It's been a while since my most recent blog entry, but I've been on the road (and the rails) a little more than I was previously. Since my Yangshuo entry I've travelled by train to Kunming (capital of Yunnan province), by bus to Dali, and by bus to Zhongdian, where I am now. The train to Kunming was 19 hours long, but the journey went fairly quickly, in part due to the stunning scenery as you enter Yunnan province (mountains and lakes everywhere), but also due t...

After a 22 hour journey from Shanghai to Guilin, in Guanxi province, I decided to skip the city of Guilin and come straight to Yangshuo - after all, what's another 2 hours on a bus after 22 on a train (having to entertain a Chinese todler for several hours to boot). On the bus some guy sat next to me for the whole journey, asking about England, and repeatedly telling me how beautiful the area is. Then he told me to come to see his hostel. Stupidly I humoured h...

Due to a clerical error (that's the polite way of phrasing it) I'm in Shanghai for a day longer than anticipated, so you all get treated to my latest blog entry! The city is pretty spectacular, with giant skyscrapers and high rise flats spreading as far as the eye can see. I've heard the population is in the region of 20 million, and it's not that difficult to believe. I've seen a number of the touristy sights, but I haven't really got a feel for the city - it...

Its around a week since I touched down in Beijing, and I've certainly not been wanting for things to do. Here are the highlights of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Tuesday I decided to go to the summer palace YiHeYuan, which used to be a retreat for the later (Qing dynasty) emperors. The palace is about 30 km outside the centre of Beijing, and a pain to get to. I walked half an hour to a bus stop (though only had to wait for 5 minutes), before a fairly to...

Day 2 (Yesterday) and its a 6:00 am start for the tour of the Great Wall, not that I slept, as the person in the room next to me had the loudest snoring I've ever heard (and I was still a little jetlagged, which didn't help). There are several sections of the wall that have been restored, and the nearest (and most well known) is Badaling. However it gets inundated with tourists (thousands a day), so I picked a section that was some distance from Beijing. Jinsh...