After spending a lot of time in cities around China we were really getting ready to see some rural areas of China and experience some lush greenery so Jiuzhaigou sounded perfect for its beautiful national park and the surrounding Tibetan villages. We flew to Chengdu from Shanghai so that we could take the bus there. Unfortunately we couldn't get a flight directly from shanghai to Jiuzhaigou as this would have been far easier. We knew the bus was going to be long but was hoping it was worth it. The bus journey from Chengdu was pretty uneventful we slept quite a bit of the way and then woke for the final 4-5 hours, watching the beautiful scenery unfold in front of us. It was snowing quite heavily as we got around half way and the roads ... read more

We came to Xi'an for one purpose really, to see the Terracotta Army, however there are a few other things to do in Xi'an too. We arrived in Xi'an in the early evening after a 6 hour bus ride from Pingyao. The ride was quite good with comfy seats so we had a good sleep most of the way and didn't feel too tired. We booked into our hostel - Han Tang Inn and were greeted by a really friendly Chinese man called Lei . He asked us if it was raining outside to which we replied no, why? He looked at Pete and said "why is your hair all wet then?" I laughed and said, oh, no that's just he's hair gel he thinks it looks good. He looked AT&T Pete as if to say ... read more

We arrived in Datong by train from Beijing which was a 6 hour journey on a hard sleeper. This wasn't as bad as we thought, the seats are actually soft probably similar to that of a normal commuter train in england. A tip on trains is that you need to book them in advance either through your hostel or preferably at the train station. Once you are outside Beijing you cannot book trains easily for your onward journeys and if your planning to only stay somewhere for a few days you may not get a train, so best thing to do is go to beijing station or Beijing West station and pre-book your tickets for your next few jorneys at least - this way your likely to get the soft sleepers etc. Once we arrived in ... read more

Hi everyone, taken a while to blog and I still need to add my Japan one but just thought I'd update you on some of our adventures in China. Yesterday we had our first real day in China and decided to go to the Forbidden City which in the book sounds amazing - a massive palace from some very old dynasties with lots of different parts to see. However, it was absolutely freezing and pouring hard with rain all day and to make things worse my coat that I thought was waterproof obviously was not (although it was only £5 from primark so what should I have expected). Anyway, the palace was large, yes, but amazing, no it wasn't. Probably the most uninteresting thing I've been to on my travels so far - maybe it was ... read more

We arrived in Delhi by plane at 4:30am local time and after collecting our bags made what we thought a simple walk outside to the metro station to get a train to New Delhi station in Parharganj where all the budget hotels are located. We found that the metro was closed for reconstruction (typical!!) we therefore got in a cab and asked to go to Parharhganj to a specific hotel. After driving for some time the taxi man pulled over to ask directions to the hotel. After several attempts to get directions he instead took us to a tourist centre where they could help (con number 1). Once there we asked for directions and instead the man called the hotel and then said there was no availability here due to very big festival in India. (con ... read more