accompanied by a six tusked elephant, visited the mountain where after all the Taoist temples were converted to Buddhism. Today it is also a very popular tourist destination as the mountain is situated in a very picturesque area. For many years the mountain has been a magnet for western tourists, and more recently young Chinese backpackers, who choose to take the long and very difficult trek to the summit. And it is a gruelling trek - the long route up sixty kilometres of steps whilst the short route is a mere forty kilometres of steps! Emei ... read more

We didn't get lost in the maze of airport construction in Guiyang and after an hour of flying we arrived at Chengdu airport. Chengdu, the capitol of Sichuan Province, with a population of over 14 million, is the fourth largest city in China and the size of the airport alone was astounding. It was enormous - we arrived at gate 65 but there were signs pointing to gate 135! We had trouble finding the shuttle bus into the city because what we thought were actually local buses - there were many routes shown on the signboard - was actually the shuttle buses we had been looking for. I had prebooked a hotel months before so we caught the shuttle (10 yuan each) which went closest to it and then a taxi from there to the hotel. ... read more

Day Three in Kaili. On our third day out with Mr Wee we were heading to the Shidong markets, one of the largest markets in the Kaili region. The market is held in a small riverside town on the riverside shingle, under the span of the long bridge. We left early and an hour later we arrived in the traffic jam of minibuses and motorbikes around Shidong. As we were getting closer to the town we stopped to watch a wedding party. Again all the men were waiting outside a group of houses, the yard full of low round tables covered with the soon to be consumed feast. The bride and all the female members of her family were walking down the road towards the group of men. That day all the women, including the bride, ... read more

The bus station in Congjiang was conveniently across the road from our hotel so, for once, moving onto our next destination was a breeze. Jerry had purchased express bus tickets to Kaili the previous day so we didn't even have to brave the queue at the ticket counter when we left. However once on the bus things got a little nasty as the bus had been overbooked somehow and when some people were asked to leave tempers flared quickly and there was a lot of shouting and finger stabbing going on. At one stage half of the seated passengers joined in - the Chinese people don't loose their cool easily but when they do it's not pleasant to around! Eventually we did leave - our last view of the irate passengers was them being handed wads ... read more

Zhaoxing, in Guixhou, was a fascinating place which we absolutely loved. Another Dong village - in fact the largest of the Dong villages - it was however a little frustrating to actually get there. We left pretty Chengyang by local bus thankfully giving ourselves plenty of time to make the 11.30am direct bus to Zhoaxing from Sanjiang. However, as all travellers have experienced, plans are made to be thwarted and upon arriving at the bus station we were told firmly 'no bus' - whether that actually meant no bus was leaving that day or just that it had already sold out we were unable to find out. As there was only one scheduled bus to Zhoaxing each day we were wandering what to do next when a kindly security guard came to our rescue. He quickly ... read more