We caught another night train from Pingyao to Xi'an, which was ok but not as good as the last one as we were right by the toilets and we had some big time snorers above us!! Xi'an is one of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history and it is from Xi'an that you can visit the Terracotta Warriors. We stayed in a fairly new hostel which was more like a hotel! On the first day we met a couple who had been teaching in China for the past 5 mon...

Pingyao We caught our first night train to Pingyao. We were a bit nervous about the night train but it was actually ok and 100% better than the first train we caught. We got a hard sleeper which means you are in a carriage which contains rooms without doors and within those rooms are three bunk beds on either wall. We opted for the middle bunk on both sides so we were next to each other.We managed to get a little bit of sleep and arrived in Pingyao at 6.30am. ...

After surviving our first train journey, we left the train station and were immediately approached by a man working for CITS (China International Tour Services) who spoke really good English. We'd already booked some accommodation in Datong for the night, but he said we could look at the hotel they work from and to see if we're interested in any tours. We knew we only had one night and day in Datong as there's really only 2 things to go and see. The Hanging ...

Beijing - 22 June 2012 So here we are in China! Things didn't get off to a great start as the directions to the hostel were rubbish! We landed late at night in the middle of a thunder storm and we were lost in the middle of Beijing, luckily for us a very nice young Chinese boy could tell we were struggling and pointed us in the right direction. We finally got to the hostel about 11.30pm, wet through and a little shell shocked. To say that China is different fr...

Ni Hἀo! We have arrived in Taipei which is in Taiwan and it is the 19 June. We flew with China Airways which took 3 hours and was most comfortable with free food and drinks! We found the main station and made our way from there to the hostel. The station was very busy and full of young trendy people. There was a group of kids about 14/15 years old sat about inside the station with a ghetto blaster practicing their dance routines, it was hilarious and took ...