China 2009

Ok, so we made the flight, just about. We were happily typing away when we heard the final call for us (they had been announcing it under a different name) so after a mad dash through the airport we made it.
Will quickly fill you in on the rest of Shanghai before I tell you what's been going on here in Yangshou.
We spent 5 days in Shanghai and following the day at the zoo we spent a day at the Shanghai museum (very very good) and then walked along the riverside and had some very expensive cocktails in a sunny riverside cafe courtesy of happy hour! We finished off the day by visiting the Jin Mao tower and thanks to a tip off from a fellow traveler we had a jammy drink at the top. It costs 9 pounds if you just want to go in and up to the observation deck on the 88th floor, or if you know about it, you can visit cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor and have the same panoramic views for the cost of a drink (no entry fees). So feeling like our plan was never going to work we casually strolled into the lobby of the tower in our shorts and sandals expecting to be instantly directed round to the hords of people cueing round the other side of the building for the observation deck. Instead we were escorted by no less than 5 people through 4 lifts to the cloud 9 restaurant. This is possibly the poshest place I have ever been with only around 25 seats and a very exclusive set off staff we felt extremely out of place. We felt even worse sipping our 7 pound cocktails for over an hour in the prime seat of the bar by the window staring in amazement at the view over the city at sunset. It was a truely amazing sight. The final 2 days in Shanghai were spent wondering between the great shops and tastey cafes of the French Concession with a lot of lazying around parks people spotting.
So we made it to Guilin in just under a 2 hour flight (it would have been a 35hr train journey for only a little less). We were only in to town for 8 hours before we caught the mornng river trip to Yangshou down the Li River. I fully reccommend googling images of Yangshou and the Li as it is beyond beautiful. Huge limestone karst mountains are everywhere with rice paddies filling the gaps.
Yesturday we visited the water caves in the morning (after getting horrifically lost and cycling 1hr the wrong way my shain snapped and we hitched a ride all the way back to where we started) by bus. This is a huge network of caves hidden in the mountainside that run 12km into the mountain and have spaces as large as cathedrals along the way. The highlights though is the natural mud baths and the natural hot springs that reach 40 degrees. It was like a spa day only in a dingey cave, very odd but amazing fun.
That afternoon was possibly my favorite to date. we booked ourselves onto a chinese cooking class. First they took us to the market to buy and explain all of our ingredients, then we drove out to the countryside kitchen and learned to cook 5 dishes at individual stations before having a huge feast of what we had cooked on the terrace while watching the sun set. Our chef was really nice and she spoke fluent english. We were with a German family of 4 who were great as well. The dishes were so tastey and included steamed chicken with gorjie berries and pork and mint dumplings along with fried eggplant. We ahve come away with a recipe book to try and replicate in Newcastle!
Finally today we have done a 24 km hike down the banks of the river Li, which depite a few moments of getting lost was brilliant. It is litterally 360 degree stunning views the whole way. Very tired now though so I'm going to get some rest before we hike again tomorrow. Will keep you updated about Hong Kong, can't wait.

Having escaped the hell hole that is Wuyuan bus station (the most disgusting place on earth), we arrived in Shanghai at about 1 am on Wednesday morning. Having not booked anywhere we took a gamble and took a taxi across the city to the City Central hostel which we had booked for the next 3 nights (we arrived a day earlier than initially planned). Luckily the plan paid off and they not only had a bed for us, but it was at a reduced rate in an empty dorm, so all was well.
Thursday morning was spent roaming around what was described as a "fun zoo" by the guidebook. The animals were impressive, no doubt about that, but the zoo itself was fairly awful. The anmals were all in grubby, broken and tiny cages with little to entertain them inside apart from iron bars. The people at the zoo were worse than the animals and we ended up spending most of the time glarring at chinese tourists who threw everything from beer cans to packet of crisps and ice creams at the animals, despite copious amounts of "no feeding" signs everywhere.
After lunch we walked to a city central park where we lazed around playing cards for a couple of hours before walking back across the city to our hostel. Tea was another experience that night as we went to a cook your own kebab house. A skewer cost 1 yuan (just under 10p) and we ended up eating 43 between us. You cooked them over a central fire in the middle of the table. Very very tastey and a great way to taste the street flavours with little risk of food poisoning (we cooked them more than a little thoroughly).
The next day we caught the free bus offered by our hostel to the city centre and spent the day walking up and down the ultra exclusive East Nanjing road which houses the likes of Gucci, Ted baker, Versaci, Luis Vuitton etc (you can tell I don't shop there, I can't even spell them). The rains however set in and with no hope of clearing we went to see the new transformers film in the IMAX cinema there. After that we continued our day of entertainment and went on a spontaneous venture to see ERA (the best acrobatics show in china). After a mad dash across the city we made it just in time and snapped up the last few cheap seats. The performance was spectacular and at one point involved 7 motorbikes racing around inside a steel ball.
Got to go, calling our flight!!!!

Having caught the bus from Huangshan to Wuyuan we have spent the last 3 days roaming around the countryside surrounding Wuyuan by motorbike hopping from one village to another.
When we arrived in Wuyuan the original plan was to get a bus to the outlying villages to explore for a couple of days. However we quickly discovered that no buses connected the villages to Wuyuan or to each other. Plan B was to get a taxi, but it appears that no taxis exist in Wuyuan. So having run out of options we were approached by two men with bikes, who offered us their service as both taxi drivers, tour guides and all round travel agents for the cost of 130 yuan per day (around 11 pound 50p). Iniatally we were sceptical about the safety/ practicality of transporting both of us + our massive bags on the back of these ropey looking bikes, however there was no other way, so we hopped on.
Firtsly we drove out to Little likeng a tiny but beautiful village centred around a stream. We stayed in a house/ b and b selected by our new found guides and ate in a small restaurant in town. The locals were very friendly but looked at us like we had landed from some strange planet.
The next day we were collected by our guides again at 8 am. (I should mention at this point that neither our guides nor anyone else in any village we came across spoke english, so communicating for 3 days was done mostly by pointing, acting and grinning like an idiot). They took us to upper and lower Xiaoqi which was a beautiful little village mostly comprising of rice paddies and water buffalo. We then headed on to the riverside village of Wangkou before treating ourselves and our drivers to lunch at the chinese version of a roadside greasy spoon. The food however was delicious until I ventured through the kitchen to the back toilet only to pass the crate full of live fish that we had just eaten half of! Next we visited Si Xi village before finally heading to Big Likeng (over an hour away by bike). Although all of the villages were beautiful and exactly like they had been for the last 900 years (according to the guides) by far the most stunning sights of the trip were the journeys inbetween where the bikes passed waterfalls and huge slow flowing perfectly still rivers and mountains. True to form both myself and Josh continued the trend and declared it the most beautiful place we'd ever seen (just like every place before it), but seriously it was stunning.
In big Likeng the place where we stayed had a roof top verrander with a 360 degree view over the village. The owner offered us tea by leading us to each side in turn and pointing to either a live chicken, a live duck, live fish and finally a vast array of home grown veg. Possibly the most surreal and interactive menu I have ever seen. We settled for chicken and veg and then watched as the chef went out and gathered the necessary ingredients below us. I can assure you the chicken lived a happy and full and entirely free range life before we ate it. And luckily the other 5 chickens didn't mourn it's passing for long and soon went back to roaming the veg patch.
I didn't get much sleep last night as I had terrible nausea (no vomitting) combined with a fever and the shakes all night. Luckily it had passed by sunrise, despite our worst fears that food poisoning was imminent and I'm left to believe it was karma for eating the chicken.
Today we hopped back on the bikes for a couple of hours and visited one last village before coming back to Wuyuan bus station. We are now just waiting for the bus to Shanghai where we plan to stay for 5 days before flying to Guilin.

On Thursday morning we moved hostels down the road as the one we were in was fully booked for the next night. Although a pain this was well worth it as we were upgraded from a dorm to an en suite twin for free, meaning the room for the night cost only 2 pounds. The hostel itself was also much nicer.
We went ahead with our planned bike ride and rode 12km up into the hills through some nice little villages and tea fields before heading back down through the forest and visiting a huge pagoda with amazing views over the city. This only took until early afternoon (despite the sweltering heat) so we then took our bikes around the west lake and then took a boat ride across to one of the islands in the west lake before heading home for some much needed grub at a local restaurant (this was actually a whole chicken steamed in a banana leaf).
The next day Josh needed to go to the post office so set off into town early. I decided instead to go in search of a mystery cave that was supposedly near by to our hostel and had been reported by a fellow traveleller. However after 1 hr of searching all I had found was a small path leading up a hill so decided to follow that instead not sure of where it lead. After a further hour of climbing up some very steep steps through the forest I emerged on top of a hill into an abandoned pavillion overlooking the whole of the city, the lake and the rest of the province. Was well worth the trek up, especially as I didn't pass another person the whole way up or down.
That afternoon we caught the bus to Tunxi (Huang shan city) and checked into our hostel here which is again very nice and very cheap. We ate in a bizzare restaurant where you walk along infront of all the food and make a shopping list style thing of which numbers you want and the quantities and then they make them to order. We ended up with 10 dishes (slightly excessive) for a total cost of 5 pounds including drinks. So all in all a very good meal.
The next day we got up at 5.20 am and took the bus out to Huang shan Yellow mountain, we decided not to take the cable car up but instead to complete the 2.5 hour gruelling climb to the top up the east steps. We then foolishly (and to the amazement of many chinese people) decided to run the 8km up and down across the top of the mountain. The next 10 km were agony and the hardest thing I've ever done but the views from start to finish were outstanding. We got back at 7.30pm and haven't really been able to move since.
Were are just about to catch the bus out to Wuyuan for a view of rural china and some village hopping but will update you on how it went when we reach Shanghai.

Hey, sorry I haven't been in touch but computers have been few and far between lately. I have been so many places since my last entry I will have to keep the descriptions brief and fill you in properly when I get home.
We finished Beijing by spending our last day there visiting the birds nest. It is absolutely amazing up close and the olympic village is like some surreal town not dissimilar to the truman show. They play constant happy "the world is one" kind of music there over loudspeakers and everything is new and shiney and desserted. Unfortunately the weather was fairly rubbish visibility wise that day so I don't have many good pictures of it, needless to say it just looks a lot like it did on TV only about 100 times bigger. After visiting the birds nest we caught the night train to Xi'an. We were instantly greeted on the train by a motley loud group of American's from the west virginia ceramics university who we spent the entire journey chatting to and drinking with until lights out was enforced. For those of you not familiar with chinese trains we took a hard sleeper which is one of 6 beds (3 bunks high) crammed into a berth that is open to the gangway. They are not as the name suggests hard however, just cheaper than the soft sleeper due to the close quarters.
We arrived in Xi'an at about 8 am and were met at the train station by our hostel. We then spent the day out at the terracotta warriors which were amazing to see. It is hard to describe just how cool 10,000 clay men look, but I'm sure you can imagine. Rory I have also invested 20p in a minature warrior which I have been assured by Josh will break by the time we reach home, however I hope not as I have a 30p wager on it, so hopefully It will reach you in one piece. After the army we walked back through the city and visited a tea shop for a free tea ceremony. I also bought some oolong tea and a caddy which I have been drinking in copious amounts ever since. We both loved Xi'an as a city, it is clean and modern and the people are friendly, the shopping is great and the value of everything is incredible. There are also loads of nice tree lined streets and parks around. That evening we visited the big goose pagoda where every night at 9pm the worlds biggest water fountain display takes place. This was quite a sight and everyone can run across the water fountains and get soaked. There must have been upwards of 20,000 people there. It is a lot like the display infront of the bellagio in vegas only about 20 times bigger.
The next day we walked around the muslim quarter in Xi'an which is fascinating as indian food is given a chinese flavour in all the market stalls, we had some very tastey steamed wontuns along the way. In the afternoon we rented a bicycle (a tandum at that) and took it for a spin around the city walls for a couple of hours. The old city walls are still intact and you can circle the city on them. This was so much fun, and a great way to view then whole city from about 50 foot up. The weather was fantastic the whole time we were in Xi'an with bright sunshine and hot hot temps. That evening we had our best meal to date which was king prawns in a massive stew. I'll have to describe it fully when I get home but they gave us disposable gloves and aprons to eat with, quite an experience and delicious! We finished the day with a 2 hour tibetian mud bath and massage. The massage was brutal but effective and unlike anything I have ever heard of before. And well worth the money at 6 pounds for 2 hours rubbing.
The following day we spent 15 hours on a train to Yichang to and didn't arrive til 1 am the following day. We had a bit of a nightmare on arrival at the train station to find that the hotel we booked was not actually in Yichang but 40km out of town right next to the 3 gorges dam. We had a little trouble convincing a taxi driver to take us out there at this time, but eventually he did it for 100 yuan (just under 10 pounds). We turned up to find our 8 pound a night room was actually in a very nice 4 * hotel, unfortunately we were too tired to fully appreciate it and just slept. The next day we were up bright and early for the huge breakfust buffet including sea kelp and squid (I kid you not) before heading to the dam. The dam itself is massive and very impressive to look at. Apart from the billions of tons of concrete there is not much to describe. The taxi drive back to Yichang however provided some stunning views of the Yangzte river.
Finally we caught the 24 hour train to Shanghai that afternoon. We had planned to go to Shanghai but in the end got off in Hangzhou 2 hours earlier as it makes more sense to visit now. So that's where I am, on the beautiful shores of the west lake in Hangzhou. We are going to go and explore tonight before taking a bike ride around the lake tommorrow, but with 38 degrees predicted it may be more of a crawl tommorrow. Will keep you updated, glad you liked the fathers day present dad, and yes I have just recieved all your emails. xx

Just to say quickly, I have uploaded them and if you open them in "large" then they should rotate so they are the right way round, i hope.

After the success of the first day sightseeing we had planned a busy day around Beijing, however we woke to discover almost complete darkness and one of the biggest thunderstorms I have ever seen, the heavy rains, flooding and lightning that accompanied it kept us in our hostel until around 1pm. This wasn't a huge disaster though as jet lag was still taking it's toll on us.
Once the storm had passed and we were no longer in any immediate danger by stepping outside we ventured to the Temple of Heaven in the south of the city. This is a magnificent temple set in acres and acres of garden so we spent the afternoon walking around here. We had a slightly surreal experience at one point when we entered the Long Coridoor of the temple and found some locals holding a dancing session to the music of the Venga Boys "Boom Boom Boom". It was slightly out of place as they were all over 60 and doing traditional style dancing with a 90's boy band element.
After the Temple we decided to browse the pearl market which actually contains no perals at all but is rather a mecca for fake clothing at a bargain price. Bidding usually opens at around 10 times what you are actually expected to pay. Josh bought a very good quality fake quicksilver tshirt for just under 6 pounds and I bought a very nice dress for 12 (opening bid on their side was 86).
We ate tea in a small cafe on the main shopping streets in Beijing before spotting a Hagen Das cafe where they produced what can only be described as a work of art and not an ice cream for us (see the picture).
Finally to finish off the night we walked back via Tianamen square and saw the monuement all lit up. Unfortunately though the whole square was guarded by very serious looking guards who would not let us in.
Yeaturday was my favourite day in Beijing and probably one of the most memorable moments of my life. (no kidding). We went on a trip to Jinshanling great wall and walked the 10km to Simatai. We left at 6am and the 4hour drive to the wall meant that it was virtually free of tourists, many going to the closer more restored sections instead. We were warned that there would be some hiking involved, but quite how much and how hard this would be in 34 degree heat was underestimated greatly. We chose not to take the cable car up but rather to hike up the mountain to the start of the section. This was hard enough but from here on the views were stunning and the steps tortorous!
To say we were hot and tired would not begin to cover it. We passed 31 look out towers in total and took 4 hours to complete the section. As this section has not been fully restored many of the passes were slightly hairraising but so worth it!!
To top it all off we crossed a rope bridge then completed a 750m zip wire over the lake. We decided to go 2 at a time rather than individually which speeded it up considerably. Finally we were boated across to the restaurant and then driven home. Not only was the trip amazing but we met some great guys on the tour, one of whom was from our hostel and we all teamed up to walk it together.
Today was forecast rain but so far has just remained as foggy. We visited the Summer Palace which I'm told has spectacular views over the lake howver the fog just made everything look white. It was still really nice to walk around the grounds though and the fog made everything appear dead calm and mysterious.
We're planning to go out to the nearby lake tonight for a meal and then tomorrow we are going to the birds nest in the morning before catching the train to Xi'an early tommorrow evening. The original plan was to leave for Xi'an tonight but we decided to stay 1 more day and to see a bit more of Beijing.
I've tried to upload some photos but the computer here takes 10 mins per photo so there are only a select few up there. Will keep you updated on Xi'an, Jess x

We arrived in Beijing 24 hours after starting travelling. The flights were fine although very long (9hrs then 7hrs) but there were many many new movies courtesy of Emirates to keep us going. We took a taxi from the airport to our hostel which was amazing value at 9 pounds for a 50 minute drive. The driver spoke absolutely no english and we only got here by forcing the hostel phone number on him which he rang and confirmed where we were aiming for.
The hostel is amzing, by far the best I have stayed in. We are in a traditional backstreet area (called a Hutong) in an old building surrounding a central courtyard and all the rooms exit off this. We are currently staying in an 8 bed dorm with 1 other person so it is nice and peaceful. The courtyard is very pretty and as a plus all the staff speak very good english and the showers are clean and hot (not that you want hot water in 34 degree heats).
We spent last night just exploring the area and going out for something to eat before sleeping for 12 hours and trying to overcome jet lag.
Today we explored the forbidden city which is where all the past emporers lived for over 800 years. It contains exactly 999 rooms (a lucky number) and is an expansive series of courtyards and elaborate gardens. We then climbed the 300m high hilly garden behind the forbidden city and had great views over the city (despite the smog). After that we explored the nearby lakes and went across to Jade islet and then walked around the shores of the Bhadi lake which was beutiful to say the least.
Finally we returned back to the hostel for a much needed shower and cool down before heading out for tonights meal.
The meals have been brilliant so far if not a little adventurous. Both nights we have been to restaurants were no english is spoken and they understand nothing of what we say. The custom is also for the waitress to wait by your table while you choose, resulting in a random pressurised selection of something on the menu (all of which I don't understand). So far both have been a big success. Last night was steamed veg with sechwann pork and tonight was the worlds bigest plate of crispy duck noodles and 3 litres of duck soup with random gooey white chunks throughout. All of which were very tasty.
Dad would love the local brew at only 35p for a massive bottle.
Overall first impressions of Beijing are very good. It is very busy in places and very peaceful in others. The whole city is spotless in terms of rubbish and the public transport thus far has been very efficient and english friendly. A few things have taken us by supprise like the fact that toilet paper is never supplied (you are expected to carry it with you) and when you do manage to use some it is not to be flushed but put in the bin next to you?! So far no explanation has been offered as to why this is :S
Tomorrow we plan to do Tienamen square, the temple of heaven and the night market. Then the day after we are planning to go to the great wall.
All in all so far so good....