We made it to Kunming before noon which gave us opportunity to admire constantly changing landscape on the way. Suddenly we could not see any rock formations and lush green fields but dry earth and desert plants. The mountain range in Yunnan is amazing and it kind of feels like spring is always there. Kunming town is located nearly 1900m above the sea level and temperatures are always mild and pleasurable. We did not intend to stay too long in Kunming as we only wanted to get our Vietnamese visa sorted over there. We took a local bus from a train station to the lake area and walked around to find some place to stay. We wanted to stay in Cloudland Youth Hostel but some guy we met told us there was even better place by ... read more

… Literally Getting Lost .... We arrived in Guilin early in the morning and according to LP just in time to catch the forward bus to Longji National Park. We did not book any accommodation so we were not sure if they would have place for us on that bus but with the winter season upon China we were pretty confident it wont be full. We tried few buses with no positive result until we stumbled across tourist agent who told us when and where the bus was leaving from. The main bus station seems to be located just in front of the Train Station in Guilin which was great news for us. We bought tickets for the bus from the same agent (40Y each) even though she was trying to charge us more than necessary. ... read more

When we visited Shanghai Museum we saw the minority section and we liked it so much. It got us really interested in different tribes and minorities leaving across China and we scanned our guidebook for any information we could find on near by villages. We were lucky enough to just be on the way to Fujian and Guangdong provinces where two of very interesting 'tribes' have their settlements. Hakka tribes leave across Fujian and Guangdong provinces. There are many clusters of Tulous - structures made of earth, rice and bamboo – that are ancient equivalent of modern apartment blocks. They all belong to UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tulou is usually a large, enclosed and fortified building, between three and five stories high and housing up to 80 families. Smaller interior buildings are often enclosed by these ... read more

Don't really remember why we put Nanjing on our initial plan in China. Familiar name maybe, indicating to us importance of the place? We had heard about this place before for sure. Then when we read the history of the place in LP and imagined beautiful canals of the Yangtze River we got really interested in it. 'Venice of the East' sounds really appealing, doesn’t it? Then we discovered there were many more beautiful canal towns in this province so it happened to be a pretty amazing week for us. Everything is free in Nanjing We checked-in to our riverside youth hostel and we went for a stroll. Really liked what we could see. Laid back town, canals and cute bridges everywhere, markets and food stalls. We also discovered some cheap shops selling accessories, electronics and ... read more

'We are not staying here for long' I said to Tomek when we arrived at Xi'an train station. The minute we exited the station and I saw big city buildings and crowds of people I did not like it at all. It was almost like a shock to me after beautiful and peaceful Pingyao. We got picked up by our hostel – Han Tang Inn – and we went straight for breakfast. We were starving and I really craved for some good coffee. We had to remind ourselves again that we should not have spent so much on English Breakfast especially when there was street food just outside of our hostel. Han Tang Inn is unquestionably the best hostel we stayed in so far (40Y/4£ each, thanks Jon for recommending it to us!). Just renovated, new ... read more