Get up early and the first thing I do is head to the train ticket office just a little down the road. I need to get a ticket to Guilin around the 1st, I get there just before . I have everything I need written down in Chinese so I can just hand it to the woman working there. They don't have any tickets for the 1st, but there is availability on the 2nd, so I get that snapped up. A whopping 26hours on a train, I can tell you how much I am looking forward to that. N...

After talking to the guy at reception he suggested that I leave at 4am for my 6am train, even though it is only up the road in a taxi, suppose better to be sage than sorry. 4am comes round pretty fast and I am not pleased to see it, for it signifies the beginning of my 16 hour train day. Brilliant. So I get down and check out, I had asked about a taxi but I was told that I would not need one at that time of the morning. I dander over to the square outside the par...

Meeting Catherine at 9.30 today, where she is going to perform some miracle and get me a train ticket. Hopefully I'll be able to get the hard sleeper this morning and not have to mess around on the train, hoping some guy I've never met comes to find me. We walk up to the train station, I'm getting used to this walk. When we get there she phones he uncle, but he doesn't answer. So we wait for a bit, she phones other people to try and find where he is. The train st...

After my late night last night I get up about 10 today. I'm going to make my own way to the terracotta warriors today, bus is 7, then 150 for entry. I have heard mixed reports on how good it is, but it is one of those things you have to see. By the time I get myself together I'm walking out of the hostel at about 11.30, the half hour walk to the station, queue up and refund my ticket that i bought yesterday. I get 95% back, so i lost £1 for being an idiot. After...

Feeling particularity fresh today considering what I went through yesterday. Had a bit of a lie in though, not rising until 10. I am planning to cycle the city wall today with Yolanda and Catherine, I must be mad attempting that after my climb yesterday, especially as it is 13k perimeter. The girls meet me at the hostel at 1.30 and we head to try and get me a train ticket. It will be much easier with someone who speaks Chinese rather than me bumbling my way throu...