We had our first experience of sleeping on a train...it was noisy, had a smelly toilet, hard bed and a driver that liked to slam on the brakes through out the night, almost rolling me out of the top bunk! We did however meet a funny australian couple in the next room who could relate to the experiences and cultural differences we had encounted. The train arrived over an hour late in to Beijing, it would seem none of our transport has departed/arrived at the cor...

After a restless nights sleep in Xi'an, in a bed which can only be described as a cyropractors dream. We took the glass lift to attend another classic chinese take on the English menu. Brown bacon and anemic sausages were part of the buffet menu next to the rice grule and steamed buns. The Chinese really do not understand breakfast, it's almost as if it is a nasty inconvience that must be taken care of before the day can continue. Needless to say I stuck with toa...

Today was panda day! We met our guide Tony or as we named him TinTin the adventure boy (due to his excitable nature). He planned for us to see the teenage pandas being fed but unfortunately they were refurbing the outdoor space so there was nothing to see. After the dissapointment the next thing to do was to book my morning time slot for holding a baby panda. I was number 12 in the morning session and we had an hour free before it started. Ant and I went and saw ...

The day started just after 12am when several drunk chinese people seemed convinced our room was theres. We woke up to the noise of the door trying to be opened repeatedly, luckily it was fully locked and they soon realised they had the wrong room. After a few hours sleep we rose at 6am as we needed to go up the final steps on the mountain to watch the sunrise. It was very cloudy and visibility was poor, just as we were about to give up the sun broke through the c...

Today we traversed over 3000 meters high to Mt Emei which has one of the 4 sacred buddhas. Our trip was a long one taking 3 hours by car to reach the nearby town. Stopping by in Leshan to see the Giant Buddha. We were told this requires a 3 hour hike, something we were not informed of. The hike is 35 stories down to the foot of the buddha and a 35 stories climb back up. There was a single file queue all the way down, so we opted to take the boat instead. Although...