Back Home - Final Update

Wednesday 1st July
Oh dear although I slept quite well i woke up this morning full of the sniffles. Not surprisingly the last few days have told on me and I have my first cold in 10 months. We got up and headed to the station to buy our tickets to Xi'an. This was quite an endeavor: we walked quite a way, enjoying the fact that the weather was quite cool and soaking up the atmosphere. At one point we spotted market stalls down narrow side streets, so we ventured down them. Wow! a whole assortment of fresh produce was down there, including huge blue bull frogs, live shrimps, live chickens and ducks as well as oddments like bicycle parts! Mmm. We bought a savoury bread snack from a street hawker for breakfast and then stopped at a KFC for a drink. Then we managed on our 3rd attempt to get a taxi driver to understand where we wanted to go. He dropped us at a very busy intersection, where as soon as we opened the door beggars threw themselves at us.. We wondered if we were in the right place and for a moment thought we weren't! We ended up in some sort of sorting office, where fortunately a young man who spoke English directed us to the station.. hidden away around a corner. By now we were pretty stressed and I wasn't feeling good. As we joined a queue armed with our trusty notebook into which I'd copied the relevant Mandarin phrase for soft sleeper! a young, uniformed woman approached. She spoke English and was very helpful, ushering us to a different queue where she checked out the ticket situation: turned out that nothing was available today, so we booked on the 7am train tomorrow, leaving from the other train staton in Wuhan. We left the train station quite disappointed but managed to find a lovely young taxi driver to get us back to the hotel. Here we booked in for a second night and had a rest before heading out to explore the city. I'd spotted the Hubei Provincial museum in our guide book, so we decided to try and find it. This meant getting a ferry to the other side of the river, then a bus out to the museum. By the time we got there it was 3.15 and we were quite tired and tense after the experience...once again we'd been rescued at the bus stop by a lovely young woman who''d phoned up to find out which bus we should take!! Amazing.

Anyway the museum turned out to be fantastic. We were just in time to hear a performance on copies of ancient bells, which we later saw exhibited. The performance was lovely. We spent a happy hour or so exploring the museum and were really wowed by the coffins excavated from one of the emperors tombs...there was an external coffin as well as the actual coffin. all very beautiful. Also exhiblited were some of the emperor's possessions, which had been buried with him, as offerings to the gods. These were very beautiful and we were astonished by how modern some of the designs were. We caught the bus and ferry back to our side of the river and worked our way back to the hotel via a huge pedestrianised area, where we found a pizza hut for dinner. It's a real luxury eating Western cuisine here. A chinese meal costs about £2.50 for the 2 of us, whilst a basic pizza with a small salad and soft drinks costs about £10!! Ridiculous really, but we regularly feel the need for it!
Later on we went back to last night's cafe, hoping to see the English speaking manager again...but he wasn't there. We had a beer and headed back to the room to pack up ready for the morning train.

Thursday 2nd July
Got a taxi ok this morning to the second Wuhan train station in Wuchang. Got on the train only to find we were not alone. A single, middle aged guy was resting on one of the bottom bunks. He didn't speak English and seemed very serious looking, stuggling to smile. The compartment didn't match up to our last soft sleeper: the bedding seemed very grey, and I was relieved not to be sleeping in it! As we sat down on the other bunk a Chinese guy appeared from the next compartment. He asked if we were from England and was clearly keen to chat. He sat down and we enjoyed a pleasant chat with him. As he left he asked us not to hesitate to ask him for help on the journey. Another example of how friendly and helpful some of the people here are. This journey was long – we got on around 8am and off at 9pm. I wasn't feeling wonderful with a streaming cold and I really struggled again with the train's toilet. There seemed to be only 1 working and it was pretty disgusting the first time I went. We both decided that we'd aim to get flights from here on! Anyway despite a late departure we got into Xi'an on time and ventured off the train, once again full of trepidation! Along with hundreds of other folk we poured out into the staion. The huge, ancient city wall greeted us from the subway and we headed into a main square....would you believe it? Suddenly another English speaking man appeared offering his services. Did we need a hotel? He could take us to a very central one that was within our budget... I was so tired and it was so difficult making our own way anywhere, that we took him up on his offer. The 3 of us got into a taxi and headed to a hotel, where we paiid about £25 for a large double room. Sounds great, but it seems that no Chinese hotels are non-smoking and this room really stank of cigarettes, which was difficult for us...still, we'd brought our trusty body shop spray, which helped and we were in bed at a reasonable time.

Friday 3rd July
Brent woke up quite early and headed out to explore our location. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, with very special light. He was delighted to realise that we were literally just around the corner from the Bell Tower, right in the centre of the old town. He watched some older locals doing Tai Chi near the drum tower and took photos, trying to capture the scene of swifts soaring and paper kites being flown. When he came back we ventured to the 2nd floor for our included breakfast...oh dear! this wasn't easy but we managed to find a few bits that we could eat: fresh melon slices and hard boiled eggs, with an unusual sweet/ dry bread with jam. The instant coffee /sugar mix wouldn't have been bearable for me had I not been bunged up with cold...so I couldn't taste it!! By mid morning we were ready to explore together and we paid to go into the 2 toweres, both of which are very beautiful. As we entered the drum tower we heard the sound of drums beating: once again we were dead on time to see and hear a brilliant performance. We wandered the streets and were chuffed to come across an arty area near the southern gate to the city. It was fun to see lots of chinese scrolls and I bought a traditional fan here. Later we explored a mall before going back to the hotel. In the evening we were about to have MacDonald's (always a last resort for us) when Brent remembered that our US friends had recommended eating in the Musliim quarter. We headed out to what proved to be a fascinating area: narrow streets full of market type stalls, selling everything from walnuts, which there were hundreds of, to more tourist related goods. We decided to try one of the cafes here and ended up ordering far too much food: a chicken dish, a lamb dish with a veggie dish and rice... each one was enormous! We asked to take away the left over aubergine dish, which was no problem. ..needless to say next morning we threw it in the bin: seemed a good idea at the time! After dinner we wandered on and a lovely young woman persuaded me to look at her wares: linen Chinesy shirts/ blouses. She was funny and had good English and we had a good laugh with her. I tried on various tops and we ended up buying a top each... not that cheap at £30 the pair, but good quality, I think. At the end of this lane we came across the Mosque, which is apparently the biggest in China and was very different from anything we'd seen before. The minaret was in pagoda style and the huge gabled roofs were inspiring. We were too tired to visit but Brent intended to go back to get some photos...unfortunately we didn't manage to. Back at the hotel we were fast asleep around 4am when the chap next door and his wife had a huge row and woke us up n the process...lovely. The air conditioning system here is integrated throughout the building, so we find that as soon as someone has a cigarette we reap the benefits of the smoke coming through the system...talk about passive smoking. Dear reader you may have noticed a touch of negativity in our latest reports... well you are right! We are really beginning to struggle with the lack of language, the levels of noise and air pollution and the weather, which all combine to make us feel increasingly tired out and frustated. Such a shame after 10 months with few complaints. I guess we are also getting tired and ready for home.

Saturday 4th July
Today we did a tour via John's company. We wanted to see the Terracotta army and decided that this would be the easiest way of doing it. We were up early and met at reception by Lily, our guide for the day. We then headed off in a nice airconditioned minibus to pick up the rest of the group: an Indian family comprising mother, daughter, son and his wife and son. They were very interesting: the son and his family are currently living in shanghai, where he works as a lawyer. His mother is an English teacher in India in a very old international school called Woodstock..somewhere in Northern India. When she found out that we were teachers she assured us that it would be easy for us to find jobs in India...Lily later said the same about china.... we're hoping it might be true back home actually!! Anyway off we went to our first destination, the neolithic village of Banpo. A modern museum covers the excavated village, which mostly comprised holes in the ground and a few bits of walls showing where and how people lived. Quite interesting. As a guide Lily was very informed, having studied history and English in Xi'an and she was able to answer our questions. We left the museum and she briefly took us into a Jade outlet next door, which she recommended as selling authentic jewellery at correct prices. We found the prices exorbitant and aren't that keen on jade, so didn't stay long...the Indians stayed longer, but when we got back together they declared how ridiculous the prices were. Our next stop was at a Terracotta Warrior factory: this wasn't actually in the advertised programme, but it was quite interesting to see how much the Chinese have succeeded in commerialising the ancient warriors. Hundreds of copies were on sale here and you could even have one made in your own image. Apparently hundreds of companies purchase them for their premises! There was quite a hard sell here... they had small boxed versions for more accessible, but still expensive, prices, but we had no trouble in turning down all the offers! As we waited for our Indian friends to arrive Lily gave away some of her prejudice, suggesting that 'Indians' always kept groups waiting.. we'd heard this before in SE Asia and realise that every people has its prejudices and stereo types particular groups...interesting. Anyway we headed off for lunch in a restaurant en route to the Terracotta army museum. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and quantity of the food and really enjoyed our meal. Then it was time for the highlight of the day: the Terracotta army museum, where 3 pits are open to the public. Upon arrival our group was ushered into some sort of tourist office, where a guy who supposedly discovered the warriors sat behind a table ready to sign copies of a tourist guide book about the warriors and pose in a photo with any willing tourists! He seemed totally disinterested in proceedings, but the assistant there did yet another hard sell on us, declaring that Bill Clinton had visited the place and showing us his photo with the guy... oh dear! The longer we are here the more crass we are finding the Chinese approach to tourism and commercialism. Eventually we began the tour and it was fantastic to see the hundreds of warriors, dating back to 800 AD ( check this). Have to say I was still not feeling well and midway around the 2nd pit I began to feel ' warrior- ed out!'. There were hundred of mainly Chinese tourists there and it was very hot in the pits, which made it quite difficult for me. Having said that it was amazing too. After visiting the pits we enjoyed an ice cream in the cafe before meeting up with the others for the walk back. Interestingly the place provides a shuttle bus ( which of course you pay for) to get you to the museum, but you have to walk back. Not far, but along shop lined streets. Actually these were quite bizarre as there seemed to be a lot of empty buildings. This whole area was new built and reminded me of the shopping villages we get at home. Brent asked Lily why we were seeing so many empty places and she said that actually the places were the homes of local farmers. We found this hard to believe and were somewhat puzzled by this reply. Anyway we did have to wait for our Indian friends and once again Lily was very negative about them. She said that 'they' didn't understand chinese culture of bargaining: apparently if you start the process you are expected to buy and it is an insult to bargain and then not buy. We realised that we had done this ourselves, so found it unacceptable that she labelled this as an Indian trait. How as a tourist do you know these things? We both felt that Lily's attitude was quite racist: they'd only gone to buy water on what was an intensely hot day! I was pleased when Brent made the point that there are good and bad everywhere and it's easy to stereo type them...by now I was actually feeling rough and couldn't have made the effort. She also said how the Chinese like the British and Americans, who know how to behave!! Oh my god!!

As we climbed back into the car Lily asked if we wanted to visit the Emperors mausoleum which was the final part of our tour. She'd already explained that this had not been excavated, but that we could, as she put it, 'climb the mountain' if we wanted. She said that if we were too tired we could just take a photo and return to the hotel. I'd noticed that actually in the advertising for the tour, it said that we could visit the Big Goose Pagoda instead of the mausoleum, but by this time I was ready to return. My cold was taking it's toll and so I didn't ask about this option. We approached the mausoleum and saw the 'mountain'. It was really a hill with steps up to the top, where Lily said there was nothing to see, but a small shrine. The Indian family said they weren't interested in going up and i certainly wasn't. Brent probably would have, but before we knew it the minibus had slowed down and then sped back up to continue the return journey. No offer was made to view the Pagoda, and I have to say that we felt more than a bit aggrieved at the cost of the day: our Indian friends told us that it was made clear to them that a tip was expected and as they left first they gave Lily some money. We felt we had no choice but to do the same and handed over 50 Yuan. With several extras which we'd had to pay for the day was quite expensive, especially as we only saw 2 of the 3 sites... still we'd loved the warriors and didn't regret our day out.....

Once again dear readers, I'm sure you're spotting more of that negativity. Is it just that we are tired, I am ill and we are nearing the end of our trip? I don't think so. We both feel that the Chinese probably don't want to attract independent travellers. They prefer the large tour groups where everyone is herded from site to site and vendor to vendor. We really feel that they need to adapt to the new tourism that is clearly here:. Our main complaints would be...

- stand on toilets when clean are fine...but we've found a lot of truly disgusting ones...even in modern, high tech, museums.

the Chinese have a habit of what can only be termed 'gobbing'.They make a huge amount of disgusting noise as they gob up and spit out a vast amount of phlegm. We recognise that this is a cultural thing and imagine parents saying to their children 'come on, spit it out, it's bad for you'. However considering that we had to have our temperatures taken when we entered this country because of the swine flu virus currently about, we do feel that some basic education on hygiene would be useful. I'm sure you can imagine how difficult we find this whole thing – at times I've struggled not to be sick when witnessing it. enough said!

- Brent is very put out by open mouthed mastication... and if you know what that means you're better than I am! Actually the eating habits of locals are quite interesting: eating with chopsticks is a messy job and they will almost get their heads inside the bowl of noodles, scooping huge amounts into their mouths..just not the Western way I guess.

the final issue for us is to do with attitudes towards us. We are constantly stared at... not in a negative way, but very blatantly and for long periods of time. Brent in particular is of interest and at one point a guy rushed up to him to get his photo taken with him, then his 2 daughters rushed either side of Brent for their photo... initially this seems quite a compliment, but after a few weeks of it it becomes annoying,

Moans over... we'd had a good day out. That evening we ended up in another restaurant not far from the Musliim quarter ..maybe even still in it! Here we found small tables with holes in the middle for charcoal burners, with metal trays on top to cook kebabs on. The staff were really helpful ( the menu was only in Mandarin) and we managed to order a good array of chicken, tofu and vegetable which we dipped into spices and cooked... a delicious version of fondue and amazingly cheap. We paid around £2.50 for the meal with soft drinks included! Great.

Sunday 5th July
Today we decided to get a taxi to the Shanxi history museum, one of the most famous in China. The roads here are well organised for taking taxis, which are very cheap and we soon arrived in front of the building. We enjoyed a very happy couple of hours here. We were able to see individual warriors up close as well as the artifacts that were found buried with them. We should explain that as we understand it the warriors were built for the emperor as an offering to the gods, to ensure his standing upon death. We were disappointed that the purpose of the pits of soldiers was not really explained in either of the museums we visited, nor did Lily clarify this. We'd like to read more about it...it's such a remarkable site, with each warrior huge and splendid and chariots pulled by huge carven horses all restored into their magnificent splendour. Once again we saw beautiful pottery and bronzeware, which we'd happily use today but which had been created up to 200 years BC... amazing. Before leaving the museum we stopped in the cafe for a drink. Brent took out a 100 yuan note to pay only to be told that it was a fake!! We'd been warned about this early on in China, but clearly hadn't been careful enough. From the museum we wandered along a few hundred metres to the Big Goose Pagoda. The pagoda is situated in a huge open area, with fountains, statues and varous vendors. We paid the entry fee, only 20 Yuan and made our way in towards the pagoda itself, only to find that to see inside you had to pay another 26 Yuan each... another example of Chinese subterfuge ... we'd thought £2 each was a good deal but £4.50 each is more like home prices. Oh well. Needless to say we didn't bother. We ventured back in a taxi and that night took a short stroll around the corner to a restaurant specialising in duck. In the end the duck was too expensive for us and we had a fairly average meal.. and stupidly managed to order far too much again. We tried to get rid of the £100 Yuan note,but as we made our way back to the hotel 2 of the waitresses came running after us and ushered us back to the restaurant where the manageress explained the situation. She was apologetic and we felt bad and decided to get rid to the offending note and to be more careful in future.

Monday 6th July
Today we had decided to fly to Beijing. These are days when I get quite stressed hoping that all the transport links work out. Fortunately we had done our research and knew where the bus was due to leave to the airport. Everything went very smoothly. The bus arrived on time and we made our connection with very little fuss. The airport building was almost identical to the one in Adelaide. The flight we took was with China Eastern Airways and we were pleasantly surprised when they started to bring out the free lunch and drink. The only disconcerting thing about the flight was the landing when the plane seemed to vibrate very loudly.
On landing Beijing proved to be extremely grey and overcast. We eventually found the train that would link us up with the metro system and followed the instructions for getting to the hostel. These seemed ok until we got to the first street. This had recently been pedestrianised so did not appear the same. We weren't sure where we were going and Linda was feeling tired. We adopted a policy we had used before where she stayed with the bags and I went off in search of the address. I carried on down the street in the direction I assumed was correct. I was suddenly faced with a road that had been totally dug up to a depth of about 10 feet and pipes and scaffollding all over the place. I searched in vain for the place with no luck. Linda here...meanwhile I was approached by a young Chinese woman, who asked if I was looking for my friend or for a hostel. I replied: “both.” It turned out that the girl, Lily, had just finished her shift at the Leo hostel where we were staying. She knew a couple was due around 3pm and had been looking out for us! How amazing is that? She rang the hostel and her fellow worker, Connie came to meet us and lead the way back to the hostel, helping with bags. Sounds great? It was except that Brent had found the right street! The whole place was in upheaval and we were pleased when Connie suggested a different route to cut out most of the mess. When we arrived we had to clamber over pipes, rocks and gravel to get to the entrance. Once inside the hostel was lovely and everyone very warm and welcoming. We dumped our stuff and walked down to a bank and then meandered around until we came across the centre for performing arts: this was a beautiful, silver domed building, totally surrounded by water. The entrance being via an underground tunnel... very clever. After a quick look we ventured into Tianamen square, which was huge and full of people...quite overwhelming in our tired state. We headed back to the hostel stopping nearby in the 365 bar for a meal and a couple of beers. Off to bed, where Brent fell immediately to sleep, while I struggled as I drawn the short straw and had the bed with the dip in the middle...oh well!

Tuesday 7th July
Had breakfast at the hostel then went to the tourist office to try and book a trip to the Great Wall. We found this via 2 stalls of volunteers! No-one at the first one spoke English, but someone accompanied us to the second. . Anyway the tourist office was a disaster. No-one was serving at the counter marked 'foreigners' so we got into a queue. As we got near the counter we spotted a notice saying that in order to visit the wall you had to have been in the country for at least 7days... this was a safety measure due to Swine Flu. We then saw that the price of the tour depended on the number of people going, with a minimum number of 4 being required. I'd noticed 2 French girls, who were discussing what to do. I asked if they would like to join us to make up a group of 4 and they agreed...but then when I explained about the 7day rule they said they'd only been in the country 6 days! They then said that there was a tour from their hostel that was actually a bit cheaper than the one advertised here ( 260 yuan) and we exchanged email addresses, so that they could let us know if the 4 of us could join this tour. By now we'd lost our early start and it was almost midday. We headed to the entrance to the forbidden city. I was feeling pretty awful by the time we got to the ticket office: it was oppressively hot and the zillions of noisy tour groups were getting to me. As Brent got into the queue I had to stop him and admit that I couldn't face this tour! I felt terrible, but he wasn't at all fazed and said that he too was struggling. This has happened so often over the months we've been travelling, it's almost spooky! One of us will make a suggestion and the other will have been thinking the same thing! We hardly ever – if ever – disagree... must be meant for each other eh?

We headed for the exit and came out along a lovely, shaded walkway between the city wall and a moat. We enjoyed a pleasant stroll here, away from the crowds. Eventually we found our way into the main, pedestrianised shopping area, where we spotted a mall with a cinema and a Starbucks sign. We had to ask to actually find the cafe and it wasn't as cool as usual. We then had a look around and headed up to the top floor, as this is where the food courts and cinemas are usually found ( a good tip if ever you get to China!) In this mall there was a food republic up there. We bought a 50 yuan credit card and paid for a noodle based meal. Then had to top up the card to pay for drinks!! The chef was lovely and very helpful but we were disappointed in the food, especially the soup, which was revolting. We'd decided to watch the transformer film which was showing in English: those who know me will be surprised by this choice, so I should explain ...there was no choice! Well there was actually, but we decided to save Terminator Salvation for another time.. tee hee! Anyway, the cinema seats were nice and comfy and the air con very refreshing... the film we thought was pretty poor though..but worth the money for the aforementioned comforts! Afterwards we headed back to our hostel and couldn't believe our eyes when we stepped into the lounge and found a crowd watching the very same film we'd just paid to watch!! Oh well. Brent had a look through our guide book and suggested we head out to find bar street, where apparently there's lots of live music. Before going we picked up our email and were pleased to see that we could join the trip to the Great Wall tomorrow. The trip went from the Sanlitun hostel, which turned out to be just around the corner from bar steet.. weird eh? We headed out on the metro, paid for the trip and found a bar for dinner, where some sort of music / exotic dancing was going on. We sat outside with an expensive beer waiting for an age for some very average food. We later found out that there are some much more normal bars on a parallel street,,, next time eh? A group of German lads nearby were clearly horrified by their bill and we were glad at our circumspection in ordering only 1 beer each. The whole experience reminded us of those commercial bars in the canary islands, where you are dragged in off the street. No thought is given to encouraging you back at all. Once we'd sat down and ordered, we were completely ignored!

Wednesday 8th July
This morning we were up nice and early (6am) and managed to arrive at the Sanlitun hostel dead on 7.30, just right for breakfast. This was a good American breakfast and set us up for the day. Our french friends joined us and at around 8.10 we were introduced to the other members of the tour group. We headed into the mini bus and sat chatting to a nice Brit called Ben, from London, and a lovely Polish brother and sister. She'd been working in Hong Kong and her brother was visiting. A young German lad, Kristoff, sat with us. He was very quiet but pleasant enough. A group of Italian friends sat and chatted amongst themselves. When we got to the wall our 'guide' showed us where to buy cable car and toboggan tickets, which weren't included in the price and said she'd meet us when we came down...so much for a guide! Only Kristoff decided to walk up, whilst the rest of us took the cable car, which was quite a lovely ride. The wall fulfilled our expectations and we were pleased when the clouds moved about to allow us a slightly improved view. We took loads of photos and walked quite a way. All told we had about 2.5 hours up there before getting the toboggan down. We all met up as planned and took a short walk downhill to quite a posh restaurant, where we had an excellent lunch before heading back into town. The rest of the group promptly fell asleep and brent got some good photos of them all! We were sorry not to have pen and paper with us as we didnt have time to swap emails with our Polish friends.. we told them about our blog and hope they may contact us from there. Their mum lives in Grimsby and they often fly to Robin Hood's airport...but have yet to find Sherwood forest! Back at our hostel we ended up joining the crowd later on enjoying a game of quiddler. A woman from New York was sitting nearby playing monopoly with her young daughter, who was delightful. Have to say we were quite surprised when the 11 year old chose to put on some ancient Beatles footage and proceeded to sing along with all the old songs...bizarre. Apparently her mum used to play her Beatles music to get her to sleep.

Thursday 9th July
Today dawned and lo and behold, the smog had gone! We had a beautiful, blue sky day for our visit to the Forbidden City. After about 2.5 hours though we'd had enough of both the heat and the crowds and had taken loads of photos of this amazing place. We headed into town for another Macdonalds and, yes, you guessed it, the Terminator film, which we both really enjoyed. That night we got ready for our last but one journey in China..we are off to Hangzhou in the morning!

Friday 10th July
We set off early to make sure that we connected with the flight in time. Beijing had the metro connected to the airport so we were sure there would be no problem in making the time. Our mistake!! The airport had 3 terminals and we had assumed that we flew out from the same as we had flown in. We were wrong. This meant having to make a dash for terminal 3 in the shuttle bus. As we had given ourselves plenty of time though we still managed to get baggage through and into waiting area easily. The plane then ended up being delayed. This flight was with Shanghai Airlines. We calculated it must be our 9th carrier. Again we were surprised to get food onboard a two hour flight. Not brilliant quality but it kept the hunger pangs at bay.
Before leaving we had written down directions to our hostel. We managed to get ourselves on the bus into Hangzhou and then stayed on it until the terminus as directed. It was at this point that our plans went astray. We knew that the next bus was supposed to be the 151 but almost boarded it in the wrong direction. Luckily a woman saw our uncertainty and helped again. We dismounted this bus though having no idea where we were. By now night was beginning to fall and we were on the point of exhaustion. We tried to get a taxi but to no avail. Eventually one pulled up and Linda gave the name of the road. The taxi driver was just about to shrug his shoulders and drive off so she turned around to me for help.( Lin here.. actually I was desperate at this point and shoved Brent into the taxi begging him to show the map,before the guy drove off!) I quickly ferreted out our Lonely Planet and pointed to the road. Relief ... he recognised where we were going and indicated for us to get in. We were having visions of being stranded. The hostel proved very elusive the find but the taxi driver kindly kept looking, at one point even using his mobile phone to ring up base and find an English speaker to translate the number on the address. Eventually we decided to find it on foot when we realised we must be close. Many thanks to this taxi driver who saved our lives.
The hostel proved to be everything we had hoped for. Well done Hostel World and Trip Advisor. It was clean, friendly, no smoking and had all the services we needed. We tucked into a hearty meal washed down with a few beers ( much more expensive than the last place though – the beers that is ) Tired and weary we retired to bed early.

Saturday 11th July
Our hardest bed yet but a lovely room and cleaner air meant a reasonable nights sleep. The breakfast was good and we set out to explore the area. The day had dawned bright and sunny which meant sun hat for me and parasol for Linda. On leaving the hostel we were soon greeted by beautiful views of West Lake. We joined the many Chinese tourists promenading around the shaded paths on the western shore. At least in one way we had timed this visit correctly. The lotus blossoms were in full bloom and the plants themselves where abundant around the lake edge. The only drawback was the stifling heat- a head roasting 38 degrees C.
We managed to walk to the northern edge of the lake before finding the shelter of the local air conditioned museum. These have often proved to be free in China. The artefacts inside always show how advanced its early civilizations were. When we were in the dark ages they were producing the most ornate pots and silks.
By this time we were really flagging so went in search of some food in the town. At this stage in our journey we seem to be needing the comfort of western food so ended up in Pizza Hut. Refreshed we headed back to the lake side and came upon the Y2 bus. We had previously been told by the hostel directions we were given that this would take us past the hostel. After about 5 minutes it became clear that it was heading away from the lake!!! We stayed on board thinking it would eventually complete a circuit. Alas it came to a point where we all had to get off. Drat. We were re-directed to the next bus to leave, again a Y2 but had to pay 3 more Yuan each.
On arriving back at the hostel we retreated to our air conditioned room to recharge our batteries. The evening saw us heading out in search of some night life. When we did find somewhere it was packed to the rafter. We were eventually found a table only to find a small bottle of beer cost 30 Y. In our last place we had paid 6Y for a large one! Time to leave, We headed back for a good nights sleep.

Sunday July 12th
Today we intended to get to the station to buy our tickets for our onward journey to Shanghai. I got the young girl at reception to write down in Chinese the information for the ticket office. She kindly did this. A few minutes later she came over and offered to buy them for us that day as she was going near the station. We have found the Chinese so friendly in this respect.
We had consulted the map in the morning and noticed that the Silk Museum was very close so we set off in search. Immediately down the next road we found what the Chinese call a ' Walking street ' or what we would call a pedestrian way set back from the road. This followed the course of a small stream which fed into the lake. It had been landscaped and redesigned to become a small park with delightful bridges which spanned the water course at regular intervals. We also read that it helped remove the pollutants which had previously flowed down into the lake. Altogether it was a delightful walk.
The museum itself was again in a splendid building. It explained the process of silk production from the little worm itself to the final spinning and weaving of the silk. There were also some fantastic historical examples of chinese silk robes from dates stretching as far back as 500 BC. Again a humbling experience for someone from the west.
We decided to head off into town to get something to eat and to find a bank. All the buses are 2 Y so it was easy to just get off somewhere we spotted a shopping mall Alas I succumbed to a McDonalds again. Our next task was to find a bank. China has many banks each named after the district or the section of the economy they are trying to help. Most have ATMs and advertise they can use Visa. The first bank we tried was the Bank of Communication. Linda used her card and it was immediately swallowed with no explanation. The main branch was around the corner so fortunately she was able to retrieve it after showing her passport. By now we were starting to panic as we had just received an email from a friend warning about a previous one that someone had hacked into. We had visions of our account being tampered with. We went in search of another bank. The next one was the Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This time I used my card and typed in my pin – nothing came out except the card. Mild panic was now setting in. We found a third bank – Bank of Agriculture. This time using Linda's card – no response. We went into the bank to ask if anyone could help. It transpired that we needed 6 pin numbers in this machine. They directed us to the Bank of China where they thought we might be more successful. Fortunatley this time it worked so both Linda and I took out money. This gave us some breathing space as we could now pay for the following nights accommodation and food.
We headed towards the Lake where we noticed lots of people sitting looking out to the lake. We realised it was the music fountain performance. Rather than wait 30 minutes we headed back to the hostel around the lake. Again a beautiful walk with lots of bridges. We'll try and catch the fountain another time.
The evening was spent at the hostel chatting with a young man and had been teaching in a small town in the North of China. We seemed to come across quite a few of these people travelling through Hangzhou.

Monday 12th July
This morning we went up the Leifang Hill pagoda. This beautiful pagoda had been built above the ruins of the old one in 1984 and contained some fantastic carvings on each level. The views proved to be stupendous across the lake also.
In the afternoon we caught the boat across the lake to an island in the middle with three large lakes at its centre. Wandered across the island to pick it up from the other side to take us to the opposite shore of the lake. Walked back to the hostel. The air was much cooler now. We met two lovely older men who stopped for a chat. One said he had learnt his English from Radio 4 broadcasts and now taught it to others. The other was keen to show us the photos he had taken of the lake in Spring and the peach blossom. Both remarkable men.

Tuesday 13th July
Brent woke up feeling rough today. Damn! I'd hoped he'd managed to avoid catching the dreaded lurg, but oh no...
We got up reasonably early this morning only to find they weren't serving breakfast till 8.00am so went for a walk in the park to see if we could find anyone doing Tai Chi. We didnt but we did find a large group of older people chatting and playing games around the tables of an outdoor cafe. The early morning is clearly a time when they can comfortably sit in this heat. When we came past an hour later they had all gone. (Lin here... this time of the morning is also when all the watering og plants takes place, with automatic hoses recycling lake water. I wa not too pleased when I mis-timed a walk and got soaked by one of them!)

Back to the Hostel for breakfast then out to do some gift shopping. We eventually found the tourist street and bought some gifts to take home.
We then returned by the lakeside to have a siesta in our air conditioned room. The heat here is relentless and has severely restricted our energy levels.
The late afternoon saw us head out to an area of the lake we hadnt yet explored. This was much quieter than the main tourist drag and just as beautiful. We took many photos as the late afternoon sun dropped lower in the sky.. Saw some white peacocks and a pond of fantastic red carp – so many they turned the water orange.
Returned to the hostel for food. Ended up watching a dvd called Far North which had some fantastic icy landscapes on display. The plot was very thin though and stretched credibility when the anti-heroine cut off the face of her rival to the heart of Sean Penn attatched it to her own face and even managed to fool him into making love to her with attached face – bizarre!!!

Added later by Lin...think it may have been today that we experienced our second rodent experience. We were relaxing in the room when I noticed that the aircon pipe went straight out of the wall and was not plastered in. I got up to look through the hole...'Ah,' I declared there's a little bird in here.... 'uh oh! no it's not...it's a little mouse!.' Brent didn't believe me and just sniggered. 'it's cleaning its whiskers,' I assured him. He got up and couldn't believe his eyes. He stuffed the hole with plastic bags. After that we heard a neighbour squeel and gathered our little mouse had moved on. What a laugh. Can't believe how calm I felt about it. Guess after the rat in paradise a little mouse seemed harmless.

Wednesday 15th July
Our last full day here and we decided to visit the National Tea Museum. One of the girls here suggested we get the bus, rather than a taxi..which we did. Ended up waiting for half an hour before the bus came. Then followed a hairy half hour, when we were unsure when to get off. Eventually Brent said we should get off, as he thought we'd missed the stop. Turned out we were only a short walk away and one stop out! wow! The place itself was a bit weird, like many of the other places we've visited in China: there were lovely grounds with lots of buildings which were either under construction or empty. For a little while we thought it was a wasted journey...but lo and behold we came upon the museum by chance and spent a happy hour or so visiting the exhibition of the history of tea. It was very well done and made us realise that the preparation and drinking of tea in China is both scientific and artistic...all in all a serious business. We decided to fork out about a fiver each for the tea tasting in the formal tea house near to the museum. This was really interesting. A charming young woman, unfortunately with very little English, set up a large tray with jugs and kettle and small pottery bowls and saucers... we tried 4 different teas: green tea, jasmine tea, black tea and oolong tea. We were given an explanatory sheet in English, which detailed the medicinal properties of each tea. The Oolong is supposed to reduce blood pressure, so is a good one for me to drink. The process of preparing each tea as interesting, with each one requiring different brewing temperatures and times. We both preferred the oolong and the jasmine, but when they tried to sell some to us they turned out to be from £10 for a small carton! Needless to say we didn't bother, feeling sure that we'll be able to pick some up cheaper elsewhere. As we were leaving the museum Brent remembered that we'd spotted a silk outlet near to the entrance,so we backtracked to have a look. The things in there weren't cheap, but there were some lovely items and we ended up buying 2 blouses, one for me and one for Brent's mum... hope it fits! We got the bus back to the hostel and took a short rest before taking a tour of the lake by open topped tourist bus. We'd talked about cycling it, but Brent is feeling poorly now, and I'm still struggling with the heat, so the bus was preferred. It was quite a nice circuit and we saw the part of the lake that we'd not walked. Back at the hostel we caught most of a Sandra Bullock DVD, called Premonition, which some French girls were watching. The captions were hilarious, with really badly translated English, but we all managed to follow the compicated plot. Brent's now snoozing again as I write this. We'd like to catch the musical fountain later and don't really want to eat here again. Earlier on I tried the mushroom soup and it tasted like hot milk with a chopped up mushroom in it... weird!

As we are leaving tomorrow I'd like to make a note of some of the lovely aspects of Hangzhou, which I can highly recommend to you... but do come in Spring or Autumn if you can!

The lake itself is huge, with many lovely bridges, walkways, causeways and gardens
lots of different boats take you in to the islands, which again have pools and wonderful walks
You can get a range of different buses to get around: the Y3 is a wooden trolley type bus, with hand held fans and no air con, it costs 3 yuan. The y9 is the tourist open top bus and costs 5 yuan. It's a good way of getting a feel for the size of the lake and we guess that in future may include English guides, although that's not currently available.
There are bikes for hire everywhere, including at our hostel. The city scheme is one that we've seen before, where you can pick up a bike in one place and then park it at various specified places around town.
Our hostel – The West Lake Youth House – is out of town a bit, but right on the lake, near to the Liefeng Pagoda. It's lovely: very clean with lovely rooms and very friendly, helpful staff. It was too hot for us to go outside, but they have a lovely courtyard area outside with lots of seating. There's a washer and dryer here too, which is great. The only criticism would be the food, but the breakfast was excellent and the pizza quite good.

Thursday 16th July
Today was our last travel day before home. We had packed the previous night so apart from last minute things we were all ready to go. Taxi arrived on time and we were taken to the railway station with plenty of time to spare. The usual procedure took place there. Bags through scanner with attendants not bothering to look. Sitting in packed waiting rooms for train to arrive before being ushered on. The train itself was an express and much plusher than we were used to previously. The journey was a very speedy one and a quarter hours and we were in Shanghai in no time. We waited for everyone to get off the train to avoid the rush. Noticed that the carriage attendants just swung the seats around so it could go on the journey back – genius. ...Lin here... ok so here begins our final trek from place of arrival to hostel. This time it proved remarkably easy! Hurrah! We found subway line 3 fairly easily and managed to get seats on the train, which was great as we had quite a long journey of 13 stops. A lovely woman sat next to me, with excellent English, which she'd studied at university. Upon arrival at our stop we struggled to find the first road mentioned in our instructions and once again had to get help. Fortunately 2 young girls were passing and pointed us in the right direction. We walked along a busy main road in scorching heat and were just beginning to feel lost when I approached another young woman, who at first looked puzzled and then produced a card with the name of our hostel on it: Koala garden house. ... bizarre eh? Turned out we'd come route B, but were not far away. We were really chuffed when we arrived as we turned off a busy street onto a magically quiet, pedestrianised street with our hostel, quite a grand and luxurious looking building on a corner. We had to spend a few minutes sorting out our room, which turned out to be more expensive than we thought at around £28. We were up 2 flights of stairs in a lovely, clean room with a very posh shower room. Great. After sorting out we did a bit of a walk around the area and then made a bad decision: we thought we'd get the metro and try to find what a fellow traveller had described as a bohemian area. The journey was just awful.. we purchased a ticket for 4 yuan, only to find that we couldn't change onto the correct line at the raiilway station stop, as we'd planned. Instead we had to go miles out of our way spending about an hour all together before we finally found what we thought was the correct stop. In fact we were at the start of the French concession area, which was very interesting but ridiculously expensive. We were pretty hungry and despondent by now and ended up buying pizza like slices and cake for dinner, which we ate sitting on a park wall...oh well! We couldn't wait to get back and into our lovely, clean bed.

Frday 17th July
OK. So today we thought we'd head for the Yuyuan bazaar and garden, hoping to find some gifts before visiting the Shanghai museum in Peoples Square. In fact, by the time we got to Peoples square we were hot and bothered, so decided to do the museum first, partly to get some much needed air-con. Finding the right exit for the museum proved impossible and we ended up walking in the wrong direction through peoples park. Have to say that the Chinese parks are very tranquil places and had we not been sweating buckets, we'd have really enjoyed this walk. In the end after we'd stopped to look at a totally ineffectual map, an elderly Chinaman approached me and when I showed him on the map where we wanted to go he offered to take us there! Another examplle of how kind people have been. He did the usual thing of speeding up his walk at least 100%, and leaving us absolutely knackered, but in clear view of the museum. As we got close 2 young girls, fresh out of high school approached us and asked if we would take their photo. We obliged and they then offered to take one of us. They seemed to enjoy speaking English and kept us chatting for some time in the soaring temperatures. As we chatted they asked about our travels and asked where we were going. Brent told one of them and I spoke to the other. When we mentioned the museum they were both negative about it, even suggesting it would be closed. They then said they'd like us to go to a tea house with them instead of the museum. When we declined they became quite pushy and we felt quite deceived...both reckoning that they probably worked there and once again we'd been had! Oh well. We continued on our way and got into the queue to get into the museum. Here we spent a couple of hours. Have to say I'm now feeling mueumed out. Each one that we've seen has been very well organised in similarly shaped buildings: generally with a central atrium, with stairs and escalators leading up to the various floors of the museum. Galleries are arranged around the central area. In this museum we saw more of the same in terms of ceramics, but the jade collection was new to us and equally stunning: the jade cicadas were the first thing i spotted. They were intricately designed and found in excavated tombs, in the mouths of emperors! They dated from as long ago as 2000 BC. We were bowled over by some of the thumb rings also very ancient.

After the museum we should have returned to the hostel: it was boiling and neither of us felt particularly well.. but oh no! We were keen to see the Bund and on the map it looked a reasonable stroll down a pedestrianised shopping area. We could then walk along the Bund to the Yuyuan bazaar. In fact we did all of this, but it was a long way in the relentless heat and the area around the Bund is being reconstructed, which makes it hard to see the beauty of some of the builidings. We did get a feel for it though and finally reached the bazaar: this is bizarre..yes a bizarre bazaar! It's reconstructed pagoda like buildings which are basically commercial stalls, aimed at tourists. It was heaving and neither of us was up to it! We made a couple of enquiries and when the prices were high, headed for the garden, which was quite beautiful. We had a good rest in a sheltered pagoda before heading off to try and find the antique street.... uh uh! Hopeless map, no signs, meant we didn't manage this and we were just glad to spot an area we recognised and to get back onto the metro. We were exhaused. We slept for a good hour back at the hostel, forcing ourselves downstairs for a meal. We caught an Ok film about Alaska on TV before bedtime.

Saturday 18th July
We had a lie in today and decided to stay in our hostel's locality and hope to find some gifts here. It's quite a nice area and we bought a few bits and bobs...although still don't barter very effectively.
We stayed around the area and then headed out to the Nanjing Rd area later in the day. We walked to the wrong end of the street so ended up having a long walk to find the Portman Building which proved to be a part of a luxury hotel complex. This area was another one of those with the top designer label named shops and few people in them. We ended up eating in a restaurant that had been recommended by fellow travellers called Element Fresh. It proved to be delicious and not too expensive

We found a bar and managed to buy a beer. This was a buy one get one free deal and we felt quite smug when we ended up having a beer each for 15Y. The waiter then came up to us and indicated that the minimum order was 30Y. Yet another example of the subterfuge we were having to put up with all the time. We ordered two gin and tonics though at the cheaper price so felt quite good about it.

We booked tickets for the Acrobat show. What a spectacle this proved to be!! The starting act was the tossing of diablos by some beautiful women dressed in skin tight leotards. This was followed by a single woman act where she managed to hold 5 candelabras while balancing on one arm and still twist herself 360 degrees. The whole performance was quite mind blowing only interspersed with a sort of comedy knife throwing act.

We came away suitable impressed and ready for bed.

Sunday 19th July
We rose slowly realising that tomorrow we had our final journey. After showering we started to pack up our possessions. By now this was a well worn routine. We both knew where all our items were packed and would do the double check of all the valuable ones – camera, lap top, passports etc. It was quite a relief to know this would be the last time. Everything packed we set out on our day.
Our final day we spent looking around the French Concession area. After an abortive attempt where we ended up walking the wrong way down the road we eventually found the tree lined avenues which reminded us strongly of Paris. The houses where larger with some gated apartment style buildings behind large walls. As we walked along the streets were being pressure hosed down one man pushing a compressor along while the other directed his hose. In due course we came across a cafe slightly set back from the road. It immediately had the air of being European in character. As we entered the threshold we were blasted by the relief of an air conditioning unit. Inside it was clean. The clientele were all European and as we sat down we could hear the next table talking in French. The menu proved to have a good selection of baguettes – fantastic. When our order arrived we tucked in heartily. Delicious. The cravings of two weary travellers for a taste of home could not be surpassed. After relaxing and reading in this cool haven we were able to step outside again to face the heat of the day.
We wandered along the leafy avenues a little longer and had almost reached the Metro station when Linda tapped my shoulder to indicate another place to retreat. The sign read “ Oscars Bar. A celebratory drink was surely in order having reached our final day. Inside we were greeted by what could only be described as an English pub. It even had “ Speckled Hen “ available. To those of the uninitiated amongst you this is a delicious English beer. Home was clearly in sight. As we quaffed our drinks a stream of English speaking clientelle came through the door and were greeted by name by the bar staff. Clearly an ex-pat local.
We eventually shifted ourselves to make the final journey back to the hostel.
That evening we had spotted a Korean restaurant directly opposite our hostel. We decided to give it a try as it was so close and we needed the evening to pack up our belongings. It proved to be a good decision. The staff were very friendly with the head waitress giving us some pointers as to what to eat after Linda had said this was the first time in a Korean eatery.
The menu proved to be very reasonably priced with the beer being a quarter the price of that sold at the hostel. As we had found all through our travels in Asia – hostels bump up the prices to European levels. The food proved to be very tasty and a fitting final meal.
As you may have noticed most of our final day seemed to revolve around eating and drinking. This was mainly because we were definitely travel weary at this point It was good that we were truly looking forward to home.
We headed back to our room to find the only film on the English speaking channel was “ The Wizard of Oz” I definitely felt like the scarecrow!!

Monday 20th July.
This was our last day in China and also the final day of our travels. Linda and I both had the same feelings of anticipation and excitement at returning home. This was coupled with a deep and real tiredness. The last country had really tested our physical and mental stamina and we were hoping that our last journey to the airport would be trouble free. How wrong could we be!!
We had researched the connection with the airport. We knew it was a good 30km out of the city. We had found the location of the shuttle bus stop. We arrived at the bus at 6.10 am. The bus looked about ready to go and I put my rucksack in the open storage area. At this point the driver started pointing to his watch and we managed to ascertain he was asking when our flight left. Linda moved the hands of her watch to 9.20am. At this point he started to shake his head violently and gesticulated that we should remove our luggage. We were bemused and confused. Linda sought help from a group of young Chinese nearby. One of the girls in the party explained to us that the bus driver felt we would not make our connection. This seemed truly puzzling given the amount of time. It transpired though that these 3 friends were also going to the airport and suggested that all five of us should share a taxi. This seemed a good suggestion especially as she indicated it would only cost 25Y each – a price we assumed she had negotiated with the driver in a heated discussion we'd seen her having. We threw our bags into the back. Linda climbed in the back with the 2 friends, who were travelling to Wuhan, and I jumped in the front. The taxi driver pulled away and started to weave his way through the morning traffic. At first due to the weight of traffic the journey was slow. Linda made stilted conversation with the girl in the back. As we began to move onto the freeway though the taxi driver started to put his foot down. It was if he was trying to save money by getting there as fast as possible. The driving became more and more irresponsible as he started to zig zag his way along the road overtaking many of his fellow taxi drivers. Often braking sharply as he came up behind slower vehicles. At one point he came up behind what appeared to be a police car and hooted his horn!! The car duly moved over – most bizarre. In the front I could only avert my eyes and curse under my breath. Amazingly we arrived at the airport in one piece. The young chinese passengers dismounted at Terminal One and instantly asked if they could have a photo with me – a practice we had become used to now. We duly obliged. They paid their 25Y each and we jumped back in for the taxi driver to take us the short journey round to Terminal two. We pulled in jumped out of the cab removed our rucksacks from the boot and I handed over our 50Y to the taxi driver. His face then suddenly turned to a scowl and he shook his head handing it back and pointing to the meter. We in turn looked puzzled and then equally got angry – we had clearly been told 25Y each. It was at this point that Linda totally lost it and started shouting at the driver for his incompetent driving and taking risks with our lives. The driver was now asking for more money. it was either pay up, do a runner or keep arguing with him. In the end we opted for the line of least resistance and handed over a 100Y getting 15 change. The journey had cost us twice as much as we were expecting, Somewhere along the line we had been duped – whether it was by the taxi driver or the young chinese we would never know. The journey was still reasonable priced in comparison with home, but sadly it left a rather sour taste in our mouths. We were definitely ready for home!

The rest of our transition through the airport was fortunately hassle free. It was wih a great sense of relief that we taxied down the runway for our 12 hour flight to England.
Our journey back home took us across the Siberian wastelands, over Moscow and Northern Europe before landing back in England at 2.40pm. This translated to about 10pm at night on our body clocks. Surprisingly Linda and I both felt ok. We headed down to the underground to get to Covent Garden where we were meeting my sons, David and Simon. On arriving there we phoned them to say we were standing outside the “ Nags Head “. Davids reply “ We are inside “ lol. We spent a happy hour chatting and drinking a few pints of English ale – bliss. It had been a journey that had come full circle almost and it was lovely to see David and Simon again. David had originally seen us off many months ago on our first flight to California!
The final leg was our journey home. Simon was joining us for most of it before leaving the train in Leicester to stay with his mum for a while. We sat on the journey back enjoying the banter of a fellow group of passengers having a religious discussion. Eavesdropping was fun after having so many months in foreign lands. where we hadn't been able to understand surrounding conversations.
We arrived in Nottingham to be greeted by Linda's son Alec on the station platform. It was lovely to have finished our final leg this way. Alec helped us into the taxi saying he would see us tomorrow. We had decided not to head back to an empty house at night. Kindly Wendy and Dave had offered us a bed. We arrived to a warm welcome and enjoyed their kind hospitality. Again a wheel coming full circle; It was they who had seen us off on the European leg of our world trip. After a cup of tea we retired to a really comfortable and immaculately clean bed relieved that we had returned safely after our 11 month journey.

Big Update (We can't access our blog in China!)

Monday 15th June:
This morning we managed to get our Visa applications in and were asked to collect them on Thursday. We then made our way back to the Museum of Art. An exhibition called Louis Vuitton, the Creative Years was on and was quite interesting. The building was quite lovely, with great views of the river from huge windows. After lunch we met Simon back in Mong Kok and explored this area. We visited a lovely cafe; we were wandering along a street, when Simon suddenly turned into what looked like a private entrance. We walked up to the first floor and there was a really comfy cafe with wifi and games. After a cuppa we visited the ladies market. We were going to move on to the night market, but the heavens opened so instead we went to a Japanese restaurant where Brent had his first sushi . Have to say it's not our favourite thing, but the place was very swish. We wandered along to a dessert restaurant afterwards, where we had delicious sweet treats.and dessert It was still raining hard so we headed back to Cosmo's, the local, for several beers, and more darts. We'd intended to have an early night, but after I'd won my first game of 701 ever Prudence called to say she was on her way with 2 girlfriends. Ended up a late night but lots of fun. Prudence,Beatrice and Florence have been friends since primary school and had a good laugh learning to play.

Tuesday 16th June:
We went to Lantau island for the day today. This involved a 40 mintute ferry ride followed by a 40 minute bus ride. This was all very enjoyable and we are very impressed with the transport system here in Hong Kong. We arrived at Tai O fishing village around 2pm and had lovely fresh shrimps for lunch. We then had a wander around this traditional village. We'd been later getting up than originally planned ( thanks to the late night darts!) and decided not to do the boat trip...there are apparently pink dolphins near here, but we reckoned the chances of seeing them were slim.... MISTAKE! When we got to the bus station to get the bus up to the monastery and big buddha we met 2 nice German lads, who'd taken the trip and seen the dolphins. We were a bit disappointed to have to miss this, but its one for the next trip eh? We did enjoy the Big Buddha though: it was pretty quiet when we got there, being late in the day. The area was set up for tourists though and they are currently developing it further, with construction work underway. We climbed the steps up to where the huge Buddha sits. Great views and lovely photo spots. Then we had a look at the monastery. We'd have liked to get the cable car down but unfortunately it was closed, so instead we got a bus then the MTR back down to the Central area. We were very proud of ourselves when we arrived at the Globe dead on time (7pm) ready to meet Simon and Fran, the friend from West Bridgford, who's been here for almost 10 years. When we entered the pub we were surprised when the barmaid remembered us and what we drank! Amazing! It was fun to see Fran: she hasn''t changed a bit and the 4 of us enjoyed Western food ( good pies) and a good chat. Later on we said goodbye to Simon and Fran took us to an interesting bar, where we met Ray, who'd had a late parent evening... with cocktails no less! The bar was very classy with a huge, circular bar and a corridor with private rooms... we weren't too sure what for! Ray and Fran talked to us about their lives in Hong Kong and their house in France and we told them all about our travels. They have a good life here and it made us think about the different scenario at home.

Wednesday 17th June:
This morning we decided to have a look at the park just across the road from our hotel. Kowloon Park was absolutely lovely: it had a tranquil atmosphere, with lots of walkways, green areas, sculptures and birds, including loads of pink flamingoes. We spotted a fantastic swimming pool with inside and outside areas. It looked very clean and was quite busy... something else for next time we reckon. Late morning we visited the Museum of History, which was another great building with interesting exhibits on the story of Hong Kong. We met up with Simon after school and wandered along the beautiful harbour front with the avenueof stars ( a bit like Hollywood, but not so tacky! It was a beautifull evening at the end of a very sunny day and the walk was gorgeous. We had a couple of beers on the front and then met Simon's NET friends and went to a popular local restaurant called Tung Po or Dai Pai Dong? This was previously a street cafe, but is now part of a complex that has a veggie market on one floor, a meat market on another and restaurants on the 3rd floor. It was quite a culture shock when we got up to it: huge round tables all full of locals enjoying their dinner and all chatting loudly. The noise was overwhelming until we acclimatised. Simon and his friends organised the food as we had no idea. In fact Simon had pre ordered some of the specials as they can run out. The food was excellent: amongst other dishes we enjoyed roast goose, special rice, huge crispy prawns, dumplings. Oh no... I can't remember what else... but there was absolutely loads of it and with the circular table with moving middle it was a really social way of eating. The food was served with the usual jasmine tea and we also ordered beer, which was served in bowls.

Thursday 18th June:
We collected our visas first thing today and then headed for the New Zealand Airways offices to change our flight home. This took longer than expected as we turned the wrong way out of the visa office and walked for a good half hour before realising, adding about an hour to the trip! Oh well, at least this doesn't happen often. We are now going home on 20th July, when our 30 day visa expires. We popped back to the hotel room before meeting Simon near to his school. We visited a lovely park with him called the Nam Lian gardens. This was superb, with a good collection of bonsai trees and beautiful water areas. Brent and I had a very nice vegetarian meal in the restaurant, which is behind a waterfall! Then we walked to the nearby Chi Lin Nunnery and the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Around 4pm we went to Simon's school and met some of his colleagues and had a look around the school. We were immediately made welcome by Henry, who brought us a very welcome cold drink. It's a real shame that the children are not in school this week due to the Swine flu epidemic, but it was still interesting to see the building. Its in a high rise block with different year groups on different floors. Henry, a teacher of English and Maths showed us round with Simon and pointed out a multimedia area , where children could produce their own films. We headed back to the staffroom where each teacher has a work space. Then it was time to move on to where we were going to join a group of staff at their weekly game of badminton. We took a minibus to Steve's apartment block. Steve teaches mandarin and lives in the most gorgeous building, with fantastic views, gym, swimming pools and badminton courts. We spent a very happy couple of hours and both really enjoyed playing. Brent, who played regularly for years until about a year ago, really loved it! He and Simon played together and he was impressed with how much Simon's improved. Afterwards we headed to the Chao Inn, where we met Corinna again and all enjoyed another fabulous meal. This restaurant has huge fish tanks at the entrance and after 9pm reduces it's prices. We were touched when the staff insisted on paying for our meals, which were really superb. What lovely people.

Friday 19th June:
Off on the MTR to see the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas: oh my goodness! It was boiling hot and very humid and their must have been 10000+ steps up to the temple. Each step had a Buddha on each side in different poses. It was almost tacky, but funny too. By the time we reached the top we were sweating profusely and ready for a cold drink. The actual temple was quite lovely, with the actual 10000 Buddhas in small alcoves in the walls of the temple. We headed back down the steps and had a look in the local shopping centre here in an in Sha Tin. Later on we met Simon and went up the funicular railway to the Peak. This was wonderful. We watched the sunset with the most fantastic views of HK. We then took the minibus down and went to a nice Mexican cafe in Soho. We ended up having a few beers in some of the fun bars in this area and before heading home Brent enjoyed a game of pool against a local player. Another lovely day.

Saturday 20th June – our last day in Hong Kong
We headed over to Mong Kok this morning and managed to get our last bits of shopping done ready for China. We even bought a few new clothes, which was nice and allowed us both to throw a few items out!! In the afternoon we were all a bit tired, so decided to go to see a film at one of the local cinemas. Clive Owen and Julia Roberts were on in the film 'Duplicity' which we thought might be good. It turned out to be very disappointing, but at least it was cool...maybe a bit too cool!! We headed back to Simon's place where we copied our photos and left them and some postcards with Simon for posting. Simon wasn't feeling too good and we decided to have a bit of a rest before deciding what to do later. In the end we went to a noodle bar for dinner and then had a few beers back at the flat. Dan's sister, Louise, had arrived from England and several friends joined us. They'd booked a karaoke room for after 11pm. Simon wasn't feeling up to that, but we went along and had a brilliant time. There were about 10 of us ushered into a small comfy square room, with seats all around the edge and a huge TV with karaoke at the front as well as a play station. Several mikes were passed around and everyone joined in the singing..not like anything at home. Great!

Sunday 21st June – off to China!
This morning we started to pack up our stuff and had a local cafe Coral breakfast. Then Simon came over. We finished our packing and went to Delifrance for a drink together before heading to the MTR and saying our goodbyes. We felt very sad to say goodbye to Simon, who'd been such a fantastic host. We got the train to Shenshen and had a couple of hours to spare before getting the onward night train to Guilin. We found a nice hotel / restaurant ( the cafe Berlin), where we shared a meal and enjoyed a drink before heading to Macdonalds, where we had burger and fries!! The train station was very well organised and about 30 minutes before the train left we were ushered down to the platform, along with hoards of Chinese people. We quickly found our sleeper and were delighted with it. There were 2 sets of bunks with bedding, lights and a flask of hot water...so we could enjoy our Malay tea! We awaited our fellow travellers, but no one came, so we had the whole compartment to ourselves...great! We both slept quite well and it was interesting to see the high rise blocks disappear and be replaced by green rice paddies and country villages. In the morning before we knew it (and before we were ready!) we arrived and in a mad rush left the train:. I left behind my sandalwood bangle... damn! As we came off the platform we were directed to a tourist office. Here an excellent English speaker talked us through the boat ride to Yangshuo and was also able to describe the other cruise we were thinking of doing: from chongquing down the Yangzi river. In the end we booked ourselves on the morning cruise leaving at 10am. Nick, a lovely guy from Seattle, whod been working in Shenzhen teaching in and International School, joined us, along with a Finnish couple. We were picked up and driven to the port. On the way the guide told us some of the background to the area and the different names for the Karst scenery we were about to see. Her English was difficult to understand at times and punctuated by mini tests to check whether we were listening. . have to say we were too tired to play the learning game here and left that to the others, who performed equally badly! We eventually arrived at a transit point where we were given little Panda stickers. We were told to take a seat in a large souvenir shop where it was clear we would be part of a bigger tour group sailing down the Li river. We eventually boarded our boat with about 50 other people and sat on seats that looked to have been taken from coaches and tables nailed to floor. We started the journey with a talk from the English guide, who described the various rock formations we would be seeing: the husband rock and the 9 horses amongst them. We soon got to know an American couple who were sitting next to us. He ran a t-shirt on-line business, whilst she was a Romanian emigrant who had lived in Hungary before the US. She had several degrees and was currently teaching French, would you believe... so we had a lot to talk about. In the end, after he'd made several racist comments, we realised that we had very little in common, but nevertheless, meeting them was interesting.

We got off the boat in Yangshuo and left them to their afternoon tour, whilst we wondered down West Steet, stopping at the global cafe to get our thoughts together on accommodation. Once again we struck lucky! Whilst Brent had left for the bank, I struck up a conversation with the waitress, who was really helpful. I mentioned Bamboo Guest House as somewhere we might stay. The couple next to s then mentioned that they were staying at the one down the road that had just been opened and it was very clean and cost 100Y (about £9) We went to look and the room was not only spacious with a good bathroom but also very clean. We booked in for a couple of nights, which in the end turned into 4 nights.

Monday 22nd June
Today we needed to chill, so did! We wandered back around the town taking photos and soaking up the atmosphere: West street is just one tiny part of the town and is very geared up for tourists, with lots of bars and restaurantss. Past this street the town is actually quite large, with commercial areas as well as a lovely and very well used park, which we really enjoyed. It was interesting to see lots of older people sitting at stone tables playing cards and various other games. In the evening we found a nice bar, selling good beer and food...all very reasonable. ( we think it was called the Karst bar, and it advertised climbing trips). It was nice not to feel pressured to do anything and we enjoyed relaxing with our books.

Tuesday 23rd June
We wandered out and about this morning and climbed a steep path to get a birds eye view of the town. This wasn't far but it was very humid and we were quickly drenched in sweat! We thought about going to Moon Hill, a nearby attraction. A younger couple in the hotel had climbed this the day before after cycling there...but we decided against: a/ it was just too hot and b/ I wasn't confident about the main road which we'd have to face at the start of the ride. Brent thought about going along, but the heat put him off too. Shame really, especially as there's also a fun cave near there where you can slide in mud and in natural hot pools.. Still we enjoyed our wander and the home made lemonade back at the hotel. Tonight we headed off to see the show which we'd booked through the hotel.. it was directed by the guy who directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing olympics and turned out to be a real treat: A huge open air theatre was set up in front of the most majestic view of the river surrounded by the limestone karst ( small, but impressive mountains). A cast of hundreds then performed, mostly from boats on the river. The lighting was incredible and the background mountains changed from blue, to green and red... quite beautiful. We bought the video we were so impressed...( and it was dead cheap!)

Wednesday 24th June
Today we'd booked to do a kayak trip nearby. The day began when Mark, who was our guide, asked if we would mind using motorbikes, rather than a taxi, to get to the venue. At first we thought he meant us each to ride a bike, but we then realised he meant us to ride pillion. I went with Mark and really enjoyed the ride, through the local countryside. We got a real insight into local life driving down narrow, picturesque lanes and later rocky paths. We saw locals working in the paddy fields and I was impressed by the many fields of vegetables. After about half an hour Mark began to get calls on his mobile, which turned out to be more folk interested in kayaking. Each call took a bit of time and Brent was just starting to worry by the time we arrived. Have to say we both realised how blasé we've become about taking risks.. it was only whe Mark stopped his bike in the middle of nowhere that I thought...what if Brent's not here? I could be anywhere!! En route with Mark we'd had an interesting chat about having children: he'd explained that he had one young son and that he felt very stressed by being a father. I think he was also concerned about the risk of having more children. He asked how I'd felt when I had my first child and when I said happy, he said that he too felt happiness, but also worry. Hard work for him to make enough money for his little family...made me think and realise how lucky I'd been.

Anyway we alll met up fine and wandered down to the river where we decided on a double kayak. Mark then left us with a guy who spoke no English, but who would follow us downstream on his bamboo raft...fishing at the same time! Any problems and he'd phone Mark. Have to say there was no safety check, capsize drill or anything. We were given a couple of old life jackets, heavy wooden paddles, and left to it. We both expected to see Mark later, but no...he'd gone off presumably to meet his new group! Despite all that we really enjoyed the paddle along the river. It was good to get bit of exercise and there were some good views. We stopped around 11.30 at a stilted cafe for lunch and this proved another interesting experience as moored right next to us was a bamboo raft. As we arrived we noticed that a very attractive young woman appeared to be having her hair cut on the raft...was it a floating hairdresser's salon? As we ate our lunch, which was very good, we watched as the hairdresser fitted a wig, in a bob stlye over the girl's long hair. We soon realised that a young man was taking photographs of her with the different hair styles. It turned out she was modelling for a fashion magazine! As we continued to enjoy our meal 2 fellow paddlers appeared upstream and we watched as they moored up beside us. They joined us for lunch and it turned out one was an American, working in London. Apparently everywhere he went in
China he was being mistaken for a famous basket ball player. He was a lovely guy...very fit and with a great laugh. His fellow padddler was from Argentina. They were both really nice. We all enjoyed the bizzare entertainment of the hairdresser working away on the fashion model, whilst right next to them a local fisherman stopped to gut his fish! Before continuing downstream Brent and I had a quick walk in the village. It seemed very old and we spotted a huge poster of Mao on the wall of a house we passed. We continued our journey until our 'guide' pointed to a bridge,where we had to stop. As we wandered off up the road, expecting to see Mark at any moment, we spotted our fellow paddlers, just arriving. The fit american yelled how he'd been really trying to catch us and was impresssed with our speed! Cool! We followed our leader through a very inteThe huge open fronted buildings included regular shops like a pharmacy and supermarket. Very interesting. We spotted an old banger of a bus at one side of the road and our hearts sank as we were ushered into it: it was empty with no sign of a driver. Oh well, clearly we weren't going to see Mark again. We sat patiently hoping a driver would appear. After 10 minutes or so our fellow paddlers appeared, along with their guide and all got into the bus. it turned out that the american was supposed to get a bus from yangshao to Guilin at 3pm and was then due to fly back to London around 5pm! We sat waiting for the bus driver to arrive and making jokes about the dire straits he found himself in. We'll never know if he made it, but it was certainly doubtful. That evening we wandered around West Street and enjoyed a meal in a different bar. It was interesting to watch a large mixed race group at a nearby table. We guessed that some Australian teachers were saying goodbye to their chinese colleagues... pure speculation, but they were all very fond of each other.

Thursday 25th June
We took time to pack our things in the morning knowing that the local buses ran quite regularly. This has become an automatic process now. We have two bags each and sort of know what goes in each. Downstairs we had breakfast to the accompaniment of some old classic favourites being searched on the internet by a British guy about our age. Songs like Moon River and Artists like Andy Williams came and went. This made a sort of surreal atmosphere to our last meal there. Having collected our bags we walked up to the bus station and fell upon it by luck rather than judgement. ( My sense of direction has been letting me down of late and I certainly hadnt got to grips with this small area of Yangshou ) As we approached the bus area a young lad immediately jumped out and said ' bus to Guilin ' as if reading our minds. The next question is always ' how much ? ' We knew it should have been in region of 55Y so when he said 105Y we carried on to next bus. The next minute he is pulling out 15Y and showing us. A bargain – we must have haggled local fare.
The ride to Guilin was scary to say the least. Linda seems to have become immune to this sort of driving and just told me to relax and watch the Kung Fu film that was showing. I struggled to take my eyes off the road as the driver would overtake oblivious of the fact that cars where coming straight at him. He seemed to be playing a constant game of chicken and luckily nobody challenged him prefering to veer onto the area reserved for bikes and scooters instead.
As luck would have it we entered Guilin on the same road as the station so we were able to cross and make enquiries regarding our overnight sleeper. Through a series of mime acts we were able to show the information guy what we wanted. Luckily we had written down the number of the train so he wrote down the rest in Chinese. I found an ATM while Linda looked after the bags. Then it was trying to buy the ticket. Trains are very popular in China and the queues at all the counters were large. I stood behind one of about 10 that were open hoping that i didnt have to be in a specific one for tickets to Chongqing. The line gradually got shorter until there were only 4 people left at which point the woman selling the tickets looked above her pointed to some times in blue ( which must have been her hours of work ) and closed her curtain. I together with the other people waiting joined the ends of other queues – grrrrrrrr. Much gnashing of teeth as again I joined the queue where two young guys seemed to be having a long debate with the ticketeer while everbody behind got irritated. Time was passing quickly and I was aware of the need to hurry as our train would be leaving in 30 mins. When I eventually arrived at the head of the queue I had the problem of explaining where we wanted to go. Even showing him the written Chinese did not fully solve the problem as he seemed puzzled that I wanted two tickets. Fortunately a lad close by had better English and managed to explain to him my needs. Sorted – rushed back to Linda, got bag through scanner went to waiting room. Would you believe it...the train was delayed. Murphys Law.

On eventually boarding the train we found we had bought tickets for the hard sleeper. This means you are in an open corridor carriage where 6 beds are together set in tiers of 3. We had been told of this so it wasn't that much of a shock that it had happened given the price we were charged and the language problem.
Two young girls occupied the lower tiers so Linda and I got into the second tier which meant a scramble up a ladder. Fortunately there was some room to stack our luggage. We had become good by now at passing the time so the long 20 hour journey wasn't too daunting.

Lin here: As we hadn't had time to shop for food when we got hungry we ventured to the buffet car... what a laugh! The staff there were highly amused by our efforts to get food we recognised and when we pointed to the mandarin for egg, in our phrase book the waiter mimed a chicken laying an egg.. very funny. In the end the egg fried rice and chicken we ordered were quite nice...a lot better than British Rail food!

Managed to sleep on and off and both noticed that one of the girls below us slept the whole way. When we'd arrived on board she''s been in the middle of a romantic goodbye with her boyfriend. She obviously needed to catch up on her sleep!

Friday 26th June
The morning dawned with that vague sense of insecurity. Were we at the right station? How would we progress from here with no language and no English signage. In China we definitely felt like foreigners in a foreign land. We exited the station onto a huge square with people going about their business everywhere. We clearly looked lost as we consulted our inadequate map to get our bearings because it wasn't long before a kindly voice asked if we needed help. On looking around we saw a jovial bespectacled man who clearly had good English. On explaining our situation he pointed out that we were not in the middle of the city and would need to catch a bus there which would cost 1Y. He proceeded to lead us to the bus stop and to our surprise also got on the bus too. He introduced himself as ' Jimmy ' and he was heading to work in the town centre. He asked what our plans were and when we mentioned getting a boat down the Yangtze he announced that he worked for one of the cruise companies Was this more than coincidence we wondered. Linda and I had similar thoughts as the bus took us to the city centre. Did he just wait around the station in order to get business from foreigners arriving at the station. We were too relieved to worry about it long term and even after our time in Chongqing we felt the same. When our bus arrived Jimmy took us directly to a hotel the'd recommended, aware of our budget. It had reasonable prices and we were soon booked us in. At this point we thought Jimmy may leave us to it, but no, he helped with our bags up to the room and then said he would wait in the lobby so we could accompany him to his office. Our suspicions of him being a tout increased but we realised that without him we would really have struggled. We went along with him to his office, taking a short cut from the hotel. Jimmy asked what we were looking for and we said we couldn't afford the luxury cruise, so settled for the domestic one Jimmy said he could get us a good price in a first class cabin, with private bathroom. We were only able to put down a deposit as cash was low at this point, but this was fine with Jimmy. He talked us throught the daily schedule of trips from the boat but we were too tired to make decisions. Jimmy said we could decide tomorrow, when we would also pay the balance of the trip. He then showed us the way to a shopping area with a Starbucks and Subway. At thie point he seemed to be attaching himself to us and got as far as crossing the road with us. We then explained that we would enjoy exploring the city on our own, and thankfully he didn't take offense, but left us to it.

We headed off in the direction he had suggested for some sustenance. We came across a sort of mock medieval frontage of building climbing up the steep riverside which cunningly disguised a modern shopping centre. It wasnt long before Linda and I were thouroughly lost inside this labyrinth. After a good half an hour wandering around we finally found Subway on the street level together with a rather tacky mock pirates galleon. Our desire to be in this western chain of eateries needs some explanation as: normally we would steer well clear of them. At this stage in our travels though we needed to have some western food. We were tired both from the length of our journey and from having to constantly work out directions and language. Anywhere that has the air of the familiar becomes a little oasis. So it was with great relief that we ordered a sandwich and a cold drink.

It had been very difficult in the intense heat to make decisions about where to go in this huge city of 32 million people. We ended up just trying to take care of the practicalities like getting more money. The street maps of this huge city were also next to useless as they were so small I needed a magnifying glass to see them. Life was definitely not easy here.
On leaving the restaurant we were amazed to bump into Jimmy again made us wonder if he was touting for our business. In the end after he'd given us some ideas for places to visit, we decided our bumping into him was probably a coincidence..but we were never sure! We were definitely too tired to take up his suggesions, which involved bus rides and In the end we went back to the hotel to recover and take refuge from the heat. Later on we ventured out and found our way to Liberation Square. This was the pedestrianised centre of the shopping district and once more we were struck by the number of expensive shops and designers labels. Who buys them?

In our pursuit to find inexpensive food we happened across a Chinese equivalent of MacDonalds. The food was all displayed on boards at the back all numbered. We ventured to the front of the queue only for the serving girl to pull out an English style menu for us to order. The food came in double fast time and proved to be healthy and nutritious. The only blemish on this experience was the huge row that broke out between two women sat in the restaurant who started having a slanging match that looked like it would head to blows. We departed stage left as all eyes were turned on them.
After the meal we headed back to the hotel for an early night.

Saturday 27th June
Today we planned to get up for breakfast as it was included in the price but alas ended up sleeping too long. We ended up going to Starbucks in Liberation Square and ate something sweet with a latte. This was like all other branches of this franchise inside but the huge space was totally deserted. Led to us wondering whether these are being positioned for the future as there was no way it could be making a profit. Money needed to be paid for the cruise so we tried to find the office we had been taken to the previous day. This again was difficult as we had been led there by Jimmy. Eventually found it and asked to pay the remainder of the money and they said they would ring Jimmy. He promptly arrived and tried to persuade us to join some of those tours from the boat. We'd already talked about this and decided to do just one: the little 3 gorges. Jimmy was'nt too happy about this and said we could change our minds later on when we'd thought about it some more.

A leisurely Subway sandwich was had for lunch. Again the chain was occupied by many people from the west. It was difficult not to eavesdrop on a conversation between some neigbbouring diners: 2 Australian women, who ran a restaurant business here in Chongqing were chatting with some Americans. The older of the 2 Austalians did most of the talking explaining how she enjoyed the city and had been unable to cope back in Oz! Linda overheard the American couple saying they were taking the cruise down the Yangtze. On the way out she said ' May see you later ' I didnt think this would be the case as we had taken the cheap option. I said this to Linda and she agreed that it was unlikely.

From the restaurant we decided to search out the 'Three Gorges Museum,'one of the attractions recommended by Jimmy. (The other was an ancient town a bit further afield). The bus we had been told to take was the 261 but after one had passed us we went in search of the bus stop. Not one in sight. We were looking helplessly at the map when an old but sprightly gentleman asked if we needed help. On explaining our situation he simply said ' follow me' and proceeded to take us to the museum. This was quite remarkable as it involved a trip on the MRT and a lengthy walk in which we were trying to match his pace. On arrival at the museum we thanked him profusely and shook his hand. He said goodbye and left. We wondered if that would ever happen in England..... have to say we'd both wondered if he'd prove to be a tout..but this clearly wasn't the case... how amazing.
The museum was an incredible modern building half glass and half limestone built around an atrium with exhibition floors running off this central area. It was truly inspiring. We looked around the exhibits one of which explained the Three Gorges. Although there was some English explanation at the start of the galleries most of the displays had none which made it difficult. It was well designed though with some fantastic statue sculptors of people like Mao and Sun Yat Sen. After the museum we went across the square to look at a fantastic building which looked like a Chinese version of the Albert Hall and turned out to be the People's Hall. The bizarre thing about this was it had huge plastic soft drinks bottles outside advertising something like Sprite. We paid to go in and found them setting up some sort of concert obviously sponsored by the drinks company. China has these strange contradictions going on as capitalism takes hold.
We returned to the hotel via the MRT and had a good meal in the restaurant opposite our hotel. We were welcomed into the place by a row of attractive girls who were really lovely. We'd got caught in a bit of a rainstorm, so it was good to dry out. The staff were extremely attentive: each time we took a sip of water they would top up the glass!(this did get a bit wearing actually and was often the case). The rucksacks had been left behind at reception so we picked them up and headed down to the office where we had done the deal with Jimmy. I was still feeling a little sceptical about the tickets being there on time in fact Linda bet me he would and lo and behold but our friend appeared dead on time. He helped us on board and showed us our accommodation for the next 3 days. At a cursory glance it seemed ok. Own bathroom, large window, twin beds. After we had said our goodbyes to Jimmy we heard a knock on the door. The Chinese woman standing there was pretty, aged about 25, and introduced herself as Helen, our English speaking guide for the duration of the trip. She explained what would be happening and issued us with our ticket to the top deck which was an additional 50Y each. As soon as she left the cabin a waiter came rushing in and ushered us down the corridor. At first we were puzzled but soon realised that he was offereing us an upgrade: the room he showed us was quite a bit bigger, with an enormous TV, but otherwise the facilities seemed the same. When we declined his invitation to move he dropped his price, but we still chose to stay put. Back in our cabin he proceeded to show us the light switches etc which we'd already found and then asked for a tip. He was very unhappy when we refused. After this we decided to explore and went up to the sun deck. As we began to leave the room a second waiter barged past us, locking the door behind him! He also proceeded to show us light switches etc before we showed him the door. This was actually very disturbing and left us feeling very unsettled when we should have been relaxing into our 'cruise@. By now it was dark and tup on deck he lights of the city were quite special. Opposite us there was an outside screen positioned on the side of the Arts building. It was showing scenes from under the ocean and took us back to our diving experience. We were quite surprised and pleasantly so to spot the Americans we had met in Subway. Sam and Pat were part of a trip for art teachers interested in ceramics and we got quite friendly with them during the 'cruise'. We discussed our first impressions of the boat: as seasoned travellers we hadn't expected great things, but some of their group were shocked by the dismal state of the boat... stained carpets and smoky walls dominated the open areas and the bathrooms were pretty disgusting: the pipes from the sink were loose, so whenever you used the sink it leaked. Even when water landed in the channel below this was absolutely filthy! Sam and Pat, who were a bit older than us seemed to be coping ok and we took an immediate shine to them. After some time the boat began to pull away from the quay and we were on our way down the Yangtze! We had a quick look in the bar/lounge area, where karaoke had already started. Here there was a good sized dance floor, but we decided to leave this for another night and headed to bed for and early night.


Sunday 28th June
Sleeping on the boat proved to be a strange experience. It vibrated and throbbed very loudly. Cups were rattling on the bedside table but more disturbing was the noise coming from a panel on the ceiling near the door. I took off the panel and stuffed some toilet paper in there to try and dull the sound. Success at least for a short while. At least the room had little lights by the bed so we could read. We reversed our position in the bed to compensate for the slope and soon dropped off.
Dawn broke and we got our first look at this huge river. It was a swirling mass of milk chocolate coulored water. Not the sort you would ever want to swim in. The river was very wide and we were constantly passed by boats fully loaded with all sorts of cargo ranging from coal to new vans.
The first stop was to visit a place called Ghost City. We'd booked onto this with Helen... although we think it cost more than Jimmy had quoted!! This was a series of temples set high up on a hill. Our guide Helen introduced us to another Chinese woman called Carla who had better English. She was living in Texas and was over with her family visiting her parents who were from Shanghai. We left the boat with them and headed up many steps on the bank of the river. This was to be the pattern all the way along as much of the basin had been flooded with the construction of the dam. Whole cities had been moved uphill..quite amazing. At the top of the steps we were greeted by the ubiquitous hawkers who always assumed we wanted beer first and water second. The day was very hot and it wasnt long before I was ringing wet with sweat.
We boarded some little electric cars to take us to the start of the temple ( an extra 10Y ) The initial impression of the entrance to the ghost city was very spooky with some impressive scary gates adorned by carved demons. We walked through a small street in which there were some derelict buildings and stalls selling halloween type masks. We then ascended lots of steps. At the top of the steps we entered ghost street: a wide pedestrian area with grotesque bronze statues on each side. At the far end of the street there was a huge open mouth of a demon which signified the entry into hell. We then approached the walls of the temple where we paid another 10Y to go into what could only be described as a chamber of horrors. This involved walking through semi-lit corridors filled with all sorts of scenes of horror. These were depicted by Papier Mache figures some of them automated. The type of scenes were of people being dismembered in all sorts of ways. It was all very kitsch. took me back to my childhood at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This was further confirmed when we payed an extra 5Y to carry on down a tunnel only to be confronted by a very makeshift ghost train. The little trolley we sat on took us in a 100 metre circle where we were brushed by various dusty items and dimly lit figures. By this time we had got quite hysterical with laughter. The tunnels continued for what seemed like miles and we made many jokes about being stuck in hell...actually we were almost on our own in the tunnels and were beginning to wonder if we'd ever catch up with the rest of the group!! When we finally got out of 'hell' noboddy else was in sight! We decided they must have continued up the hlll to another temple and proceeded to look for a way up. Nothing was obvious but Brent spotted some steps which we followes. They were in disrepair, but lead in the right direction and brought us out at a temple full of Buddhas, reminiscent of the 100000 Buddhas in Hong Kong! After a look around we began to get anxious: we hadn't seen any other members of our group and didn't want to imiss the boat... finding our way down was a challenge but we eventually got onto the main drag down and in the end made it back in plenty of time. When Carla came on board she asked where we got to and we reckoned that they'd been to one of the other temples at the top of the hilll via a cable car.

As the day wore on we got chatting to the US group and to 2 German lads: Philip is a lawyer specialising in Mariner affairs. He's been living in Shanghai for 2 years and is quite charming and very bright. He loves the chaos of China. Back in January he met the other lad, who is much more typically German and clearly unhappy with the 'cruise'. Philip made it clear that most of the time the two of them don't get on well. Have to say, although charmed by Philip I could completely understand how the other lad felt! The rest of the day passed uneventfully and in the evening we reached our next port of call. Helen hadn't recommended this to us, so we just got off for a walk up to the gate of the temple passing rows of hawkers selling a wide range of antiques mixed with trashy items. Back on the boat we had a quite evening: we'd planned to join the americans on the karaoke ( they'd had a fun time the previous night and we'd regretted not staying up. However after dinner when we headed for the bar the Americans had not appeared. We listened to the karaoke for a while but soon realised we couldn't cope with some of the 'artistes' so retired to our room, where we put out music on the laptop and updated some of this blog.

Monday 29th June
This morning there was an early trip out to visit a nearby town ( we think). We'd told Helen that we needed a lie in, so she didn't wake us up. however we had a very unsettled night as at 3.30 am the ship sounded it's horn several times, very loudly, then at 7am a cleaner came rapping at the door wanting to 'clean' the room. After that the phone rang taround 8.30oo...all very annoying. So much for a lie in! The call was from Helen or Carla suggesting that we get on deck early to see the first of the gorges. Around 9am we were up on deck enjoying the views of the gorges. It was pretty grey and rainy, but the views were still quite impressive. After lunch we left with other passengers for our visit to the little gorges. We met up with Sam and Pat who said that the previous evening's temple visit hadnt been very interesting. We realised that Helen had given us some good advice – they'd missed Ghost city, which had been quite interesting. Anyway we all headed onto smaller ferries, which took us on a commentated trip down the little gorges: these were quite a bit narrower than those we'd seen from the big boat. We couldn't believe the commentary: a young woman began to speak through a microphone as soon as we were aboard, and honestly didn't stop for breath for the whole trip, which must have lasted a couple of hours. When we reached a narrower part of the river we transferred to smaller vessels: these were wooden rafts with bamboo curved to provide a covered roof ( see pictures). They had small motors on the back, which allowed the guide to deliver his commentary from the front. Dressed in the traditional hat his delivery included some lovely singing and story telling. Before reboarding the ferry several visitors had their photos taken in the hat and a straw cloak.

This was our last night on board and I have to say we couldn't wait to leave the boat! We decided to enjoy the evening with the other English speakers and took our card game ( Quidldler) down to the bar, where some of them were already playing a drinking game of cards. We were pleasantly surprised when the entertainment began and it wasn't karaoke! Instead a compere set up musical chairs and a dice game, which the chinese were delighted with. Have to say we couldn't believe how easily pleased they were – there was much raucous laughter and it was a pleasure to see folk enjoying simple fun. Then some music came on and it was Western! We were in the midst of our game, but some of the younger Americans got up to dance. Much clapping followed and a bit of a dance contest ensued. Brent and I decided we'd have a dance too, but after we came back from the loo everyone disappeared along with the music!!! all very weird and disappointing. Oh well at least we only had one night left before leaving the ship!!

Tuesday 30th June
We got up quite early to do our packing, having decided against this morning's boat trip, which left at 6am. We'd been grateful to helen, who'd organised the next stage of our trip from the boat: we would join the visit to the 3 gorges dam ( the largest in the world and very controvertial) and then get the bus into Yishang, where we would transfer to another bus to Wuhan, where Helen had booked us into a hotel...again reasonable priced. The details of all of this seemed very complicated with us having to find a Mr Li and a Mr Hu in order to collect tickets.... We were getting used to this now though.

Everyone seemed booked on the dam trip but we were in with Carla and her family, whilst the other English speakers were all together. The dam was interesting and a real leffort has been made to beautify the surroundings, with viewpoints and gardens with sculptures. There were 3 stops with short bus journeys in between and by the end of the visit I think we were both shattered... I know I was (Lin). We spotted Sam and Pat and managed to exchange email details before heading off on the journey to Wuhan. This all went very smoothly...thanks to Helen, although the bus journey to wuhan was bizarre: before we left there was a lot of shouting going on and we realised that the bus had been overbooked. It took an age to get this sorted and everyone applauded when we finally left. We couldn't believe it when 5 minutes later we stopped for at least 10 minutes in a bizarre cafe, where the toiilet doesn't bear describing! Have to say by now I'd lost the will to live! The seats were incredible close together and lots of people were coughing and spluttering. What with that and the state of the public toiltes I'd had enough! When we finally got to Wuhan we couldn't believe our luck. As everyone got off the bus a lady held up a list with our names on... turned out we were right outside our hotel...thank god! Philip said : Are you staying here?' in a very surprised voice. The hotel did look very smart and I replied that I thought not as ours was a 2 star place. In fact the smart exterior hid a second building out the back, where the 2 star accommodation was found. Once again this entailed going through a labyrinthe of corridors and a conference hall, but we managed ok. The room itself was fine...clean and with a clean bathroom. That evening we ventured out and were very surprised by Wuhan: just around the corner on a parallel road there was a stream of bars and discos and a bit further along an amazing riverside area, with vast walkways and open areas. On the way into the town we'd seen huge groups of people exercising and this would be another area for that. We stopped at a bar on the way back where the manager had good English. We enjoyed a lager and some popcorn and he invited us to try the local tea, which was quite nice. A nice welcome to Wuhan.

Hong Kong and Simon

Friday 12th June
We set off knowing that we could get to the airport using the MRT having done the journey several weeks previously. On arrival at the airport we checked our bags in early. Surprisingly for a huge city there were few people around. We went through security this time with few problems. The flight was longer than anticipated and had some of the luxuries being Singapore Airlines. I almost got to watch all of the Watchmen but unfortunately found we were landing before I could view the last ten minutes. Simon greeted us on arrival and presented us with a welcome badge, octopus card, and a mobile phone – what a star. This was the first time for a long while that we had been able to switch off a little from decision making and his welcome was so appreciated. On the way into Hong Kong he pointed out some of the sights. It was like having our own tour guide! We found our way easily to Mirador Mansions where we were staying. This proved to be a rabbit warren filled with all sorts of private enterprise and also in the middle of massive renovation with bamboo scaffolding covering all the outside and the inside quadrangle. We made our way up to the check in area, then found our room. This proved to be a small suite of rooms seperated by a corridor. Our room proved to be clean and airconditioned – which by now is all we need. We dropped off our bags and headed straight out with Simon for something to eat. He took us to a cafe near where he lives in Mong Kok: he was known there and we were absolutely gob-smacked when he ordered for us in Cantonese! We enjoyed this first meal in Hong Kong: we had traditional food, including lovely broccoli with beef. Afterwards we went to see Simon's flat, which has a very comfy sitting room, with large flat-screen TV. We met Tim, one of his flat-mates and then had a quick wander around the area ending up in their local where we were introduced to Karen, who seemed in charge. We settled into a quiet corner and ordered a bucket of Carlsburg ( this was actually 6 bottles in a bucket). There was a young woman promoting the beer and after at least 2 buckets Brent was delighted to get a free Carlsburg pen. Simon suggested a game of darts and we had a go on the electronic board. We also played a dice game. Simon explained that most pubs have board games, which local enjoy. Later on Daniel, Simon's other flat- mate, joined us and we had a fun time playing darts. We left the two of them in the pub and got into taxi..

Saturday 13th June
Next morning Simon met us outside our building and took us just up the road to another mall, where we had our first, fantastic dim sum. The restaurant was fabulous: it was very busy with lots of locals sitting around huge round tables enjoying their Saturday brunch. We certainly enjoyed ours, with the crispy prawns and custard dumpliings high on the list of favourites. We then spent a very happy afternoon mooching around the antique shops on Hollywood Road on HK island. To get there we took the Star Ferry across to the island then used the MTR system. All very efficient and unbelievably clean. Somewhere en route we picked up a delicious yoghurt drink. We were very impressed by the ancient statues in one of the exclusive shops that we went in. They were hundreds of years old but had been renovated so were in pristine condition. The carvings were stunningly beautiful. It was very hot and humid so Simon introduced us to another of his favourite pubs: the Globe. Here we enjoyed Marston's Pedigree and Leffe dark beer. Brent and I had a game of back gammon before we headed to Hong Kong park, where we enjoyed the aviary before going back to our hotel for a rest and shower ready to head out and meet Prudence and her mum and dad. We ate in a Sichuan restaurant, where the food was hot and spicy. Christine and John ( Prudence's parents) went home after the drink, while we carried on to the Bulldog bar in Lan Kwai Fong. There we had towers of ale and met some of simons friends.

Sunday 14th June
We started the day again with some Dim Sum – yummy. Simon then took us via MTR and local bus to one of the many treks in Hong Kong. This came as a bit of a surprise to us both. We didnt realise that there were many walks. The walk known as the Dragon's Back headed steeply up the hill sometimes using paths sometimes steps. The heat was intense and we were all soon working up a sweat. We set a slow but steady pace and were rewarded by some stunning views across the bays below. After a couple of hours we finished our walk at Big Wave Beach.It was lovely to see local families enjoying the sand and sea. We sat down to enjoy a cold drink and some food. Linda and I took the opportunity to go for a paddle. When we felt suitably refreshed we headed back to the city using one of the small buses. These fairly zip around the island carrying about 10 people. We ended up at Mong Kok where we ate Thai food, then used Simon's internet before heading home in a violent thunderstorm.

Goodbye to the islands and on to Singapore

Sunday 7th June
Today we took the water taxi to the small island. This is far more commercial and we were interested to see whether it would be any better as a place to stay. We arrived on the jetty on long beach. The hotels and restaraunts started immediately and we soon spotted the dive school Quiver that we had e-mailed but to no effect ie no reply. It didnt look as impressive as the one we had chosen. We wandered along the beach which had very little shade and had us soon scurrying for somewhere to get a cold drink in one of the bars bordering the beach. By coincidence this also turned out to be one of the ones that we had tried to contact and again had been full. The chalets looked comparable to the ones we were staying in. The beach though was very hot so we searched for the path over to the other side of the island. We struggled to find it so asked two English women sitting at a table nearby. They had not been here long so couldnt help. In the course of their conversation though they bemoaned the fact that the electricity was turned off in the early hours of the morning and didnt come on till 7pm in the evening. This confirmed for us that the decision we had made to stay at Bubbles had been the correct one.
We eventually found the path which was bordered by lots of rubbish and building. The other side of the island was cooler with some more shade. Coral Bay as it was known was the area that all the boats came into from the mainland so the government had built a huge jetty which somewhat marred the view. We spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and taking an occasional dip in the sea. By the time 4.00pm arrived we were ready to go back to our island. We sought one of the many water taxis and a young lad drove us back to the resort. After dinner we wandered down to look at the full moon reflecting in the water: very beautiful. April came over to say that a turtle was already preparing her nest if we would like to see...Wow, once again we had struck lucky. We were able to get quite a good view of a huge green turtle preparing to lay it's eggs: this is very hard work. She uses her fins to scoop out a deep chamber. This took over an hour and she seemed oblivious to the gathered onlookers. We were very impressed by the children who came to look: they were still and quiet and completely absorbed in watching. Suddenly we heard the sound of a boat and shortly spotted several men from the fisheries, who'd come looking for turtle eggs. This is part of the government's conservation project and is quite hard to watch. No sooner had our awesome turtle laid her eggs than one of the men knelt down and with his whole arm buried in the sand scooped out her eggs. One of the young volunteers was very upset and really lost it when one of the newly arrived tourists, who'd missed April's talk, used his flash to take a photo. Throughout the whole fiasco the turtle continued to work hard to cover the eggs she thought were still there. This took another hour or more and we were privileged to be close enough to hear her laboured breathing in between her work.

Monday 8th June
Our last day on the island was a quiet day of reading and lazing about, giving our feet a chance to recover from the damage done to them by the fins we wore when diving. Our last meal was a bit disappointing and we felt ready to leave the next day.

Tuesday 9th June
We did not leave the island until 4.00am so had plenty of time to pack our belongings and say our fond farewells. It seemed that everyone was genuinely sorry to see us go. Our dive instructors and the family who owned the business all stood on the beach to wave us away.
The little resort boat took us to the edge of the island where we made a mid water crossing to the larger fast boat that sped us to the mainland. The driver was a bit of a maverick though trying to race boats and speeding into the harbour entrance at a ridiculous pace. We were relieved to get off safely. On disembarking we were told by the taxi driver who met us that they had been unable to get tickets for the overnght bus BUT fortuneately had tickets for the sleeper train. This involved an hours journey to link up with it. luckily we had lots of time before its departure at 9.00pm and found a cafe to have tea. The journey by train was our first sleeper experience. No place for bags so had to sleep with them. For me the smokers where a problem. Managed to get some sleep though and the journey continued smoothly to Singapore.

Wednesday 10th June
Arrived in Singapore about midday. Taxi from station to MRT. MRT to Orchard Rd where I did a successful recky to find the YMCA. The building was very posh. We settled into the room. A little luxury after our time on the island. On our last visit to this city we were in Chinatown. Now we were staying in the heart of the shopping district surrounded by malls – had a very different feel and could have been any large western city. We made the most of the facilities and replenished some of the supplies we were low on. In the evening went to the Quay area and had a few very expensive drinks.

Thursday 11th June
Had a visit to the Botanic Gardens today. Beautifully laid out. The highlights were the orchid gardens which had the most fantastic blooms.The humidity was very high and we wandered around at the pace to which we had now accustomed ourselves. Had a quiet evening around the hotel making the mistake of buying an expensive burger. Looking forward to seeing Simon.

Underwater adventures

Eric first spotted shy bamboo sharks hiding beneath rocks but as we continued to swim we saw many more. You can imagine how wonderful it was. We saw several puffer fish and a lot of the Nemos.. you may have to wait til we get home to see the video of us amongst shoals of fish!!!

3 legged turtle

We first spotted her feeding and then watched as she ascended with very little effort...amazing1

Brent signals OK

Impressive eh?