We were up early this morning as we were going to Longsheng - an area famous for it's 800 year old rice terraces. We had taken a tour as it is quite complex to get there. The tour bus turned up at 8:30 and did the rounds of the hotels picking everybody else up. We arrived at our first destination about 11:00. This was a hill village populated with a minority group - the Yao. This group is famous because the women only cut their hair twice - once when they get to ...

Our time in Macau was finished and today we were going back to mainland China. It was a quick ride to the border then through both sets of customs and passport checks. All went quickly with one minor embarrassment - we were asked if we were eligible for the 'special' lane in China - that's for mothers with small children and the over 65s - Fran was most incensed.We took an express bus into Guangzhou - China's third largest city. It was the normal sprawl with lots...

We were up and out early today as we moved onto Macau. We trudged over to the ferry and bought a ticket for the next boat which was in 10 minutes. We rushed through check-in, customs and immigration and were on the boat with 2 seconds to spare. The ride over was in a catamaran which was a bit choppy at times - not good for me as I am the worlds worst sailor. We arrived in Macau and caught a bus to our hotel. After settling in, we then set off to do a bit of expl...

We went to explore the French Concession today - the piece of Shanghai that the French ran at the end of 19th C and early 20th C.The place was a bit ofa disappointment - lots of leafy tree lined streets and a few places that had been turned into up market shopping/restaurant areas but nothing like we were led to believe. We did come across a French promotional market selling French wines, Bretagne crepes and Evian water! After that we had a stroll through the Pe...

We left about 8:30 to catch the bus to Shanghai station to go to Suzhou for the day.We breezed in to the right queue (where they spoke English) but our first problem was the earliest train we could get was 10:25 and the next problem was the earliest back was 19:45.That pretty much fixed our day. We filled in the time waiting for the train with breakfast.The train was another hi speed one - 200 kph.We didn't realise but we had 1st class tickets so it was very c...