Our bus journey was pleasantly uneventful. The Chinese sleeper bus consisted of 3 rows along the bus, each with a 'top' and a 'bottom'. In terms of space, let us simply say that A-M fitted in snugly. The bus was pretty quiet and spitting seemed to be at an acceptable minimum. We found ourselves a tolerable hotel (though Dave flooded the hallway, and A-M found that the ad-hoc electrics in the bathroom gave her a mild electric shock) and then potter...

Greetings from Dali. We arrived from Lijiang in good time to book into the MCA hostel in reasonable time (ie in daylight). The journey had been very interesting as we had (fianlly) arrived in the kind of rural China that you might expect (hand tilled fields, piles of manure deposited on the hard shoulder of the road, crops being cut by hand, etc). Out to explore for the evening, we discovered Dali to be along much the same lines as Lijiang - cobbled streets,...

We spent a very enjoyable couple of days in Lijiang in south west China. Like England in general, or London, the prettiest bits of China appear to be in the south west. Lijiang has lovely cobbled streets and small streams running through most of them. It was the most 'charming' place we have been to in China so far, and at last we seemed to be away from all the smoke and smog. We decided to split up for the morning and A-M wandered the streets whilst...

A couple of random thoughts to start with. Firstly, does anyone have any good ideas for sports we can play on the freighter to keep ourselves occupied and fit? Most of the ones we have come up with suffer from drabacks such as the ball falling into the ocean, or being blown into the ocean.Secondly, on the Trans-Siberian, Dave had discussed with Aussie Matt the possibility of dying our hair, given that we were away for log enough for it not to matter too much...

A couple of random thoughts to start with. Firstly, does anyone have any good ideas for sports we can play on the freighter to keep ourselves occupied and fit? Most of the ones we have come up with suffer from drabacks such as the ball falling into the ocean, or being blown into the ocean.Secondly, on the Trans-Siberian, Dave had discussed with Aussie Matt the possibility of dying our hair, given that we were away for log enough for it not to matter too much...