Nha Trang has possibly the worst kept beach outside of North Shields. The sand and the surrounding reefs and rocks are covered in trash. I was very sad to see this as they have a beautiful bay and water that hovers around the 29 degrees celcius mark. Also,there are some great places to eat. We had freshly caught lobster one night, and beef in lemon sauce wrapped in fresh spring roll paper the next and all sorts of tasty snacks and morsels in between. Wespent ...

After the hustle and bustle of Shanghai, Hong Kong and all stops in between we did manage to find the calmer, quieter soul of China. After or Hong Kong visa fiasco we were rather pleased that we had been allowed to leave that enclave and were even happier that our rusty dirty old Air China plane got us to Guillin in one piece. From Guilin (has a fantastic Szechuan restaurant by the river that will float anyones chilli boat but little else to recommend it) we were...

I was always a little snobby about neon lighting. I used to think that it was tacky, cheap, old fashioned even ugly. But not anymore. We're in Hong Kong, where Jackie Chan is worshipped as a demi-god next to Buddhas and Neon lighting is used without restraint in architectural lighting. But beside all this you have the occassional red post box, some menus exclusivley in English and enough luxury goods and designerwear shops to keep Posh Spice happy to the next mil...

Here we are in Zhengzhou waiting for our overnight train that will take us to Shanghai. Since our last blog in the lovely Pingyao we have moved on to Xi'an and the Terracota Warriors and then on to Dengfeng and the Shaolin Temple complete with warrior monks. Xian as a tourist destination is based entirely on the 10000 strong tterracota army that guards the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang. We organised a tour through a local hotel which would take us to the army as well...

I didn't really know what to expect from Beijing when I got on the plane in Sydney to come here. But I knew it would be crazy and exciting and Beijing has not dissappointed. Laura's Uncle Igor and Aunty Marion had kindly put us up in the very swish Traders Hotel for our first 4 nights here. I don't think we could thank them enough for this as it made our first foray into China much easier than it would have been had we been trying to get to hostel digs on our ...