Happy to see the team recovered from yesterday's trek up Huashan. We left the hotel at 9:30am to drive the short 40km to the Terracotta museum. I'll not go into history lessons here but let's just say that aside from the Great Pyramids, this has to rank as the greatest tomb for a single person, Emperor Qin Shihuang, ever discovered. Discovered by a farmer in 1974, this army took 720,000 artisans 38 years to build. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon your point of view, the general public can't get up close and personal with each distinct figure, so it was hard to capture in photograph the incredible detailing. Amazing though that so far, about 1,900 warriors have been unearthed, and each one was models after a real person. Unfortunately we are all saddened to hear that ... read more

Not much to report. After a debate on whether or not skip Huashan and head straight to Xian, we put it to vote and decided to stick to the original schedule as Huashan has some of the best views in the whole of China. First things first, we headed straight for the nearest mechanic to fix the puncture on my back right wheel. Turns out a one inch nail had found it's way into my Yokohama. Deciding to save the spare wheel for the road ahead, the mechanic patched up the small puncture with parrafin and a tyre bandage. Then off again through the mountain twisties to Huashan. It was drizzling with rain when we arrived at 3:00pm, so we decided to put off the daunting climb up the mountain until the next day. Sin, Stel ... read more

The 380km drive from Datong to Pingyao should have been a relative breeze, but the whole team is exhausted and driving started to transform from pleasure to pain. Still, we reached the Ancient City of Pingyao at around 2:00pm, and the pain was soon forgotten once we saw what an incredible place this was. We checked into the Pingyao Yiguan Guesthouse within the Ancient city before heading down the colourful streets. The guesthouse has all the warmth and charm of “Old China” at only $52 a night. As for Pingyao, I would probably say that any visitor to China should make the effort to put this wonderful city on their schedule. We spent 4 hours walking the streets and sampling the street foods and then headed off for a wonderful dinner at the Tian Yuan Kui ... read more

Another exhausting day as the intrepid China explorers did Beijing's symbols of the past. We did the quick tour of the Forbidden City before getting ripped off by the bike taxis taking us the short trip from the back gate to Tianenmen Square. Despite the generous tip, the three drivers still chased us out of the drop off area for more money. All in good fun, we headed off for a typical Beijing lunch of refreshing pizza at a Belgian bar. We reckon the food will get more and more localised as we head West, so pizza was a hearty time-out for us. The afternoon we went our own seperate ways, with Stel and Ying Chu heading off to a shopping mall and a Korean movie, myself off to the new and first Lotus showroom in ... read more

Today was a relative breeze in terms of scheduling. We left Taishan at 9:00am following a simple continental buffet breakfast at The Four Points Hotel, Tai'an, in need of some deep tissue calf massage from walking down 7,000 steps in blizzard conditions the day before. I can hardly walk today, but managed the 470km top down drive to Beijing in 6 hours and 30 minutes. Yesterday was a freak winter day, but today I managed to add to my right arm and facial tan on what seemed like a perfect summer day. After checking in to the Aman at The Summer Palace at 4:00pm, the Aman staff led us to their "secret gate" to the Palace. Unfortunately although the gate was exclusively for Aman guests, once inside, we were once again amongst the whole populace of ... read more