31st March - Hong Kong

We only had one more day left in Hong Kong so we had to forego the ferry ride to get a Metro straight to Central on Hong Kong island so we could go to the Botanical Gardens. One of the fabulous things about Hong Kong is how well they cultivate their green spaces in the middle of the city. The city has a number of huge parks and pretty areas and the gardens were quite astonishing to see against the backdrop of skyscrapers.

Crappy photo

The gardens also contain a zoo and we spent several hours looking around the enclosures. There were some realy great gibbons swinging about and playing and I could have watched them for hours. I'm not a big fan of seeing monkeys in cages but it was actually refreshing to see them acting like wild animals and not playing with plastic or eating ice-creams. We also saw lemurs, turtles and tortoises, frogs, orangutans and a few other things. The lady orangutan had quite recently had twins but rejected them and so they were being looked after by keepers in the zoo. There were twice daily sessions where you could see them so we waited around for a while. They were absolutely gorgeous! The cutest things I think I've ever seen. The only thing was that they were treating them very much like children. They were in a room with toys and playmats and tiny little chairs and it seemed wrong to see them like that. You can look up 'Hong Kong orangutan twins' on Youtube if you want to see how lovely they were.

After they'd forced us away from the baby orangutan window, we went to explore the aviary. There were so many birds there that I'd never seen before and some of them were massive and freaky! We soent quite a while looking around and spotting new ones. There was also a flamingo enclosure but we noticed that they kept raising their wings to fly and one of them had been clipped. It made us sad to see them so stunted so we left the birds and went to the greenhouse instead. We didn't stay there long because Matt was like a child and said they were boring.

We went to find lunch and came across a little cafe that looked ok. There was a McDonald's next door but I thought I'd give the food another go. Matt had roast goose and I ordered vegetables and rice. I was a little disappointed when mine came and it was a pile of just one type of vegetable but at least I got my greens for the day.

We then went to find the Central–Mid-level Escalators, which is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. It was built to try and reduce congestion in the city in 1993 and connects the Central and Western Districts. It consists of twenty escalators and 3 moving sidewalks and 55,000 people use it per day. The total length of the escalators is 800 metres and it elevates over 135 metres from bottom to top. They go downhill in the morning until 10am and then go uphill until midnight and you pass by endless bars and shop fronts on the way. We even stopped off halfway up to pop into a supermarket. It was strangely fun making our way to the top and quite achey on the knees to take the steps back down again. It really is pretty steep and I've no idea how anyone would negotiate in in heels.

Most of the escalators pass through SOHo (South of Hollywood) expat area and the bars were full of Westerners doing what they do best and there were theme bars from every corner of the globe. Below that there were lots of markets sellling the things 'average' person needs but that aren't openly catered for in Hong Kong. With only a few days in Hong Kong you could be forgiven for thinking that everyone who lives there is rich and successful and it seemed almost out of place to see everyday items.

A bit darker during Earth Hour

Again, we took the ferry to the Avenue of Stars but this time it was to watch the opposite of last night. The Symphone had been cancelled in aid of Earth Hour and there were plans for the big companies to turn their lights off. We were there even earlier and waited for an hour until we though it was due to start. At 8pm nothing happened. There were a few stray lazers shot into the sky because they hadn't been switched off properly and then everyhting looked the same as usual. We walked off disappointed and decided to have a better look at the Avenue of Stars instead. They were holding public shows there with singers and promotion for Earth Hour and we realised that we had got the time wrong. At 8.30, the lights started switching off at the opposite side of the river and whole skyscrapers seemed to almost disappear into the skyline. It was so much more impressive that the Symphony and it was encouraging to see how many businesses had got involved. There were still one or two who hadn't bothered but their company names stood out as a beacon of indifference. It felt completely different to walk along the length of the water and not see Hong Kong Island glowing and reflected.

We walked back throught Temple Street Night Market to look for new charger because my phone was being naughty and wouldn't charge. Chargers wouldn't work so we took it to a phone-fixer man and it turned out the battery was just too flat.

We took a different route through the city to last night and ended up in King George's park watching people learn how to do Tai Chi. If we ever come to China again I think that's something we might like to try.
Back outside the hotel we had our last giggle at the 'mankee' food stand and collapsed into bed with a cracking headache.

30th March - Hong Kong

The train lady woke us up at 6am and we arrived in an already humid Hong Kong about 7am. We stripped down to basics and then froze on the metro to Mongkok because the air-con was turned so low.

Hostel Ah Shan looks like the kind of place that murders happen. We were going to book Chung King Mansions but the reviews said there were very dubious things nearby so we went more 'upmarket'. I'm glad we did if this 14th floor mock-up of a scene from The Bill was anything to go by. Matt also worried that the so-called 'mansions' were a fire hazard and at least this place does have stairs you can flee down if you don't break your neck on the corridoors of crap you have to step over.

Since we were no longer in China proper, we went on the search for something tasty to eat. We were stopped by a guy flyering for a place that served a 'Healthy lunch'. We imagined vegetables and other healthy, tasty things and so decided to give it a go. A lot of Hong Kong shops and bars etc are in the tower blocks and so he took us in the building, up the lift and through a bit of a warren.

It turned out that the guy wasn't just flyering but was franchising the business because he'd lost so much weight following the system that he wanted to be a bigger part of it. By this time we'd worked out that it wasn't going to be what we'd been looking and so were not surprised when 'Mr Alexander' told us that lunch would to be made up of three drinks: an aloe vera based starter, a fruit based shake for lunch and a tea dessert. This still sounded preferable to some of the junk we'd been eating so we were up for sharting one and giving it a taste. He then told us that we'd also qualify for a body analysis and sat with us throughout the whole thing, asking us questions. We weren't too keep on the idea but it was an experience and so went along with it. Before our 'main meal' he weighed us on a machine that told him lots of stuff about our fat levels etc and then fed back the information to us while we sucked on a 'cookie and cream' shake made using sweet potato. We were a little shocked at first when he told us that our fat levels were 'great'. What he meant was massive! He was also worried about how fat our organs were and told Matt his were at a dangerous level - not really what Matt wanted to hear, especially when he'd worked out for himself that he's lost about 15kg and probably deserved to feel bit prouder. We then drank our tea as 'Mr Alexander' showed us before and after pictures of himself and others and tried to convince us of the merits of using this system when we were home. Since there were 'better' flavours available in the UK, he also wanted us to buy them for him and send them on - which we thought was asking a bit much after he'd promised us tasty and filling fruit and vegetables but given us drinks, talked to us incessantly, told us we were fat and fatal, tried to talk us into signing us and then charged us for the trouble.

We weren't sure if it was because we'd shared a 'lunch', because drinks don't fill you up or because we were actually just comfort eating but we were still hungry.  Compared to mainland China the food was very expensive indeed and was more pricey than at home. After looking around for a while we decided that we wouldn't find anything particularly healthy or cheap and so we may as well just eat what we fancied. There was a nice looking India restaurant there and so went for that. Since we'd technically just eaten we shared a curry but the restaurant owner did not seem too impressed at all. The food was good though and I had really missed Palak Paneer!

Hello sailor

We walked past all of the incredibly affluent hotels and businesses to the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade and took the Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island. The ferry itself was pretty cool and it was much nicer to head to the island over water rather than on the underground.

We'd read in a our guide book that you get get a good view of the city from the 43rd floor of the Bank of China. It felt a bit weird going in to a massive, sparkly skyscraper dripping with money and asking if we could see their 43rd floor but after they'd scanned our bags they gave us a passcard and pointed us towrds the lifts. We were a bit surprised that there weren't more people there doing the same thing but it was nice to have the viewing platform all to ourselves, with the exception of the security man. The view was dramatic and it was an inspiring perspective from which to view the city, it was just a shame it wasn't a clearer day.

I'd used my card to try and get into a part of the bank that I shouldn't and so my passcard was blocked when I tried to get out. It didn't cause too much of a problem other than them having to release me.

WTF?

We also stopped at the strangely situated pre-historic evolution exhibit on the bottom floor and had some fun playing with the interactive displays and laughing at the models representing what they thought some of the animals would look like. There was a dinosaur bird with teeth monstrosity which looked liked somehow had made it up that we really liked.

Matt's always a sucker for a funicular so our next stop was the tram to Victoria Peak. The peak used to be a popular picnic area only accessible by sedan chair and so it sounded like quite a nice place to see. After looking around the museum section, we took the very steep ride up the hill and discovered that the top was just a huge shopping centre. There would have been some spectaculour views of the city and the harbour had the day not been so muggy. We did stay there for a while though, exploring the different view points and making the most of the brilliant tourist information that was based in an old tram. He suggested going to the Symphony of Lights tonight because tomorrow there was Earth Hour and so it would not be showing.

View from the top

Is it possible to have too many panoramas? It would appear so

Symphony of lights

We took the funicular and then the ferry back to Hong Kong and went to the 'Avenue of Stars' ready for the 'Symphony of Lights', an apparently 'spectacular multimedia show that combines Hong Kong's most famous skyscrapers in a dazzling light and sound display'. We got to the viewing platform quite early which was good because it soon filled up. The display was interesting to see but given that the array of brightly-lit, imposing skyscrapers penetrating the sky is quite a remarkable sight in itself, sticking a few lasers on them whilst a tune was played was actually a bit underwhelming. I'm sure of you watch it on Youtube it will look just as good if not better.

I loved walking through Hong Kong though. It really made me realise why I found  Pudong in Shanghai so disappointing. You still see the majesty of the skyscrapers but when you get in and amongst the base of them, they are anchored in variety and character and interest. You can see so much of every walk of life and it throbs with people and life and the sound of a million different interests. It's a mental and beautiful place to be.

We made our way back to Mongkok through Temple Street Night Market. My phone was being naughty and wouldn't charge so Matt looked for another charger and we both comtemplated the array of stuff on sale. After the markets of stuff there were markets of fortune tellers where tens of mystics sat with astrology charts and other toold of their craft. I'm scared stiff of all that stuff but did enjoy looking at the intense concentration on the faces of people who were having their fortunes told. After a brief stop to goggle at a street-karaoke stall, we made our way back to our tower block hotel.

29th March - Hangzhou to Hong Kong (at last!)

Given our experiences with the buses so far, we set off to the train station at 10am to make sure that we got to the train station in plenty of time. Our departure time wasn't until 2pm and it's only 5km but the journey had taken well over and hour before and we wanted to leave time to pick up some food for the 18hr train journey.

 We had hoped that 10am was too early for people to be leaving the parks and other tourist attractions along the route and for the first time in almost a week, the bus was not at all busy. This was a massive relief since our bags seem fuller than ever. We arrived with hours to spare and bags too big for taking them exploring.

We dawdled around the supermarket, taking pictures of entertaining signs and choosing what we wanted, before sitting outside for a bit of a picnic. We'd managed to avoid the disgusting sweet red bean paste that has plagued my search for meat-free food and found that we had bought discgustingly sweet bread instead. I'm beginning to think that nice bread was just a figment of my imagination. And even if it isn't, then I can't believe that I'm stupid enough to keep buying stuff that looks like bread. You can smell a sweet vanilla-like fragrance wafting from it whenever you bite into a long-anticipated sandwich, but it's hard to discern in the supermarket for some reason. And you can only sniff bread so much before you start to look very suspicious and gross!

At the train station it didn't take long to find out that our train didn't actually leave from the station we had booked the ticket at. It left from a station quite a long way away and no-one had bothered to mention it. We didn't even know there was another station somewhere and it was out of the area covered by any maps we had.

We spoke to a lady on the help desk and though she was actually helpful, we discovered that the station we needed was 'about an hour's bus-ride away'. As I mentioned earlier 5km by bus can take a long time and we had no idea where to catch the bus or how to say where we wanted to get off.

We spoke to a taxi driver and loaded our bags into the boot. He saw our anxiety and refused to use the meter and so we had to unload our bags again and move to the taxi behind. He also refused to use the meter at first (though he did ask for a third less money) but eventually relented. Taxi's use of meters in Hangzhou is quite strictly enforced and we didn't fancy being pulled over on the way.  Especially since he was trying to rip us off in the first place as it only cost just over half what he was asking.

We got the the East Station still in plenty of time and sat around for an hour. When the train came we chucked our stuff on our beds and decided to relax over a game of cards for a change. We were half way through our first game when a lady came and started gesticulating at us to move our stuff.  It turns out that not only did we get a ticket from a different station, we also had a different bed to the one our little Chinese note had stated we wanted. Instead of being in the middle bunk, we were in the top one, which incidentally, was closer to the ceiling than the luggage rack was so we had less room to sleep in than our bags! Also, it meant that when the occupants of the bottom bunk that we had to sit on decided to lie down at 7pm, we were forced onto our tiny shelf of a bed.

I will not miss Chinese trains and their usual cacophony of gross noises. People mindlessly crunching their way through big bags of sunflower seeds for hours and sucking the skin off chicken feet really does me in but there was toilet roll in the loos for once so it wasn't all bad.

Although they promptly turned the light off at 10pm, sleep was a lot longer coming and was quite hot and sticky. We tried to open the vent so it faced us but the guy in the bed under Matt was having none of it.

28th March - Hangzhou (still)

Matt is now ill so I'm trying to make him relax before our next long journey because I know how rubbish he's going to feel.

Tried to contact Barclays again but still no luck with Skype - I did reach a record of 10 mins 27 secs holding time though.

We took the very long bus trip into town to just to try and get cash. We got on at the first stop and so were early enough to get a seat. We sat on the side facing seat between both doors in the hope of maximum air circulation. so Matt spent most of the journey with his knee nestled in some old guys crotch. It filled up to bursting at the next stop and most people had their usual jollies trying to cram on but there was one bloke who didn't enjoy the scrap to get in and started kicking and punching the doors and windows when it appeared that there wasn't room for him. It seemed to work though because they let him on and no-one seemed to mind or even really look.  Many of them were busy trying to stay upright and watching the particularly violent version of 'You've Been Framed' that was playing on the TV  at the front. In fact, no-one seemed to mind much: Matt spent most of the journey with his knee firmly nestled in a guys crotch. The bloke was totally unconcerned but Matt complained of a sweaty knee a few times.

When we finally reached the ATM,  Smile had come through for us so at least we could pay the hostel. It was the least we could do after he'd let us run up a bill eating and sleeping there when he knew we couldn't get cash.

There were still plenty of things to do and see at the lake and the city but it was another sunny, hot day so we headed straight back before Matt got much more ill.

Matt went to sleep and I tried to email Barclays. I was quite ranty, angry and long-winded by this time so banged on for ages about how they'd left me stranded and without any options before I sent it and immediately recieved an error message for that too. I looked elsewhere on their website for an actual address rather than a link and found out that they were doing 'essential maintenance' until tomorrow - when we leave for Hong Kong!

Hostel garden at night

27th March - Hangzhou

We spent all morning sorting out our couch-surfing profile so we can hopefully save some money in some places. I don't enjoy writing about myself in that way though and the internet keeps stopping so it was an infuriatingly slow process.

We took a walk around lake on the Su Causeway and enjoyed stretching our legs and taking in all of the beautiful viewpoints. There were lots of pretty pagodas, bridges, flowers and attractive scenes. I'm too peaky to describe it properly so hopefully Matt will stick up a picture or two. They did all have mega cool but slightly abstract names too but don't remember any.

 

There were also many more couples dressed up and doing photoshoots. It looks like Matt might be right though because a lot of couples were dressed up in other outfits too and they weren't the kind of thing I could see boys back home agreeing to. At West Lake we saw lots of red carp and a really impressively huge peacock, which fanned its tail and prompted the first round of applause that we've heard in China.  We took an electric buggy down a very long causeway and then hired a tandem bike - something we've been planning to do for ages. The brakes weren't great though and with the weight of us both, it wouldn't stop when we went down slight hills and so we took it back and and exchanged it for individual . They were quite rickety and battered and the seats weren't adjustable so my knees were by my ears but they did feel safer and we really enjoyed exploring more parks and more of the lake.

In the evening, we went to find a duck restaurant that we'd heard about on the city side. The lady there told me I had a 'beautiful nose'. As well as 'double eyelids' it seems the Chinese also covet long, thin beaky noses! The food was really nice and I was glad we'd not left China without eating the one meat that I'm quite partial to. They carve the duck for you and then fry up all the carcass with chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander and bring it to your table so you can pick at the bits. It's a bit grim but at least they left the gross bits out. They call the heart, tongue, gizzard (what is a gizzard anyway?) and liver, 'the four treasures' and you have to pay extra for those so guess we lucked out!

Because we'd spent up, we had to go to the ATM. This always fills us with dread in China because they don't all accept our cards. We tried 3 ATMs and none of them would work. We walked around trying to find the 'Agricultural Bank of China' because that one has saved us before but the ABC refused to give us cash too. If it wasn't for Matt's calm insistence that it would be ok I think I would have freaked out.

We got a taxi back to email them and look online but stupid Barclays had locked my online banking too because 'of a problem with the debit card'. I tried to call but the internet was so crappy that Skype wouldn't work for more than 10 mins so I never got past the holding music. Matt emailed Smile and HSBC so hopefully they'll be better but it is weird that none of them would work.

We shared a beer and a 'chat' with the Chinese people sharing our dorm but I think they regretted asking us when we all struggled to communicate.  They did kindly offer us some of their snacks though. I asked if it was fruit and they agreed but when I saw them pick it out of a shell and caught the moonlit glint of the tiny little organs hanging out, I gave it to Matt to try. He said it was okay but declined the later offer of a baby lobster, chewed whole.

26th March - Hangzhou

Woke up feeling a bit better but chesty. We didn't get out and exploring as soon as we'd hoped because we spent ages trying to find a hotel that was available and that we could afford in Hong Kong. Booked one before we booked the train tickets as we were concerned that it might not be available after we'd done the monstrous bus trek into the city and back.

We managed to board the bus just fine now it was no longer longer the weekend and there were just enought seats for everyone.  We actually thought we might have a pleasant trip around the lake but a few hundred yards down the road the bus zombies came. Hoards of people from young to mega old came staggering towards the bus, grappling with one another to get one. From the different perspective of being on the bus looking outwards, you can see that they actually enjoy it and many of them are grinning as join in the tussle - the old 'uns especially.

As we should have anticipated, we couldn't get train on the day we wanted so we have an extra day in crazy town and have probably wasted £30 on one night of the Hong Kong hostel. If only we could book trains online!

We explored the city a little and found a nice pedestrianised street, with traditional style building and shed-loads of tourists. There was a food section too and so we entertained ourselves by studying the horrifying array of 'stick food' including whole baby ducks, all twisted and deformed looking, and lots of insides of things. There were also glistening brown goose heads and lots more general grimness. It's said that the Chinese eat everything with legs and wings other than tables and aeroplanes and it would appear that it's absolutely true.

Wried to walk through the city but I was flagging my this time and we weren't exploring properly - mostly just trying to find our way back to bus stop. After quite a while, we finally found it and waited around for bit before checking the sign more closely (we hadn;t seen the point before since it was in Chinese!) and realising that buses stopped at 4.20! That's even worse than Shanghai metros!

We had no choice but to splash out and get a taxi back but at least it was on the meter and we didn't have to haggle. It didn't drop us off at the hostel but it wasn't too far away and so we didn't have too long to walk back. And we got the added bonus of stopping to watch a bunch of women doing some sort of synchronised, flag waving, drum dance. It wasn't as tribal as I make that sound either, just one of the forms of excercise for all that is practiced in China. We've seen groups of adults doing fun forms of workouts all over the place. There's usually somewhere between 10 and 20 people, aged from early 20s to late 80s and practising whichever routine they have, in whichever public square is nearby. It's a great idea and they do it completely unconsciously and without anyone mocking. It really seems to make a difference to old people here too and I haven't seen a single one who isn't able to run whilst carrying a heavy load.

25th March - Hangzhou

We woke up after a lovely sleep, took a long hot shower in the comedy bathroom (blinds closed), helped ourselves to the free goodies of a comb and some toothbrushes and went back to our hostel.

I was still feeling crappy so enjoyed some time in the sun in their beautiful garden and had some more tasty vegetables before pulling myself together to go into town on the proper bus.

The bus turned up as full as the other buses we'd seen yesterday. We weren't in any rush to get anywhere and so stood back to watch the mayhem. Despite the bus already looking stuffed, at least another 20 people crammed on to it. A couple of those who were unsuccessful had to push the last person hanging off the bus inside, as someone else pulled shut the automatic doors. We quickly gave up and took a walk down the the road to see what we coud find instead.

We were so glad we did because we found a beautiful park instead. It was still crammed with people but also had loads of gorgeous flowers and ways to wander. A lot of it was quite fake but it was still a green and sunny day so we just meandered about and tried to see all the pretend 'attractions', including a man-made waterfall and a 'windmill'. There also seemed to be brides posing in beauty spots everywhere we turned and though some of them looked very traditional, some were more unconventional. Matt surmised that many of them were fake and just playing dress-up for the camera but that still seemed odd to me because they were all in couples. I can't imagine many blokes agreeing to dress up like they were getting married when they weren't. I'd like to hear the women approach the subject if that's the case.

We found a path to hike up the mountain and get away from the crowds. I was feeling like a bit of exercise might actually do me good but I wasn't counting on quite so many steps. Eventually we got so far it was impossible to turn back and the way signs did have little motivational paragraphs estolling the virtues of keeping fit so we kept going. The view at the top was great and you could see the cluster of lakes and the city beyond. I might leave the description to the photos though because I'm running out of ways to describe nice things.

We were stopped by a guy to look at some 'Golden fish' in a kind of muddy well but I just felt sorry for them. I was so grateful that someone had spoken to us for once that I offered to hold him by ankles so he could fish them out, but he wasn't having any of it so that was the end of a lovely new friendship.

The walk back down was ok but since Matt had seen a disused toboggan run through the trees, he just didn't appreciate it the same.

We stopped by the waterfall to slag it off and to watch people posing but it was quite nice really. And we saw a bloke do a brilliant slip, fall and run off pretending that it didn't hurt routine so that was a bonus too.
I was starting to droop a little so we took the park route as far back to the hostel as we could and walked the rest of the way down the crazy road of bonkers Chinese tourists and insane coach drivers.

24th March - Shanghai to Hangzhou

We saw Mike from Xi'an at breakfast and briefly caught up with him before spending a little time chatting to Krishan and some American friends he'd made. One of them told a story about how he'd woken up in the dorm to see the guy opposite watching hard-core porn so we were extra-pleased to have had a room to ourselves. We haven't spoken to people much while we've been here because there's an odd atmosphere and because most people don't seem to be particularly friendly so it was nice to have a chat before we left.

We checked out again and took a couple of metros to the biggest train station we'd ever seen. It was set up more like an airport and was really busy but calm. It wasn't possible to see or hear any trains because we were on a different level.  You hung around in the waiting room until your gate opened and then took an escalator down to where the train was waiting.

The train itself was a 'Z' train and more like a plane than a train. There was lots of legroom and 'inflight' type magazines in the back of the seats and enough room for luggage for the first time this trip. It moved pretty niftily and and was really smooth, without the rocking and heavy braking we've become used to.

We looked out of the window at the interestingly spired residential buildings on the way, and were really impressed on our arrival when 2 people got on each carriage to clean and swivel each row of seats around so they were facing the other way. After this it all went a bit wrong.

Matt couldn't access the information on how to reach the hostel on his phone but remembered needing the No.7 bus, which we saw waiting outside the station. The bus was boiling hot and absolutely rammed full of people. After the bus got stuck in traffic and I started feeling faint, I tried to ask two young women about whether they know which the stop for the zoo was, but they didn't know and could not see it on the sign of the bus route either.

We got off a few stops (but quite a long while) down the road. We called the hostel but although the man was friendly, he couldn't do much but tell us the get a bus or a taxi. All the buses that went past were so full we would never have been able to fit on them, even if we had the ability to get ourselves to the front of the crush and didn't have our bags.  We tried hailing taxis but the rare one that did stop, just blankly refused when we showed them where we wanted to go on the the map. It turned out that we'd got off the bus exactly at the opposite side to where we wanted to be.

We decided to give it a while to see if it got any less busy and found a place to sit by the lake and watch the sun go down. There was a very pretty sunset behind the mountains but the crowds did not abate at all. It was now several hours since we had got of the train and we were tired and very hungry and I was feeling really ill.

We went back to the bus-stop and a long wait and a big paddy later, we were really relieved when we finally caught a bus and did not have to wrestle to get on it. Several minutes later, it stopped in middle of nowhere and turfed everybody off. We had no idea where we were and thankfully the bus driver was patient enough to speak to the man from the Hostel and explain that it was the end of the line.

John, the hostel owner, tried to explain to a still patient Matt which bus to get next and where we needed to change to a different bus but there wasn't another bus in sight and we had no idea how we were going to explain where we needed to get off.

Cold, hungry, tired and very, very fed-up, we were starting to despair. Luckily, John called us back soon after and said that his wife had come back with the car and so could come to fetch us. I don't think I've been more relieved about anything so far this trip.

Finally at Emerald hostel, 6 hours after we'd got off the train, John gave us tea and food and then told us that our room had been double booked. He was really apologetic and explained that the hotel wasn't very far away and that he would give us a lift there and also pay the difference between our hostel dorm and the private hotel room. Given how crappy I was feeling I was actually quite grateful.

The hotel was a bit grubby in general but the room was ok. The double bed was really hard but was clean and had lovely, comfy pillows. There was also a sprung mattressed single bed too but I think we're just used to sleeping on solid beds now.

Interestingly, the 'wall' between the bedroom and private bathroom was just made of glass so, should anyone desire, they could lay in bed and watch whoever was using the shower or the loo. Or maybe it was designed so you could use the facilities whilst still watching the TV, I'm really not sure. We played about rolling the blind up and down for a while but it didn't work properly so we soon got bored.

We were also quite entertained by the sign attached to the wall behind the loo which warned occupants to 'beware of landslides'. I wasnt sure what kind of landslides they were referring too but I vowed to take care to be vigilant!

23rd March - Shanghai

Woke up feeling pretty crappy but didn't want to waste another day in Shanghai so Matt planned a days travel itinerary so we could do all the other stuff we'd wanted to do.

We started off the day by going to the Post Office to post Eve's present. It wasn't too difficult but I did wish that I'd had the forethought to ask someone to write down what the present was in Chinese instead of having to spoil the surprise by stating what was in in on the customs declaration form they stick on the front. We also tried to post a few other things home but after the guy had spent ages processing it all, we decided that it wasn't worth the price of posting it and asked him for it back. Considering how much messing around he'd had to do he was quite pleasent about it all - which is more than most of the other people we've come across in public service roles can manage.

We then took the metro to find the electronics market which was meant to be at one of the stations. We searched the station and round about it a little but couldn't see it. It was grey, damp and cold and the area was pretty rough looking so we didn't venture too far. I was secretly relieved to be spared the wet and nippy trudge around a load of stuff I would not recognise or ever work out how to use but I did feel sorry for Matt because he was looking forward to it. Typically, we spotted it when we were already on the Metro and heading to the next place but Matt refused to go back.

Next stop was Pudong, the area across the river where all of the skyscrapers were. It wasn't what we expacted and was very run-down. We'd expected to see suited business people glued to their mobile phones and on their way to their next lunch meeting but just seemed to be a combination of high-end business and low-end social housing. It was quite odd to see where the base of the sky-scrapers originated when they'd looked so impressive from the Bund. After freezing our butts off for a while, we thought we'd head to the area of the Buddhist temple, have a gander at the giant jade buddha residing there and try to find some of the vegetarian food that the guidebook claimed would be abundant.

The Metro stop was named after the Jing'an temple and it wasn't hard to find when we got out of the station. It's golden curling roof made a stunning contrast with the adjacent high-rises and it looked totally out of the place in the city. Stranger still, when we got closer, we started to wonder if it was the wrong place as the bottom level seemed to be occupied by expensive shops and boutiques.

It didn't look open and we were getting hungry so we circled it looking for any one of the vegetarian restaurants that were supposed to cater to the droves of Buddhist visitors arriving there every year. When we couldn't find one we tried the Tourist Info, hoping that we might be met with more enthusiasm than we've exerienced so far. We were almost overwhelmed by their indifference but one of them did at least bother to let us know that the nearest vegetarian restaurant was apparently a bus ride away.

We really could not be bothered with the buses and so looked at what was on offer inside the metro station. We found a 'Gourmet Noodle' place that sold vegetable noodles and so stopped there before I got too hungry grumpy. It was vastly disappointing and seemed to contain some weird sponge-like animal/vegetable but there nothing much too offensive about noodles in watery veg stock.

The only higlight of the day was finding a Carrefour and actually getting our hands on some much desired and eagerly searched for French bread and blue cheese! Carrefour has been the staple of our European travels and so finding one that sold a few continental bits was pretty heavenly after a rubbish day.

22nd March-Shanghai

Up for free breakfast but went back to bed because I felt really tired though I wasn't sure why. Figured that we wouldn't normally be able to though so made the best of it and slept until after lunch time.

The food hall at the metro station we transferred at was really impressive and we spent quite a while wandering around it and marvelling at the range of things to eat, from actually quite delicious looking to downright scary.

We stopped at a place that bizarrely sold, amongst other things, fish scotch eggs. Anyone who knows Matt will know his passion for scotch eggs and will therefore know that he was powerless to resist.  It was was covered in a very strange textured fish instead of sausage and was floating in some sort of stock but it was quite tasty.

We then went to take a look at the French Concession part of town. Found a gorgeous little shop and found Eve and Dan's wedding present. The girl in there was very sweet and  personalised the gifts while we ran to the ATM. She was even going to take us to the Post Office to send it but I didn't have the cool card I'd bought in Xi'an with me and couldn't remember the 2nd half of the postcode. She was so lovely that she offered to take us tomorrow, even though she wasn't at work and would have to get the girl who was working to call her so she could come out. She also posed for some photos so we can send Eve and Dan a picture of exactly who made their present.

It had started raining by this point and we seemed to be the only people in Shanghai who didn't have a brolly. We popped into another shop and bought a long-over luggage tag for Matt and they were kind enough to wrap and seal our other presents in plastic bags so that they didn't get damaged by the rain.

I'd been complaining that my hair needed cutting and so we popped into a hairdressers that we'd seen on the way back. I had no way to communicate what I wanted and so just let them get on with it. The hair wash was just fantastic. They soap up your hair by squirting clear liquid onto your head and massaging it as you sit upright in a chair. The massage was the loveliest thing I've felt since we set off but relaxing into it seemed to bring on a cold and by the time I'd laid over the sink to have it washed out, my throat was feeling sore and my head was getting stuffy.

The hairdresser cut my hair with intense concentration, though he didn't cut much off at a time, he cut the same section of hair again and again until it got panic-worthy short. All the while I could see Matt sat behind me and was trying to work out the various faces he was trying not to make. After a long while, the hairdresser was satisified that he'd cut enough and pulled out the hairdryer. He straightened it to within an inch of its life as he dried it and eventually framed it around my face in a way that knew would not last a minute as soon as I hit the moisture outside. Needless to say, I now look rather butch and masculine but at least I only paid £8 for the priviledge and wont need another haircut all year. Matt seemed tempted by a cute manga cut but we had to head back for the stupidly early last Metro so maybe tomorrow.

Feeling pretty shoddy by the time we got back so crawled into bed with a Lemsip.

21st March - Shanghai

I woke up early on the train and watched the Chinese people preparing their giant pots of noodles and flasks of tea. They were slurping and burping away as usual and it was making me feel queasy so I stuck my earplugs in and went back to bed.

We arrived in Shanghai about midday and quite easily navigated the Metro to our super-huge hostel, where we checked in to our 4 bed dorm, sorted out a few bits (including the lost art of machine washing our own clothes), had a quick chat with an English guy called Krishan and headed back out to do some exploring.
In the city we walked along Bund, the area alongside the river and were fascinated by what we saw. The Pudong skyline hosts a range of skyscrapers that are simultaneously beautiful, hideous and impressive. It was, until recently, just an area of marshland but was declared a 'special economic zone' and is now the home to these ultra-modern, if not futuristic, giants. We were not sure whether to consider them ecological monstrosities or architectural artwork so we just stood in awe of them for a while and then used the 'panoramic sweep' function of our camera to try to capture the view.

As we sat trying to work out the guidebook recommendations for food, we were caught up in a photoshoot with very sweet young woman who, from our experience coud have been anywhere between 16 and 25. She was initially just posing in front of us and sneakily pointing at us so we invited her over for a proper picture. She was so coy and bashful but seemed chuffed to bits.

Then we headed up East Nanjing Road, where the first department stores in China opened in 1920's, and where modernism and consumerism have helped lead the way in radically changing China and pushing it to the forefront of fashion and business.

The street glared with guady neon as far as the eye could see but yet on closer inspection, there were many designer shops with vast, classy and extremely expensive window displays. There were huge screens displaying super-bright, pixelated information, skyscrapers lined with lights and even a (disgustingly small) fishtank full of sharks and giant turtles. In addition, there were also countless McDonald's, coffee shops and streets hawkers selling heel wheels for shoes and flying, spinny LED whizzy things.

The dreaded hunger arrived again and we went into a little place with a limited menu and pictures. I showed them my phrase to ask them to point out the vegetarian things on the menu and she pointed at the 'vegetable noodle' symbol in my book and then back at the board. I was hoping for something different so also ordered some spring rolls. The noodles came with a hefty serving of chopped liver nestling in the top and pasty sausage balls lurking under the surface, and the spring rolls were very mushy so I set Matt to work tackling the first while I attempted the second.

Walked to People's Square and Matt started wanting a coffee. He's never liked  coffee but had a free one at the hostel the other day and now seems hooked. We went into a little coffee shop that sold tasty looking cakes but didn't have enough money on us and had to abandon ship at the counter. We ended up in McDonalds trying to get him a hit. He compained that it was weak so I worry for the future.

We had to take the metro back to the hostel at the early hour of 9pm but since the last metro is ridiculously at 9.27pm, we didn't want to get stranded and have to negotiate the bus system since it's apparently even difficult for Mandarin speakers to navigate.

20th March - Xi'an to Shanghai

We checked-out of the hostel for the second time and made our way to the 'Muslim quarter', where there were backstreets of stalls selling all sorts of conterfeit and cheesy things. James had to buy some warmer things for the Trans-Siberian leg of his journey and we had lots of fun watching and helping him barter. The prices were inflated to at least 6 times what they were worth and many of the people selling on he stalls could be quite good humoured if approached the right way.  James did get on the wrong side of one woman though and she hurled abuse at him all the way down the street.

Matt was tired of his innappropriate Chairman Mao bag already and although he didn't take too long finding the one he wanted, seemed to take forever choosing the colour. His bartering skills were quite impressive though and he bargained the bloke down to just 41Yuan.  I quite liked the same bag and since my rice sack bag was perishing unsurprisingly quickly, I was getting quite needy. However, since we already had not one but two matching coats, I didn't want to take it much further.

We stopped for lunch where Matt had local speciality - Yang Rou Pao Muo. It's a kind of lamb soup with shredded bread and noodles but the meat looked far too flobbly for me so I had beef noodles but without the beef. At least they were accommodating though because quite often they just refuse to serve me once I show them my little sign.

After a bit of dried fruit shopping to try and keep the vitamin levels up and a trip back to fetch me a matching bag after all, we said our goodbyes to James and headed to the train station.

The queues at the station were horrific. We had to join one of about 8 queues stretching the out into the square just to get through the door. Once inside, we headed to our gate where they seem to have a special queuing system. Basically, this involves anyone who can't be bothered queueing down the middle while the less patient jam themselves down either side of this queue until eventually no-one can move and we're all just a tangle of bodies and bags.

The train itself wasn't bad though, even though we had a 16 hour journey. Now we knew that they take your ticket so they can wake you up before your stop, we were a little more relaxed. The Chinese are disgusting eaters though so I had to keep going for walks when the bloke next to me started clacking and panting his way through the obligatory pile of stinky food that they all seem to carry. Everyone seems to travel with a carrier bag at least half their size and just eat constantly for the entire journey.

The train company also put you to bed which is quite interesting. They start warning you about 9.30 so that you can have a wash and fill up your bottles with hot water, then a man comes round and closes the curtains and moves anything dangerous off the tables, and then about 10pm they turn all the lights off so you have to go to bed. It's actually quite a relaxing process.

19th March - Xi'an

We checked out of the hostel and kept our fingers lightly crossed that we were able to book tickets for tonight - just because otherwise we'd wasted our time doing the hateful bag-pack. We collected James and found a booth nearby the hostel where bookings could be made without having to infiltrate the train station and, athough the lady was very helpful, there was nothing available until tomorrow.

We weren't too bothered about the tickets because we hadn't had time to explore the city or it's walls properly. We were heading down a street dedicated entirely to the sale of calligraphy related items when we bumped into Henry, who James had met the night before and was from the south of England.

We needed to eat before we walked the 13km perimeter of the walls and discovered a street stall selling nice looking vegetable noodles that had actual vegetables in and not just soup. I think it may have been the best food we've eaten so far in China.

Ready for action, we headed up onto the wall. The wall was quite impressive in itself but the views that it offered were mostly unremarkable and usually pretty dull. We mostly saw the back-end of buildings, tatty gardens and wastegrounds.

Part of the way round, we found some statues of the terracotta warriors and had a great time dressing them up in our clothes and posing with them. There was a shop behind where they were stood and the ladies in there were very amused by our efforts. We spoke to them for a while and I tried on a traditional Chinese dress - it wasn't hard to put on but they still insisted on sending someone in to dress me. I was amazed that they found one to fit me but when I checked the label it was XXXL. I wish I'd got a photo though because really liked it, even though it had no chance of making it into my practical capsule wardrobe. There was a nice lady who worked there called Belinda and who taught be a little about Chinese marriages and encouraged me to get a wealthy husband. She also said that my nose was 'lovely' though so I think she might have been a bit crazy and I might hang fire before ditching Matt just yet.

Further around the wall we saw our first appealling section: the Lama Temple. It had very attractive buildings and some lovely gardens but we couldn't get off the wall to take a look at it.  A map that we had also indicated that there was a big garden further round but it was called the 'Unambitious Garden' so we didn't hold out much hope for it. As it happened, it was so unambitous that we missed it altogether.
We did come across a Chinese driving school though and that was much more interesting. It was basically a patch of wasteground with a number of obstacles set up around it. It had ramps, home-made traffic cones and bizarrely, a burning pile of rubbish.

Our favourite bit was a section where the driver had to keep the wheels of one side of the vehicle on a kind of ledge. One bloke even took his hands off the wheel to wave them out of the window at us while driving along it. Not sure if he passed but judging by most drivers on the road, he probably got extra credit.
Henry was quite an interesting guy to speak to. He'd done some kind of finance related degree and after a year working, he'd decided that it wasn't for him and that he wanted to pursue his interest in Chinese culture and language.He had spent the last year in China learning Mandarin and teaching English. He'd planned to stay in China for longer but had met a French girl and fallen in love. She'd gone back to France and he was doing a few weeks travelling before heading to join her. He was planning on completing a Mastersin France, despite not really speaking the language. He figured that he had more Mandarin than most people on the course and could read French ok so would do alright. And for a measly £300 to complete the qualification, it was easier to do than in the UK. He really was a super bloke though and I enjoyed talking to him.
After one more short stop to marvel at the ear-splitting warbling of a singer at a small public gathering we could see through the arrow slits in the wall, we completed the wall walk.

There was a little exhibition of more traditional forms of entertainment at a stand in the courtyard and we spent a while 'coloured-cock kicking'. We've seen lots of people playing with these kind of shuttlecock things, which have coloured feathers on top and little weights to counterbalance them on the bottom, but we had no idea how hard they are to play with. We've seen everyone from young children to very old men standing in groups and playing keepy-up with them but we had very little control over the thing.

Next stop was the little restaurant near our hostel. It didn't look like much of a place and the chairs looked like people had been taking bites out of them but it came recommended and so we gave it a go. They had an 'English' menu which had so many hilarious translations on that it was hard to choose, though some sounded so disgusting that you'd never want to eat them. In the end we opted for 'Ants on a tree', which was, according to Henry, a more literal translation, and 'Customer get angry', which was actually the nicest dish they brought out so we're not sure where the name came from. James took lots of pictures of the menu so will have to remember to ask him to email them to me, along with the picture of him holding a terracotta warrior baby but with my head!

The evening's activity at the hostel was a quiz. We were quite looking forward to playing as a team and James was trying to fire everyone up by saying we were going to wipe the floor with them but then the hostel split us all up into teams that they'd made. My team got the pitiful score of 5, which reminded me of the time I went to the pub quiz with Heather and Julie and we ended up pretending we weren't teachers because we were doing so badly. We would have scored more highly if I could have persuaded a very insistent guy that cats aren't part of the Chinese zodiac and fish do have hearts. Matt's team also got 5 though and the winning team (James' of course!) only got 8 so it wasn't too shameful.

18th March - Xi'an

I felt very ropey when we woke up this morning but after tea in bed from Emma and toast in bed from Matt, I started to feel more human again.

We'd arranged to go and see the Terracotta Warriors with James and were planning to try to make it by public transport instead of taking a pricey tour. It all ran quite smoothly but after a late start and 2 fairly long bus rides, we were concerned that 2.30 was quite late to be getting there. We needn't have worried because, although it was interesting, there wasn't that much to see.

We were found by a very sweet tour guide called Lena, and she encouraged Matt and James to use their driving licenses to get the student discount, saving them half of the hefty £15 entrance fee. She agreed to show us the pits backwards because we'd read that it was better to save the best until last. She also confirmed what we'd heard about Emporer Qin Shi Huang's tomb not being worth the long walk to see it because it hadn't been excavated and was basically just a hill.  It is believed that there are rivers of mercury running through it.
The surroundings of the warriors was not at all what any of us were expecting. We'd expected more of the 'farmland' that they were found on and instead it was all concrete and airport hanger style buildings.
The first pit we looked at had not been excavated fully yet. It is called the 'command centre' and the soldiers there are the generals and the higher ranking officers. They have been pieced together carefully and reinstated into formation in one section but there are also areas where there are piles of crumbling soldiers still piled on the ground and partially covered by earth.

The second pit contains around 1300 warriors and horses and is still being excavated. From what I could gather, they did not want to excavate all areas yet and are waiting until they had found a way to preserve the paint on the soldiers because it had very quickly eroded from the quarry that they'd dug up previously. Only one bit of colour remained on one soldier and he was kept in a glass case.

The third pit was definitely the most impressive and contained row upon row of terracotta soldiers, each with unique faces and markings. 2000 are on show but it is believed that there are 6000 soldiers here - it really brought home how vast and crazy the whole endeavour was. The thought of the work and craftsmanship that went into them is mind-blowing and the murder of all of those who slaved away to make them is unthinkable.
In typical Chinese style, it is possible to get special photographs of the warriors. Because you can't go near them, they have stands with carved backdrops where you can have your picture taken so it looks as though you are stood amongst them. Stranger still, it is also possible to get your face super-imposed onto a warriors body. The example pictures on the wall were really quite frightening.

Lena was very interesting to talk to and was really interested in comparing countries ao we learned as much about China as we did about the warriors. One of the stranger things that we found out was that Chinese people find 'double eyelids' more attractive and that some people even have plastic surgery to add an extra layer of eyelid. It hadn't even registered with any of us that there was such variation in eyelids and so we spent much of the time after we found out just staring at people and identifying their eyelid type.

After we said goodbye to Lena, we decided to treat our hangovers to a Dico's. It tuned out to be like KFC but not so nice but it did do the trick and set us up for a long bus journey.

Back at the train station we were planning to book the tickets to go to Shanghai tomorrow but the queue to even get into the station was insane. There were several and they stretched the whole length of the station so we decided to leave it until tomorrow and go to say our goodbyes to Emma, who was leaving for Pingyao.
The second bus back to the hostel stopped in a bit of a strange place and at a weird angle but everyone got off so we followed. I noticed that the bus in front of us was also parked at a jaunty angle and that there was a guy sat in front of it, looking dazed and holding his head. I thought that he'd been hit by the bus and we were about to go and see if he was okay when the bus driver appeared. He was holding a tyre iron and was clearly the cause of the guy's injuries as a nu,ber of passengers were holdinghim back to prevent him having another go. We bid a hasty retreat and went to say our goodbyes instead.

17th March - Xi'an

We'd heard about a free tour run by the hostel and so had arranged to go with Emma and James. James was staying at the sister hostel down the road and so, after he'd shown off his fancy room and massive shower, we headed to Shaanxi History Museum with the rest of the group and our lovely guide, Angel.

Angel was a Chinese history student and voluntarily ran the trips whenever she had the time. She was really very sweet and worked very hard trying to explain the exhibits in the museum to us. There was a Malaysian guy on the tour who she asked to help out translating once in a while but she did a valiant job. The museum was huge and so we spent the most time focusing on just a few dynasties, including the Qin and the Han. It was interesting but we were quite tired and it was dark and hot so we struggled to maintain focus.

Angel then took us for lunch, which was great because she ordered for the table and we just picked what we wanted. Most of it was pretty nice and it was really good to know that we were definitely going to be able to eat something we liked without it being veg noodles. There were still a few odd bits though and Matt bravely made his way through a funny looking clear soup containing spam and some pretty hideous looking preserved duck eggs without wincing too much.

We chatted some more to Tracy, an American girl who was in China teaching English at one of the places that we plan to go, and her parents, Tom and Diane, who were over visiting. It was interesting to learn more about teaching English overseas and I found myself wishing that I had got my TEFL under my belt before we came.

After dinner, Angel pointed us in the direction of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and mentioned that there was a fountain show there which started at 4. The group split up a little and we explored the surrounding park with Emma and James and stopped to watch the hundreds of kites being flown in the nearby square. It was a sunny day and we spent a while pointing out our favourite kites and our favourite people flying them. The winner was a monk with a big yellow smiley kite.

Being around so many kids, I also noticed that I am becoming desensitised to the fact they are all bare-bummed. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before Chinese people have this odd belief that it is better for a child's health if they leave their bums and bits exposed. Babies are potty trained early and have splits in the groins of their trousers so that fresh air can circulate. This was particularly odd to see in Beijing when it was -6 degress and the kids were wearing clothes several inches thick but had their bare bums on freezing cold stone benches when they were sat down. Now we've been here a while, I hardly find it strange when a see a little todger hanging out or a bare bum in the air when a toddler falls over.

Anyway, the fountain show was spread over a huge area and was actually quite impressive. The fountains 'danced' for ages to the classical tunes and there were lots of people watching and enjoying the show. Most of them totally ignored the signs to stay out of the fountain area and walked in the middle, blocking the view, but it did mean that we got to see a few people pelted with water so that made up for it a little.

Since it was St. Patrick's day, the sister hostel down the the road were having some celebrations in the evening and we decided to spend the evening down there. Our hostel was having 'traditiona games night' though so we hung around to learn how to play Mahjong first. It's quite like rummy and not really a complicated game but the tiles had Chinese characters and the guy explaining wasn't very clear so it was quite a challenge to get the hang of it. Thankfully, I had the fabulous Emma on my team. Matt was trying to look up the rules online as we played but there are so many regional variations that it wasn't much help to him.

When we finally got to the sister hostel, James was gutted because we'd missed the Chinese girls in sparkly, green, skintight outfits Irish dancing and the "consonant free" covers of Adele songs. It was a fun night though. The hostel had run out of the beer we liked so we kept getting into trouble for sneaking it in from the supermarket and we got to chat to lots of interesting people. I played table football and can now see the fun in it, although I'm really not very good and scored a couple of own-goals.

We were quite merry by the time we got back to our own hostel. The doorbell was broken so we thought that we might have to go back for more but thankfully, we managed to get through to them on the phone. We don't use the phone much but it does come in very handy when we do and has saved us a few times.

16th March - Pingyao to Xi'an

We woke up in our huge bed and I spent the morning catching up on a few emails while Matt did some planning. It's hard not being in touch with people but we hope they know we're thinking of them all constantly.

After a quick trip out into the town we got back to the hostel to ask about the night bus to Xi'an. Mr Dheng had told us that he couldn't book it until 2pm but his wife called earlier and found out that there were no seats left on the night bus. She did however manage to find outt hat there were 2 seats left on the 12.30 bus. Which gave us exactly half an hour before its departure.

We paid for the tickets and quickly ran out to buy some fruit while Mrs Dheng booked the taxi. After an impatient few minutes where Mrs Dheng reassured us that the driver would assist us to get the right bus, the 'taxi' finally arrived at 12.17 and we gathered up all of our bags and rushed out. Once the driver had manually turned his golf buggy around we sped there at the mind-boggling speed of about 4mph. Matt rackoned it was closer to 5mph but judging by the age of the old men who were overtaking us on their bicycles I think that might have been a push. Matt and I were rocking in our seats trying to make it go faster but it trundled on at a steady pace.

When we got to the highway where we were due to catch it, the driver told us it 'may be 10 minutes, may be 20 mins, may be half hour' so we sat watching the large screen TV that was set into an antique looking statue in the middle of the road and appeared to be showing a documentary on Pingyao. It seems the Chinese like an impressive TV stand so I'm waiting for Matt to start getting even grander ideas than the time he wanted to set a telly in the side of the shed.

The bus was reasonably comfortable but constantly vibrated but made our fat bits feel a bit weird. Matt was entertained by watching Chinese films whilst I took advantage of the long journey to write the blog. I stopped after my eyes went funny and just sat back to watch the incredible scenery. We passed cave-dwellings, plains, terraced fields, bodies of water and bridges.

At Xi'an, we thought for a moment they were going to drop us off at a petrol station nowhere near the bus station we were expecting to get to. They didn't but they didn't drop us off at the right bus station either. As we looked at the crappy lonely planet map and tried to locate where we were, we were 'helped' by lots of locals.

We'd tried too call the hostel several times earlier in the day to let them know that we were arriving a day early but each time someone picked up, spoke Chinese and then put the phone down on us. We tried again and this time, if we really shouted, they could hear us. They told us which bus to get on and a friendly local confirmed that it was going in the direction that we needed. A further not-quite-as-friendly local helped us to pay our busfare; he doubled the fare from 1 to 2 Yuan (20p) and split the proceeds with the driver but he did tell tell us where to get off so we didn't care. Meanwhile, Matt discovered that there was protective film over the microphone of the mobile and so that should avoid further screamed conversations in the street.
When we arrived at Hang Tang hostel, it was a hive of activity. We had arrived on 'dumpling night' and the current guests were milling around making dumplings and drinking beer. We were pretty hungry but by the time we'd dropped our stuff off in our room and changed out of our stinky clothes there were only 2 left. They did let us eat them though so we decided we liked them.

We joined one of the groups and spent a really nice evening chatting to a great group of people who were all staying at the hostel but travelling seperately. There was Jordan, an Australian snowboarder who used to work at the hostel where I stayed in Sydney; James, an animated Australian chatterbox who had left his obscenely high earning Deli counter manager job to travel; Emma, a beautiful, sincere nurse who knew a whole manner of interesting facts about things and was also Australian, and Mike, who maintained maps of fibre-optic cables within Manhatten and barely got a chance to get a word in edgeways.

We stayed up late chatting to James and then were chuffed to find that we were sharing a room with Emma and so finished off the evening with a lovely sleepy chat in bed.

Day 44 - 15th March - Pingyao

Upon nearing the train station at about 7.30am, our original ticket was returned to us (so not sure why they didn't just let us keep it) and we squeezed ourselves and our bags to the door. Just outside the station we had the pleasure of an unexpected pick-up and so made it to Harmony Guesthouse without any haggling or uncertainty.

After a welcome drink of hot water, we were shown through the impressive courtyard to our room. The bed was humungous and took up over 80% of the room. Unfortunately, this left little room for anything other than walking to the bathroom or out of the door and so we had to keep the bags on the bed. There was already a bed-top tea-table on there so it was almost a squeeze in the end.

We were offered a chance to share a taxi and guide to see the Wang Family Residence (which made me smile and think of Eve's wanging exploits) and some cave-dwellings where people still live, but it was quite pricey and we've taken out £400 since we arrived in China so we had to refuse. We thought we'd explore the city first and then start looking outside it if we want to later.

The Lonely Planet raves about Pingyao and it's actually in their Top 30 places in China but it wasn't doing so much for us.  There are quite a few 'attractions' but they looked quite dead and included such dubious delights as the 'Rishengchang Financial House Museum' as well as quite a few temples. It was also possible to walk around the city walls but everything was all on one ticket and we were loathe to spend another £30 on one day of looking at stuff we wont remember missing in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't really helping that it was the first dull and overcast day we'd seen in China and we were quite tired. We were initially glad that we were there out of season since Wiki travel suggested that there were 3 times more tourists than the capacity of the city during high season, but it was definitely lacking in sunshine and life.
We found the supermarket and went in to buy some fruit but it was all a little confusing and I guess we were too hungry because we came out armed with all sorts of Chinese munchies and sweets. I think I can see all of the weight we lost in India creeping back on due to my current reliance on carbs and fast-food and there's not even enough room on the floor (or our huge bed!) to do some yoga.

We were determined to try the local specialities after missing out on the steak of Pokhura and the duck of Beijing and so headed to a little cafe restaurant for Pingyao beef and rolled noodles. Matt really enjoyed the beef which was almost like posh corned-beef/pastrami and was served cold. My noodles were like a giant honeycomb of pasta and looked like they may have once belonged to the digestive system of a large mammal but the lady was determined that they complied with my previously prepared written request  to show me the dishes that did not contain any animal. Luckily, she did serve it with a kind of tomato chilli sauce which was quite tasty because otherwise it would have been gooey stodge.

We'd pretty much covered the whole walled section, as well as a brief venture out into the not-very-alluring city outside the town, and it had got pretty cold and started to snow so we headed back to our room for our while.

A too-long nap later and a quick mandarin lesson from the owner, we headed out again to see if darkness had changed the town at all. One of the things that I love about travelling is how different places come alive at night. At home, things either close or become full of drunken people but it seems that in lots of other countries, you really get to see a different side. The whole town seemed to be lit up with Chinese lanterns and the traditional towers that we'd seen earlier were sparkling with fairy lights.

Day 43 - 14th March - Beijing to Pingyao

Packed up, checked out and headed to the subway station to go to the Temple of Heaven. We were hungry by he time we got there and I could not face any more vegetable noodles so, since we had heard that KFC served all sorts of 'proper' rice based meals, we ended up there. I ended up with a shrimp burger, which was very tasty, if not a bit odd, and a welcome relief from pasta.

At the park of the Temple of Heaven, we walked down the 'Long Corridor', which was chock- full of old people playing cards and people selling little animals, bags and hats that they were crocheting on the spot.
The 'Long Corridor' linked 'The Animal Killing Pavilion' to the Main building: the 'Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest'. It was quite impressive building and was architecturally significant because the wooden pillars supported the ceiling without any nails or cement. It was built 1420, was hit by lightening and burnt down in 1889, and was rebuilt in 1890.  It was beautifully decorated with recurring images of dragons, painted in blue, red and gold.

I particularly liked the section with the '70 Year Door'. The emporer's men had built it when he was 70 and was finding it hard to make complete the full procession required of him. He gratefully recieved it but was worried that his kids might get lazy and so decreed that none of them could use it until they were also 70. None of them lived to 70 and so he was the only person to ever use it.  Matt didn't see it though because he was busy taking too many pictures of someone elses wedding.

Other attractions included 'Round Alter' which was based around multiples of the number 9 and had a central spot which 'made your voice sonorous'. Matt stood on it to sing a song but chickened-out so we don't know if it worked or not. The acoustics in there must have been quite good though because there was a man talking so loud on his mobile that he could have been communicating with someone on the moon.
Nearby, there was also the Imperial Vault of Heaven, an octaganol building with an echo wall but Matt lost the ticket at the 'Round Alter' and so we could only peek at it from a distance.

We explored park a little more and found the 'garden of 100 flowers' where all the flowers were wrapped up in green tarp against the cold, as well as unstoppable dancing troup of middle aged people and various singers and musicians - one of which turned out to be a lampost!

We'd been promising ourselves Beijing duck but we had to set off for the train 2 and half hours early because of the traffic so there was no time. After our second fast food joint of the day (the Chinese have ruined McDonald's burgers by making them taste of eyeballs!), I lamented the loss of Indian food and that the only thing that I wanted to try in China was out of reach.

We used the little sign provided by the hostel to catch our first bus and tell the conductor where we wanted to go. Beijing West station is ginormous. The electronic board didn't give platform details but waiting room numbers which filtered off into four different gates, which in turn led to 12 different platforms for that waiting room. Our ticket was swopped for a different one before boarding the train and we assumed it would be the one that opened the gate at Pingyao.

The immediate difference that we noticed compared to Indian trains was that they were warmer, and each bed had its own duvet and pillow. It was  generally much quieter without mobile phones and shouted conversations but there was piped music and we had to have a giggle at the announcements that had been translated into English. Each section also had a giant hot water flask but although I had my supply of tea bags, I didn't have a cup to hold it nor enough head room to drink it in.

Despite the improvement in conditions, a combination of the fact that we couldn't chain our bags up and fear of missing our early morning stop meant that we didn't get much sleep. The incessant coughing of the guy in the bed below mine added to our restlessness and the frequent punctuation of loud burps and farts meant that we were often shocked out of any sleep we had managed to grab.