We wondered who we would have in our carriage for the journey from Ulaan Baatar to Beijing. This time we actually had two westerners- Stefanie from Switzerland who had been staying with a Mongolian family whilst volunteering at a local orphanage and Michael a Canadian who had just recently married a Mongolian woman.We were all traveling to Beijing and it had to be one of the most entertaining and talkative train journeys we've had so far on this trip.We all got on really well and Michael was a mountain of knowledge, full of great advice on traveling through China. He also had a Mandarin phrase book which he gave us in exchange for our left over Mongolian money, which would be no use to us in China anyway.We got through the Mongolian border with no passport/visa issues, a lot more slick process than Russia. When we arrived at the Chinese border they took our passports off us and then the train was taken into a warehouse/shed.The Mongolian and Chinese train tracks are different sizes, which means the wheels on the Mongolian train don't fit the tracks in China, so the wheels had to be changed.The train was taken into a shed (whilst we were all still on it, we couldn't leave the train whilst our passports were being processed) where the entire train had to be lifted up carriage by carriage while the wheels were changed over.A process which took about 2-3 hours. Once the wheels had been changed and passports handed back we were back on our way to Beijing.It definitely was a real fan fare when we crossed over the Chinese border, with their national anthem blaring out loud and clear, you knew you were now in China.It was now around midnight, time for us to have a kip and be refreshed for our 2pm arrival in Beijing. It was great to have Michael with us who has been to China a few times before, so he could point us in the right direction for our accommodation. Once we all got our bearings and knew where we were all headed, we agreed to meet up at 6:30pm that evening at Stefanie's hotel (she was traveling on her own)and head out for dinner. We checked into our hostel, had a shower and then headed out to meet the others.Well we wandered around for ages trying to find Stefanie's hotel, all we had was the name of the hotel and some rough directions, no actual address. We even walked back to our hostel and Guy asked the staff on reception and they didn't seem to know where it was either, just that it was a long way away. By this time it was gone 7pm and we figured/hoped that Michael had met up with her and we would bump into them at the Donghuamen Night market where we had planned to go for dinner (which by the way we didn't as Michael couldn't find the hotel either!). The bustling night market was a food zoo - lamb kebabs, beef, chicken and seafood skewers, corn on the cob, cicadas, grasshoppers, starfish, silk worms, scorpions, snake - you name it it was there on a skewer ready to be eaten.We weren't quite that adventurous and were only tempted by noodles, dumplings, squid, octopus and shrimp skewers and some veggie dishes.There was one dish we couldn'tquite figure out and when we asked the man serving what it was he started imitating a mouse.You check out the photo and decide for yourself, they do alarmingly look like micewithout tails!!With our full bellies we headed back to our hostel.The next morning we rose early and headed for Tiananamen Square and the Forbidden City.The Forbidden City was huge, we spent about 4 hours there and we still didn't see everything. We seemed to be a walking attraction, with many people stopping to stare at us and surprisingly asking to have their photo taken with us.We didn't realise it was a public holiday in China the first week we arrived, so all of the sites/tourist attractions were mobbed. It seemed as the whole of China was holidaying in Beijing, with lots of tour groups.Walking back to our hostel we came across a small restaurant which we decided to stop at for an early dinner/late lunch. There were no foreigners only locals so we figured this was a good sign, must be good if locals ate there.The menu was all in Chinese but they had photos of the food on the walls (the photos looked new so we reckon it had been done for the Olympics). So we got up and just pointed at the photo of what we wanted. One man on a nearby table found this all highly amusing and was laughing away.Then when we started pointing at his beer and signaling two to the waiter he started laughing even harder. We even managed to use our Mandarin phrase book and ask for a spoon, well we hoped that's what we said and nothing rude, but a spoon is what we got. The food was super cheap and really tasty, although didn't quite agree with Guy's tummy the next day. The next morning we rose early as we had to go to the embassy to apply for our Indian visas. However Guy wasn't very well, so "no sense of direction" Shannene left him in bed and headed by foot to the embassy - Guy's directions made it sound so easy but of course she got lost.She finally arrived at the embassy at around 10am (not without a lot of locals trying to help with directions, no English just pointing), only to find that the embassy didn't accept foreign nationals and we had to go to a separate visa application office across town.So Shannene walked all the way back to the hostel, picked up a very sick Guy and gota taxi to the visa office.Thankfully Guy came with, as they wouldn't accept our passport photos, they had to be on a blue background, so we had to have them done again.Poor Guy had only just woken up and not really feeling very well, his hair was all over the shop, which entertained the woman no end taking his photo and she motioned for him to look in the mirror and do his hair.She even took his photo twice and let him decide if it was ok or if he wanted another one taken.With our photos taken and application forms handed in we just had to wait up to 10 days for them to be processed.Guy was feeling slightly better, so that afternoon we went to the Hutong district, Beijing's narrow alleyways which are full of shops, cafes and one storey ramshackle dwellings and historic courtyard homes.We got a little bit lost trying to find the area, so we decided to hop in a taxi, but the driver couldn't understand where we wanted to go (none of the taxi drivers seem to speak English so we were always ready with the Chinese version of where we wanted to go or better still a map, but most of the drivers either can't read or have really bad eyesight because a lot of them still seemed to turf us out shaking their heads) even after showing him a map with Chinese written on it, so we got out and hailed another taxi.This time we pointed to a hotel on the map near the Hutong district and gave him the address in Chinese, after a quick phone call to the hotel the taxi driver knew where he was going and we were on our way. We wandered through the narrow alley ways, stopping off a quick pick me up juice at one of the cafes.Whilst staying at our hostel we ran into Matt and April, an American couple who were on our Africa tour- they just happened to be staying in Beijing at the same time as us and at the same hostel and we literally bumped into them in the hostel lift lobbyWe met for a beer that night and decided to book on a 10km hike of the Great Wall of China from Jinshanling to Simatai.The Simatai section of the Great Wall is the most original part of the wall, with a lot of it crumbling away, it certainly was a perilous climb in some parts.We were literally clambering up some sections using both hands and feet for support and having to watch every step we made. It was a bit like a computer game, one wrong move and game over, or at least a sprained ankle. It was really tough going but definitely an incredible experience we'll both never forget, to have walked on so much history.We were surprised at how many hawkers there were selling their wares on the wall - you could hear them calling "cold water, coke, beer" at the watch towers where most people stopped to take a breath. To think that they made the climb everyday, once was certainly enough for us. It took us 4 hours to walk the 10kms of the wall and we were all pretty knackered that evening. Matt and April made it out to the night markets for dinner (it was their last night in China they were leaving for Tokyo the next morning) but we stayed at the hostel and had pot noodles. The next day with sore leg and butt muscles we chilled out at the hostel and did some washing.The next day we checked out the Silk Street markets- notorious as a bedlam of fake knockoffs and pirated designer labels.The market sprawls from floor to floor with stall owners selling piles of bags, shoes, clothing, cashmere, silk, jade, pearls, trashy Rolexes to the hordes of travelers and tourists.Haggling is a must amongst the sounds of "just lookey lookey" and sellers grabbing your arm trying to steer you into their stall.It was backed full of people and no air conditioning which made it swelteringly hot inside, so we were both glad to leave. That evening we tried the famous hot pot for dinner.You get an individual pot that boils away on an element in front of you at your table. First you choose a soup base - either spicy or clear and then you select what you want to go in it -meat, potato, tofu, seafood, egg, cabbage etc. The ingredients are then brought out raw to the table and you add them to the steaming broth and cook it all yourself.It's a hot job, but really yummy and each mouthful of food is dipped into a sauce - sesame oil or peanut paste - delicious!! Once again we were the only foreigners in the restaurant so a good sign of good food.The next day we walked to the Temple of Heaven Park, stopping off at the Ming City wall ruins on the way.That evening we headed out of Beijing -we had wanted to go to Xi'an,but because of the Golden Week (national holiday) all train tickets were booked for the entire week, so our next stop would be Shanghai, another overnight train.We ended up being in different train carriages, Guy was in 13 and Shannene in 2, so quite a distance apart.It was a fairly short journey about10-11 hours.We met up for a drink in the restaurant carriage and then it was time to say goodnight and meet up again on the platform in the morning.Guy had 3 older Chinese roomies in his cabin, of which one spoke English.They tried to teach him Chinese, apparently his pronunciation is really good and he woke to them doing their morning exercises at 6am the following morning.Shannene had 3 students one of which spoke English.When he asked her where she was from and she replied New Zealand, he got really excited and said "Lord of the Rings, good movie". It seems as though every Chinese person we met had seen Lord of the Rings and loved it.Shanghai to us was just another big city, we only stayed 2 nights - the main highlight being Jinmao tower, China's tallest skyscraper.Instead of going to the viewing platform on the 88th floor we went to the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor- what we paid for our drinks was the same as the price to the viewing platform one floor above. We still got the same view but with a drink as well. We took a stroll along the Bund which is the tourist centre of Shanghai and the city's most famous mile. We ambled along the riverside promenade beside the Huangpu river which was full of hawkers, toy sellers, kite fliers, food stalls, coin-operated telescopes and tourists.We took the Bund sightseeing tunnel to get across the river to Pudong. This had to be one of the most bizarre things we've been on. We all boarded a train pod/capsule which took passengers through a tunnel of garish lights between the Bund and the opposite shore. No one seemed to speak, I think we all seemed pretty confused as to what was going on. We also wandered through the French Concession - a residential, retail, restaurant and bar district with lovely tree lined streets.We went to a great Indian restaurant - Kaveen's Kitchen.We were getting a bit tired of noodles so naan bread and curry was a welcome break.After 2 days in Shanghai it was time for us to move on and we booked the next leg of our trip through our hostel (great hostel, awesome buffet breakfast included in the price, but just wouldn't recommend booking the Yangtze river cruise through them which unfortunately we did). We booked an overnight train to Yichang (about 22 hours) where we were due to pick the boat up from. We left our hostel in Shanghai in plenty of time to catch our train (something Guy is very particular about, I can't tell you how many hours we've spent waiting at train stations, hours before our train is due to depart, which isn't such a bad thing as we're never been late or have never missed a train, yet), however we didn't realise that there are two train stations in Shanghai- the guy that booked our tickets failed to tell us and we didn't think to ask. So we jumped into a taxi heading to the main station, only to be told by a woman checking our tickets before we entered the station "wrong station" and pointed somewhere behind us. So we quickly whipped out our Lonely Planet guide book and yes there was in fact a South train station which was where we were suppose to be. We must have looked somewhat confused and a wee bit stressed as we didn't know how far away the station was, how to get there , how long it would take and if we would make our train in time.A man came up to us trying to offer some help, although didn't speak English.We showed him our tickets and he beckoned for us to follow him, which we did.He led us to the Metro station and was trying to tell us where to go and buy our tickets for us.We were very confused and were wondering if it would be quicker to get a taxi, then finally a policeman turned up to help us and ease the confusion.Suddenly our friend just disappeared as soon as he turned up, so we're not really too sure if he was trying to help us or not.The policeman took charge, he said it would be quicker to catch the Metro to the trainstation, he then bought our tickets and escorted us to the platform.In our rush to get to the platform, Guy's bags got stuck in the turnstile - he was on one side and his bags on the other side.The policeman told him to jump the turnstiles (as did the policeman), alarm bells were going off, we sure did cause a commotion. He then asked a couple of passengers to look after us and make sure we got off at the right stop.We thanked him and he waved us on our way.25 minutes later and we arrived at Shanghai South train station, which was more like an airport. It was huge and very impressive, it even had a lounge for you to wait in before departure. We only had one other person in our cabin, Simon a young Chinese boy who had been on holiday visiting friends in Shanghai. He spoke quite good English and we chatted for quite a lot of the journey and he shared his spicy beef jerky and sunflower seeds with us. We arrived in Yichang some 23 hours later and were collected by some one from John's Cruises who we had booked the boat trip through.He took us to a ferry building where we waited to be collected by a coach.The price we paid included the cruise, a bed each in 4 berth cabin, an English speaking guide and all entrance and transportation fees - we only had to pay for our drinks and meals. We even spoke to John (who we assumed was the owner of John's Cruises) and he confirmed this for us.The bus arrived full of Chinese tourists, we were the only foreigners.We thought that we would be taken straight to the boat but were in fact taken to a theatre where we watched a stage performance including dancers, jugglers and acrobats about the Three Gorges Dam project.There was a screen to the side of the stage with a rough English translation so we had an idea of what was going on.We came away thinking that this was just pure propaganda put on by the government to make the tourists believe that the Three Gorges Dam was a good idea and to make themselves feel better, when in fact it will eventually back the Yangtze river up for 550 kms, flood an area the size of Singapore and wash away the homes of up to 2 million people, so a little bit controversial. After the show we were bustled back into the bus and continued driving for a wee while longer.By this time it was now 8:30pm and it was pitch black when we actually passed by the dam so we only got to see a glimpse of it.Finally we arrived at the boat and were paired up with our room mates Mr & Mrs Wong.They spoke very few words of English but seemed to take us under their wing and continuously fed us throughout the whole trip.Once we settled into our cabin we checked out the rest of the boat. Obviously we discovered the bar first, which to our excitement was full (well there were about 8) of English speaking Westerners. But we were refused entry as we had to pay (yes pay!!) to use the bar area even though we would be buying drinks which puzzled us a bit.Once you paid the admission price you received a pass which you were suppose to wear around your neck, a bit like a back stage pass and this also gave you access to the viewing platform - basically the outside deck area of the boat which was the best view for the 3 gorges so of course we had to pay - all a bit cheeky really. The other choice was to buy beers and then just sit in our room and drink them, which actually all of the Chinese tourists seem to do, they just hung out in their cabins.We were quite excited to have a few Westerners to chat to but unfortunately they weren't part of our tour.However we were grateful for their tour guide as he spoke to our guide and translated for us, at least now we had a rough idea of the itinerary and what time we had to be up the next morning - 6am.We were traveling up stream from Yichang to Chongqing, which took 3 nights. So the next morning we were up at 6am and on the viewing platform as we were cruising through the second of the 3 gorges. We had gone through the first during the night.It didn't matter to us that we couldn't understand our guide who was explaining everything through a loud hailer in Chinese, as the scenery was amazing and spectacular in whatever language you spoke. The boat pulled into the riverside town of Wushan where we transferred to a smaller tour boat which took us along the Little Three Gorges on the Daning River.The landscape was gorgeous and the narrow gorges were just as impressive if not more so than their larger namesakes.After about 5-6 hours we came back to the large boat in time for some lunch.We had made ourselves some pot noodles and grabbed a beer and sat on the outside deck relaxing and chatting to our fellow Westerners. It was a pretty hot day and some of the girls were wearing shorts and singlets, nothing too revealing.Two Chinese men from our tour group came out with a pair of binoculars supposedly to take a closer look at the "scenery".However no sooner had they pointed them at the landscape they quickly tilted them down and zoomed in on the girls cleavage - what cheeky Chinese men!!They certainly seemed pretty pleased with themselves but soon stopped when our tour leader came out with her loud hailer and the rest of the group trailing behind. We'd hardly finished our beers when the boat pulled into the ancient town of Fengjie and everyone got off to visit the White King Town. Once again we had no idea what was going on but saw the group were leaving the boat so we just followed them. Some of the men on our group seemed to think we were quite entertaining as they would chat to us in Chinese and when we would reply in English that we don't understand and shrug our shoulders, they would all have a great old laugh, so goodness knows what they were saying. One man who had limited English asked us if we understood any of what the guide was saying, when we said that we didn't, he suggested that next time we should have an English interpreter.Great advice considering we were told the guide spoke English!!We also found that the guide kept expecting us to pay additional money for entrance fees and transportation from the boat by bus to some of the sights which we tried to explain to her we had already paid upfront.As she didn't speak English she didn't understand us and would not give us our entrance tickets.Every day seemed to be a battle and became increasingly frustrating.She would just try and ignore us. We even gave her John's phone number (who we had booked through and was also Chinese) for her to call him and confirm what we had paid for, but she refused. But Guy just kept on at her following her around until she finally gave in or tired of him and gave us our tickets, probably the latter.The next day we pulled into Fengdu nicked named the city of ghosts, which was more like a very tired theme park full of ghost focused temples.It even had a very sad ghost train road, not scary in the slightest, we came out laughing. That evening was the last night on the boat, so we thought we would splash out and instead of pot noodles in our room we ate in the restaurant.Somehow we think we kind of redeemed ourselves with our tour group when they saw that we could eat surprisingly well with chopsticks.They seemed to all be watching us as if we were going to be their entertainment for the evening, but they were to be disappointed. The next morning we pulled into Chongqing nice and early around 7am where we disembarked the boat.Mr & Mrs Wong were the only ones to say goodbye to us, no fond farewells from anyone else - think the tour leader was glad to see the back of us !!Our next destination was Chengdu, the home of the Giant Panda. We just needed to work out whether we were going to travel there by bus or train.There were no shortage ofpeople trying to sell us tickets for buses and tours to Chengdu. We fended them off, hopped in a taxi and headed straight to the train station. We asked the woman at the ticket office (well pointed at words in our phrase book) for two tickets to Chengdu. She shook her head and said something in Chinese to us.A man waiting behind us kindly translated, we were at the wrong station and we needed to be on the other side of town for trains to Chengdu. We thanked him and the ticket lady and decided (not knowing how long it would take to get across town and what time the train left) that it might be quicker to take a bus as the bus station was right next door to the train station we were at.There were so many touts trying to sell tickets to Chengdu but we went straight to the main bus ticket hall. After we went through the security check -we had to put our bagsthrough an x-ray machine, which was very chaotic as people would just push past and bags were shoved onto the conveyor belt. It was then a mad dash to get through the other side and grab your bag before it fell into a heap on the ground or someone else walked off with it.Once through we headed for the information desk and asked what time the trains left for Chengdu.The girl we spoke to giggled and smiling she chattered to her colleagues, we figured they were trying to work out who was going to be the lucky one to have to deal with the English speaking tourists this morning.One girl seemed to be pushed towards us, guess it was her lucky day.She didn't seem too impressed, rolling her eyes at us.We asked her again what time the train left for Chengdu, which she then promptly pulled up the times on her computer screen for us.We then asked where we buy our tickets from which seemed to stump her, we asked again more slowly but they all looked very confused.So we pulled out our phrase book and pointed to the translation in Chinese.They all laughed as they finally understood what we had been saying and told us to go to a ticket office which was back out where we had come from.So off we trundled to purchase our tickets.We had to fend a few people off in the ticket queue who tried to push past us. Back packs can definitely come in handy. There was one woman who managed to somehow dart past us, honestly turn your back for a second or take your eye off the ball and 10 people will be in front of you and you'll be back at the end of the queue before you know it. By the end of our China trip we had learned to have back packs and elbows at the ready and a shear determination not to let anyone push in front of us. The bus ride was fairly quick about 3-4 hours, long enough to watch a Jacky Chan movie.Once at Chengdu bus station we caught a taxi to our hostel. After a quick freshen up (it was nice to finally have a decent hot shower, showers on the boat were poky and cold) we spoke to the girls on reception and they helped us to book a panda tour, which was one of the reasons we went to Chengdu to see the Giant Pandas.We booked tickets for a tour which departed from our hostel early the next morning.That afternoon we walked through the Renmin Donglu area, the alleys are full of incense vendors, foot-callus removers and naturally tea houses.We visited the Wenshu Temple which is the largest and best preserved Buddhist temple.Amongst the crowds of worshipers who flock to the temple, the air was full of incense and low murmurs of chanting There is a vegetarian restaurant within the grounds, along with a teahouse.We went to the veggie restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner and the food was fantastic.We were a bit confused to start with as there were a lot of meat dishes listed on the menu, but they all ended up being mock meat which we found out when we ordered a chicken dish, a fish dish and a veggie dish. The fish was quite amusing as it was mashed potato, shaped into a fish - really tasty though.We went back to the hostel for a couple of beers on the terrace and free wi-fi, so we could catch up on our emails and book our next hostel.The next morning we were picked up early from our hostel and driven to the Giant Panda Breeding Centre.The centre holds about 50 giant and red pandas, although only a dozen are generally out and about.We had to arrive early in time for feeding, when the pandas are at their most active, soon after they return to their other favourite past time, sleeping. We also got to see some baby cubs around 6-10 weeks old.That afternoon we went to the People's Park which was bustling with activity.There were people flying kites, practicing taichi, playing chess, different groups of people dancing to different types of music, people singing, bands playing and others just relaxing over a cup of tea catching up on the gossip.We really enjoyed just sitting and people watching, although we did go to a one-of-a-kind underground fun-house that was listed in our guide book.It was a converted air-raid shelter which had a walk through haunted house, but was rather tired and pathetic, could really do with a re-vamp.The next day we caught a train to Xi'an which took us 18 hours.We were met at the train station by someone from our hostel and we then caught a local bus to our hostel (we were suppose tobe picked up by car but the driver was at the airport picking other passengers up, which was fine as we got to find out which buses to use).The buses are double deckers but are very low, and Guy had problems standing up -his head was craned to the side and it was still touching the ceiling, which Shannene found very amusing. Mind you Chinese people aren't really that tall, Guy just seemed to tower above everyone.The first thing we did once we had checked into our hostel was go to the train ticket office in town to book our onward tickets to Beijing, seeing as it was a holiday week we wanted to make sure we could get back to Beijing in order to fly onto our next destination - India. When we got to the ticket office it was closed and there was a sign on the window written in Chinese. So we went back to our hostel to ask them if the ticket office was open today, which they said yes and we should try later on.So a couple of hours later after we'd had some breakfast we headed back to the ticket office but it was still closed.We took a photo of the sign in the window and went back to our hostel and asked them what it said - apparently it was closed today.The staff at the hostel said that we could try buying tickets at the chaotic train station - apparently ticket window number 10 had English speaking staff.So off we went. Nothing could have been easier, the somewhat abrupt girl in ticket window number 10 spoke perfect English and we were ableto book our last train journey in China.We think every train station around the world should have ticket window number 10 with English speaking staff. With our tickets booked we wandered through the back streets, home to the city's Hui community (Chinese Muslims).The narrow lanes are full of butcher shops, sesame oil factories, smaller mosques hidden behind enormous doors, restaurants and street vendors selling all kinds of food.We really enjoyed the Muslim quarter, it really was a hive of activity.We also visited the Bell and Drum Towers.That evening we had decided to head back to the Muslim quarter to try one of the restaurants, but on our way we were intercepted by a woman outside one of the many Chinese restaurants, trying to entice us into her restaurant.She excitedly thrust a menu into our hands, the prices were really cheap and the food looked good, so we thought what the heck. Once again there were only locals sitting at the tables, so we figured a good sign. Guy ordered a chicken dish and Shannene ordered a fish dish and some veggies.There was then much confusion as the waitress then asked us if we wanted it spicy.Once we had figured out what she had asked us, we said yes for the fish to be spicy but not the chicken, which confused her no end.Thinking she finally understood us, the food came out with neither dish being spicy - ahh well you win some, you lose some!!We also ordered a couple of beers which came out with two plastic cups which can only be described as shot glasses, as they were so small.This we found was quite common, one beer being shared and poured into these small glasses. The glass looked particularly small in Guy's hands, it did look rather amusing.The main reason we came to Xi'an was to visit the Terracotta Warriors.The next day we made our way to the parking lot of the Xi'an train station, where we boarded a public bus which took an hour to get to the sight of the army.Although you can't get that close to the soldiers it was still very impressive. There are 3 pits that have been unearthed, and it was recommended in our guide book that we visited them in reverse order - save the best for last, pit number 1.It was a good tip as pit number 1 is the largest pit and the most imposing of them - some 6,000 warriors and horses standing in battle formation.The detail is amazing, no two soldiers faces are alike.The expressions, hairstyles, armour and even tread on the footwear are all unique. It certainly was a sight to behold.We made our way back to our hostel and had enough time for a late lunch and a couple of games of pool before we had to make our way to the train station to catch our 12 hour over night train back to Beijing.We spent two nights in Beijing, basically relaxing and catching up on washing before we headed to India. On our last day in Beijing we decided to go to the garden of the Summer Palace which is one of Beijing's most visited sights.It is very impressive, full of palace temples, gardens, pavilions and lakes, spread over an immense area.We only had half a day to spend here which was no where enough time.We caught the Metro and then were suppose to catch a bus to the entrance of the Summer Palace, but we couldn't find where the bus stop was and as we were limited on time (catching a plane out of Beijing that evening) we decided to catch a taxi which dropped us off at the entrance.We spent a few hours wandering around and only just scratched the surface, you could spend 1 day and still not see everything.We then tried to catch a taxi back to the Metro station, however our Metro station map was in English and not Chinese so none of the taxi drivers could understand where we wanted to go. Then a rickshaw driver came up to us and asked us where we wanted to go, we showed him on the map and he said we needed to catch a bus to the station, so we paid him a little bit of money and he took us to the bus stop.We jumped on the first bus hoping it was heading in the right direction.We were feeling a wee bit stressed as we were cutting it a bit close on time to catch our plane (something Guy in particular hates to do, Mr "needs to be at the airport in plenty of time") and we didn't know how far we were from the Metro station or whether we were even heading in the right direction!! But thankfully it all worked out and we made it back to our hostel in enough time to pick up our bags and walk to the bus stop to catch the airport shuttle bus.Next stop, India where we start our 19 day tour from Delhi through to Kathmandu.We really enjoyed China, but felt we only just scratched the surface,it is such a huge country.We only wish we had longer to explore it more. Maybe one day we'll go back.