Well...Chengdu was certainly a much nicer part of china...(still china tho!). We stayed in a lovely youth hostel, right near a really nice 'old quarter'...(imagine ludlow, but more compact, and with a hint of of chinese!) lol.

We went to see the pandas, which had never been on my 'to do' list, but we were in the area, and...it was absolutely amazing! They were so gorgeous..and funny! Kind of like watching a giant drunk teddy bear! They would clamber up things, then slip, and just be like 'oh well, il sleep here for a while'...even if they were upside down!! Mike has some brilliant photos (my camera died half an hour in) and i will put the flicker link on as soon as he loads them.

We then had a pretty rubbish couple of days... we went to Mt Emei, supposedly the 'most enchanting mountain in china'...it was rubbish. (Bit like trying to trek thru the amazon, with a motorway thru it and tea shops trying to rip you off every 5 mins!!!) Then we went to Leshan, to see the giant buddha carved out the rock, which was pretty cool, very big, but coming home we had a hell of a time with a cab trying to pawn us off on another cab that was gonna bring us all the way back (a 2 hour journey) which would have cost us loooads (he was meant to just take us to the bus station) and then of course no one spoke english...until i walked off, and suddenly it was 'madam, where are you going'...i got sooo angry...this was after someone else had said there were no more buses home today!
We finally got to the bus station, got the last bus home, so relieved...then got dropped off miles out of town in the middle of nowhere!!!!
Luckily we met a really nice guy (from beijing, ironically) who helped us get a bus back to town (that wasnt on our map, and the bus stop info was all in chinese) so we got back to the town centre, tried to find another bus to get home...and didnt by the time the buses stopped running...so we gave up and went to mcdonalds!!!!
(Now, yes, normally i would never set foot in a maccy d's abroad but then there is the age old argument of authenticity...because at the end of the day mcdonalds is as much their culture as pizza is ours - even tho really thats italian...and anyways i hadnt had an actual meal in about a week cos i hated the food!!!!)

Anyways...it wasn' over! Lol. On our last night, we headed off in the dark and rain to get the dreaded 31hr train to guangzhou, only to get there...and be turned away! We had no clue what was going on, only that they weren't letting us in, and pointed over to the ticket office (other side of the square). So we truddged off, very worried, queued worrying we would miss the train...to get to the front and be told it was cancelled!
We were then redirected to another queue, thinking it was going to be an alternative, and were just handed our money back!!! I asked when the next train was, she shook her head, kept asking how we were meant to get there and all i got was 'plane'!!!
So after wandering around soaked and bedraggled looking for a maccy d's (as they are 24hr & have wifi) we eventually jumped in a taxi back to the hostel, and had to book a flight!
Turned out there was some sort of sand storm coming over from the desert, the government had to make it rain to stop it (yes, the government even control the weather here!) but it had damaged the tracks so there were no trains out at all!!

Anyways, all is well that ends well, we got our flight and (eventually) made it thru the extreme that was customs...and are now in Hong Kong, which we love!!! ...Despite the constant feeling that an alarm and big red flashing light will go off, and you will be descended upon by men in white airtight suits...! (All the SARS procedures have come back in place for the swine flu, so every where you go its 'disinfected every hour' etc...but all good.

Will fill you in on HK in next blog, but it is like heaven - on steroids! Lol. Hope you are all well back home - sorry i haven't replied to personal emails, will try to when i can.

Tons of love, Hellie & Mike x