They've moved the long distant bus station in Kunming to the north west from the near the train station.I thought I was being clever booking a place to stay near the station so as to book ahead for the next leg,but unfortunately it took us 2 hours to find the right bus to get to the new one. After the train journey the night before we were exhausted but successful having purchased our 10 hour long bus tickets to Lijiang. We stayed in the old Naxi town in Lijiang. Noticeably the air quality was cleaner at 2300m and more a risk of rain!,more on that later. The famous Tiger Leaping Gorge is only 3 hrs away and is one of the trips to do. We decided not to go from here but potentially Shangri La further ... read more

15 hours on the train we arrived in the province of Shaanxi at Xi'an train station. It said in the guide its one of the busiest,well it is bedlam. I had booked at the Bell Tower YH and there was a girl there with our name who met us and passed us onto another man who we had to follow to a minibus which was parked quite away from the station. There was 8 of us who got the bus which dropped everybody off at their hostels,not us.Because of a one way street he pointed us in the right direction to walk! We got there eventually to find that we were put in the 5th floor with no lift! But it had the best view dead center of the old city opposite the Bell Tower,all big ... read more

We might be taking more long distance buses from now on, maybe we were lucky? Much more comfortable and cleaner than the train ,quicker too by 2 hours from Dandong down to Dalian. The motorway was a toll one which was deserted and smooth. Once in the bus station we took a taxi 15 mins down to the coast and our hotel for the first 2 nights. We stayed in the CTI Hotel, a tired chinese tourist tower block. Our room was 14th floor and very smelly! Excited about the Fujiazhuang Beach we explored nearby discovering that the beach front was getting a revamp(we miss Tiree). We also took a cable car that went up and back very slowly and we couldn't get off at the top, good views of the zoo below and the surrounding ... read more

Wednesday the 16th was a festival holiday in China for the Dragon Boat Festival. The owners of the Woodland Youth Hostel invited us for lunch at their parents house in the back streets of Baihe. Luckily Helena and Lynn teach English at school, so conversation wasn't to bad. We ate homemade Dumplings and boiled eggs from their hens, they also have a superb veg garden and a large guard dog!Our legs were sore from sitting on the floor called a Kung. Thank you Zheng Family for your hospitality. ... read more

A 10.30 sleeper from Beijing to Shenyang capital of Liaoning province,arrived at 7.00am and tried to hail 6 taxis without success. None of them would take us to the Shenyang YH, don't know why,maybe language barrier. We ended up walking most of the way. Stayed 3 nights and visited the Imperial Palace,Botanical gardens and on the 3rd day Beiling Park to the North Tomb. We left again by train,early 7am,crossing into Tongue 160 km north in the province of Jilin.One night in a chain cheapy and another train to our main destination for the next 5 days Baihe which is only 200km from Vladivostok. Shenyang is not geared up for the tourists like Beijing, but the sites were the only highlight of our stay there. Oh and the Lao Bian Dumpling Restaurant which has been open ... read more