Saturday 26th January Happy Australia Day! Arriving at the station just before 7am we headed straight to the subway, amazingly finding an entry right out the front. This wasn't the way we had come when we left Beijing previously but we didn't complain. We stopped at the dumpling shop not far from our hotel for breakfast so it was almost 8am when we reached the hotel. What a lovely welcome we had - a smiling; “You're back”! We were quickly shown to a room similar to our last stay and we collected our cases and did some repacking so we knew how much room was left to fill. After showers we debated where to go, Judy suggesting the Summer Palace, a site we'd left until this visit but Rags (surprise) suggested that we go to Sanlitun ... read more

Thursday January 17th Our third early morning in a row saw us waiting at the hostel by 7am. From here we were transported to the train station for the 7.57 to Chinqingbei. This has given us the time to sit, crammed into the train, and catch up on our diary ready to upload at the next opportunity. We are passing many small farms and villages. The scenery here is much greener than we've seen in other parts of China but the same smog hangs over the countryside and unfortunately the train windows are so filthy we won't even attempt to take photographs through the glass as we did on the train to Lhasa. The countryside we passed through consisted of market garden after market garden, each extremely lush. These would be the main suppliers of vegetables ... read more

Sunday 13th January Only a fortnight left before we go home. Looking forward to that but at the same time we have so much to see. Both of us had reasonable night's sleep although we were both still suffering from altitude sickness and the pillows were too high. It will be great to get home to our own pillows! The breakfast of a lukewarm fried egg, toast, fried cabbage and chilli, and another unidentified vegetable didn't cure us but it filled the hole. When we checked in last night we had rung our Tibetan guide to say we weren't staying at the Snowland Hotel (the reviews on it were terrible) and to pick us up here. He duly arrived just after 1000 and with another couple we walked to the Potala Palace, a vast white and ... read more

Wednesday 9th January Emerging from the train station there was someone there from the Shuyuan Youth Hostel with our name on a card as expected for our free transfer. We were the first at the mini bus so while we waited for a group of English girls we bought some steamed dumplings for breakfast, yummy and a bargain at 3 yuan for 8.( about 50c Oz) After booking into the Shuyuan Youth Hostel, built around the courtyard of the old county government buildings, we caught the bus back to the railway station to book our trip to Lhasa in a couple of day's time. Lots of touts greeted us but we made it clear that we didn't need their help. Our hearts did drop when we saw the queues; about 20, each at least 100m long ... read more

Monday 7th January After seeing an exhibition on the Great Wall of China in Hong Kong during our visit there in 2002 we vowed then that it was a “must see and do”. Today we did it even though we had to battle with a few obstacles. The first was getting on the road by 0700 when it was still dark and the temperature -6 degrees. The second was sitting in a small car with 2 others plus the driver and having to travel for 3 hours each way with our knees up around our ears! The third was the actual walk/hike itself; walking 10kms of steep inclines on rough and a sometimes treacherous surface. As it turned out the last obstacle was the least of our problems even with Judy still trying to get her ... read more