Spent the morning re-planning my trip and sorting out tickets for the next week. At lunchtime I went with 4 girls from the hostel - Rose, Fennie, Caroline and Maddie - to a small local restaurant to have dumplings. Rose speaks fluent Chinese and so it was nice to not have to struggle to get what I wanted to eat! After lunch Rose, Fennie and I got a taxi to go to one of the local villages, Dongba. It took about half an hour to get there, but when we did arrive...

Got a taxi to the bus station first thing this morning and caught the bus to Lijiang. I didn't realise it when I booked, but the bus actually went via Dali which is my next destination so I got a sneaky previous of what is in store for me there. The drive from Kunming to Dali (5 hours) was nice enough, but the drive from Dali to Lijiang was absolutely stunning. It is really mountainous and green - I really felt I had reached real China. The bus stopped in the...

An early start this morning to get out to the Stone Forest, a massive collection of grey limestone pillars, in a town called Shilin about 80 miles from Kunming. Legend has it that the immortals smashed a mountain into a labyrinth for lovers seeking privacy. I walked to the bus station where a very helpful bus driver helped me find the ticket office and got the bus to Shilin. Luckily the entrance to the site was only 5 minutes from the site entrance. I was un...

Arrived in Kunming at 7:15 this morning desperate for the loo and to brush my teeth as the train had run out of water at midnight! Got a taxi to the hostel and spent half an hour going around in circles as he couldn't work out how to get to it! In the end we parked and he walked me there! Had a shower and breakfast in the hostel - a cheese omlette and toast with butter and jam - South China is great!! Then I went off to explore the city, walking around the Fl...

Stuck on a train all day! Woke up early so thought I would get up and use the bathroom before the big rush - well, when I say bathroom, I mean the squat toilet and the open plan basins which were in the corridor of the train. There was no privacy and getting changed or having a proper wash were out of the question. Given how smokey and stale the train got over the day there probably wasn't much point anyway!! Watched most of the train occupants eating pot noo...