Hello everyone,

Its been a while since my last update but its been pretty busy and this has been my first free minute to get to a computer. Anyway, I am now in Kunming, China having left Nepal on the 7th March. I had my farewell at the orphanage on the 5th which was really nice, basically all the kids gather to wish you well and give you some flowers, gifts and a certificate. I had bought a whole load of chocolates for them so that also went down well as you can imagine! Anyway, after leaving Pokhara I bussed it back to Kathmandu for 2 nights and met up with some of the other volunteers who were there. I hadnt been back to Kathmandu since I arrived in Nepal and it was a lot lot busier because it had just come into peak season and so was thriving with tourists, beggars, drug dealers and drunks.

Next up I had to head to Delhi to spend/survive one night there and much to my relief my experience there was not as bad as the first one. The hotel was pretty standard and thankfully there was someone there to pick me up from the airport even though I was 3 hours late becasue the plane was delayed taking off from Nepal and because JetLite had put my luggage on a later flight to Delhi.

After Delhi I flew to the other side of the economic spectrum and arrived in Singapore for one night yet again. After spending a lot of time in Nepal and Delhi, Singapore was a real shock to the system with a lot of wealth being flaunted and I'd probably say that the airport there is the nicest airport I have ever been too. I stayed at Crowne Plaza hotel within the airport which was a serious slice of luxury, in my room I had an Ipod charging/speaker system, 32 inch flat screen tv and probably the best shower I've had in months.

The next day involved yet more flying and this time it was to Hong Kong. The first thing I noticed was that all the road signs and layout were exactly the same as in England, but then all you see is the massive neon lights and towering buildings. Because I arrived pretty late that night I managed to grab some food and then headed off to bed. The next day I walked around and found my next hotel for meeting my Intrepid group. Having found that I ventured down Nathan Road which is full of malls and shops, till I hit the waterfront and spent a few hours looking around there before ending up in some of the museums. After that it was back to my hotel to grab my stuff and head to my new hotel to meet my group for the trip. The group consists of 16 people and our guide Huang who is a top bloke. Most of the people are from England which is quite nice and then we have 1 person from New Zealand, 1 from Ireland and a couple from Denmark.

So everyone turned up around 6pm and we all had a quick chat before heading off for dinner to a local restaurant that was basically inside a warehouse. It served very good food for very cheap prices and was a pretty cool little spot. The next day we had to catch a bus in mainland China then a overnight train (16 hours) to our first port of call called Kaili. Later on that day we got a public bus to Xijang where we were treated to a banquet and some cultural performances and plenty of rice wine. Needless to say everyone got pretty hammered due largely to the rice wine, which although wasnt overly strong, was free and expected of us to drink. At one point we had all the women from the hostel singing chinese songs and pouring rice wine from bowls down our throats, and damn did that stuff really taste bad. No wonder it was free, they probably hated the stuff and just wanted to get rid of it on the gullible westerners. The next day we had to trek to a local guesthouse where we were informed that the toilets there would be pretty bad and I can say that they were definitely the worst I have experienced yet. They were located on the ground floor of the house in the 'barn' area next to the buffalo and pigs and were made up of a large bucket with some wooden slats placed over it so you can stand on them and do your business! But toilets aside, the food was great and the family we were staying with were very friendly and were more than happy to share their sacred rice wine with us yet again. Later that night we were all shown to our rooms and introduced to the beds from hell. By 10pm it was pretty cold and our beds had one blanket and no mattress, just wooden slats. So to say it was pretty uncomfortable is an understatement!

Thankfully we left pretty early the next day at 8am and caught a public bus back to Kaili. Unfortunately after 40 minutes in the bus, we came across a landslide that had destroyed the road so we had to drive all the way back to where we started and then take another road back to Kaili but it ended up being only 1 hour longer.

Back at Kaili we had time for a quick shower before heading to the bus station to catch another bus to the train station to catch another overnight train (12 hours) to Kunming which is where I am now. Unfortunately we are only here for one day as two would be better to take in all the sights, as tomorrow we are heading off to Vietnam to Sapa where we will be doing another two days of trekking before hitting Hanoi for the second part of the trip. So tonight everyone has planned to go out to find a good ol' Chinese nightclub and get pretty wasted and sleep it off on the 15 hour bus journey tomorrow (in case you hadnt noticed there is a lot of travelling on this trip!)

Anyway, thats all I've remembered at the moment. I know I've forgotten some stuff but this blog is monumentally huge already so perhaps I fill in some more details later on or if anyone has any questions I'll try to answer them. So I'll try and not take as long to post another blog in the future.