4am, still raining, time to go. We get our stuff ready and get our gear on. Then it's time to go. Head torch on, it's pitch black out here, we leave our luxury abode and off we go. No talking. Steps, steps, steps, in the dark, with no sense of distance travelled or remaining. Rain pelting our clothes, face down, on foot in front of the other. Monotony. After about 40mins of climbing we come across another area with a lot of houses, it's also where the cable car t...

Hike day! 7am comes quick and with it I am enthused and jump out of my still damp bed. I head down to the desk and meet the Swedes and we get some breakfast, bacon and eggs. That should keep me going for a while. We had ordered some food from the restaurant the night before so we get bacon and egg sandwiches, an apple and a bottle of water, that'll do for lunch. Of course I have all the usual, snickers, nuts and sweets for energy during the climb. Today I am spor...

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...