Chinese-Mongolian border crossing was amazing!  5 hours for both sets of officials to do their stuff - not a smile from the lot of them!  Last Mongolian official did say 'gwudbi' but I think it may have been in a sort of sinister 'James Bond' villain type of way!   Anywho the feat of changing bogeys (train wheels) was incredible - all carriages raised off the ground by hydraulic lifts and then old bogeys shunted out and new ones shunted in - all passengers st...

Huw's Bit Beijing train station was a sea of humanity - unreal! Again everything worked and caught the train no dramas. Journey out of Beijing took about an hour then through Xishan Mtns where the scenery will take some beating on this trip as will the engineering to take a railway through them! Once through miles upon miles of farming land. When we go through towns the construction is everywhere, loads of cranes building what looks like apartment blocks - w...

Huw's Bit Big cop, military presence especially around Tianamen Square - no surprise. Square is pretty impressive, but Mao was closed on a Monday! Forbidden City amazing if a little overwhelming - you could spend a month in there! Love the 'feel' of Beijing in that despite cop/military presence there is no feel of nanny state, the PC or H&S brigade - so refreshing! People very friendly and couldn't stop looking at Christine - liked her hair and hairy leg...

Huw's Bit Traffic at certain times is horrendous - took us 3 hours to get back from Ming Toombs - cant have been more than 150km! Great Wall at Badaling was everything I wanted it to be and more, but I will never, ever understand how the bloody hell they built it! Sooooo many people climbing the wall and apparently it wasn't busy. Ming Toombs (13th/Emperor Wanli) also spectacular. Christine's bit: The Great Wall is hard to put into words - such a feat ...

Huw's Bit Spent first day trying to get into the Forbidden City and failing! This is after Christine made a random new friend walking on the street who turned out to be an art student (!). She took us to see her work, meet her teacher and ended up spending 1900 yuan on her and the art teachers- we can definiteltly vouch for its authenticty! Got some cool, free calligraphy done for us including our names! I can show it to everyone I meet from now on as mean...