Shangri-la is a pretty little Tibetan town in the very north of Yunnan. We rested here after Tiger Leaping Gorge with some Australians we met on the trek. I really loved the evening dancing every night in market square, seeing all the old women in their pretty colourful clothes! We tried the Tibetan food - Yak was the most common - very yummy and nothing goes to waste - they use the yak meat, yak diary products, yak clothes and yak horn objects such as chop stick...

Next we headed north to another old town - Lijiang. Full of cobbled streets, canals and woodend bridges, Lijiang would have been picture perfect if it wasn't for all the hundreds chinese tourists taking photos of everything! You literally could move down some of the lanes.We stayed in a crazy hostel run by a local Naxi (a Tibetan Minority group) family, in which the 'Mama' cooked everyone a Naxi family dinner all together - the place was great fun, the food was i...

Next we headed west onto the Yunnan Province, our first stop the old city of Dali. The first thing we noticed was how much cooler it was - due to our increased altitude of around 1900m. For the first time in Asia i actally could wear long sleves and trousers comfortably without aircon - i loved it! It was still hot in the day though and let my guard down - a bike ride round the nearby villages left me badly sunburnt! The day was really fun - i went on my own, ge...

Sorry its been so long since my last blog! Its been difficult to find decent internet so i will give you a quick catch up of my last 3 weeks starting with lovely Yangshuo - a town set right in the heart all the limestone karsts. On our first day me and Teague hired bicyles and set of to explore the Yangshuo countryside aiming to find a bridge that the guide book recommended - 6 hours later, having come across numerous rice paddies, quaint villages, farmers and w...

Guilin, in the beautiful Guangxi province, is the hub for seeing all the surrounding countryside. The city itself didn't have much to offer so i only spent a day there. I met 2 nice people in the hostel though, Teague from Bristol and Leonie from Holland (yet another dutch friend!). We went to a local park in which they had a new Panda Zoo! The 2 Pandas had an amazing new outside encloser - but where were they - sitting inside eating! I was determined to make th...