Glad to see there are still some old reminders of British rule - double decker buses, drive on the left, dial 999 for the emergency services....... The skyline looking over to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon is spectacular. Even better at night once all the neon lights are on! The nighly light show is a 'must see' despite being ultra tacky. We took the obligatory tram ride up to Victoria Peak and wandered around the Soho District which is the main area for restau...

We took a boat ride down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo. Very touristy (there was a convoy of boats) but the scenery was well worth it. Yangshuo is only a small place but is crammed full of market stalls - all waiting for the boats from Guilin to arrive. You wonder how they mange to survive as they all sell the same crap! We hired some bikes and headed for the countryside. Easily the best so far on our travels. We also took a bamboo raft down the Yu Long...

Only a short stay here. Fair play to the Chinese for developing a whole tourist industry out of a very suspect looking rock formation - an elephant drinking water. Judge for yourselves from the pictures! We also took a trip to the rice terraces at Longsheng. Feeling that we were now experienced travellers we decided to make our own way there. By bus. First of all it took over an hour for the bus to leave the city as it drove around picking up passengers until...

Pandas!!! Yet another early start to watch them have breakfast. Apparently once they've eaten they spend the rest of the day asleep. Sounds fantastic to me. We weren't disappointed. They even had a creche facility with a number of baby pandas. The only criticism is the Research Centre is basically a glorified zoo. If my memory serves me correctly they haven't actually released any pandas into the wild yet. We also wandered around the People's Park in the ...

Before the rain and smog set in we visited the Terracotta Warriors, cycled around the city wall and climbed up Hua Shan. We also shared a dorm room with a New Zealand soapstar. Now that doesn't happen in Horsham.