Alright, so I left Shangri-la early in the morning for Lijiang. I arrived in Lijiang after about 4 hours and set off to find a hostel. This was the first place that I hadn't booked accomodation in advance - the town has 700 guesthouses and it's not the high season, I didn't think I'd have a problem. There were several places I had heard recommended by other travellers and I decided to just wander the Old Town until I found one of them. The first I found was Mama ...

Has anyone ever read Lost Horizon? In the book, a group of travellers end up stranded in a "mountain paradise" several months south-west of Peking and a couple hundred kilometers north of the town where the Chinese and the Tibetans trade their products. The book calls this place "Shangri-la", which some people think was taken from a buddhist word meaning paradise. The chinese town of Zhongdian decided, based on the description of Shangri-la...

Hello from the City of Eternal Spring! The weather so far has certainly backed up the name. Kunming is the first city I've been to in China that has had beautiful weather for more than one day at a time. It's a shame that I'm only here to arrange transport and to change the dates of my visa for Vietnam. Yes, I've decided to rearrange my South-East Asia trip. Now instead of flying from Hong Kong to Singapore and working my way up I've decided to scrap Hong Kon...

Hello from Chengdu! Apparently, the must-see attraction in Sichuan province, and particularly when one is staying in Chengdu, is the pandas. The Panda Breeding and Research Base just outside of Chengdu is among the best in the world, and is one of the only places where tourists can see pandas in their natural habitat. And with a Panda Card it costs less than $5 to see them! (By the way, I really love the hostel I'm staying at. It's called Sim's Cozy Garden Host...

Hello again, I'm about to leave Xi'an for Chengdu, but before I leave I'll give you all a recap of what I've been doing here. I've been out to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors, of course. I had booked a ticket as soon as I arrived and set out the next day with about a dozen other people from my hostel. Of course, we first had to visit the requisite gift shop (I hate that) and then we drove the 40 or so kilometers to the museum itself. There was a film playing in...