We arrived in Guilin at about 6am and then got an hour an half coach ride to yangshou. All of our rooms were ready and the hotel was lovely. After an orientation walk we had some lunch and then met to go on the li river cruise. We drove to the river and then boarded our bamboo rafts and headed down the river to a pebble beach. The scenery was breathtaking exactly as it is in the photo. We saw a fisherman with a cormorant on the pebble beach and spent some time th...

We arrived in Shanghi mid morning and after lunch went and walked along the bund and saw the impressive skyline of shanghi. That evening we went on a river cruise to take in shanghis skyline at night which was even more impressive. The next day we took a walking tour including the french concession, major shopping areas, a souvenir market, a plant bird and isect market and a beautiful park where we did some exercises on the funny public exercise machines provided...

On the 29th march we moved to our starting hotel for our roam china tour where we checked in and met our group in the evening. We found we were in a group of 15 and met our tour leader Louis and then went out for dinner to start to get to know each other. It was really good to eat as a group again as we got to try more things and that evening we had dumplings which were really good. The next day we set out early for the great wall of china however the weather was...

Having moved to the new dragon hostel down the road from our finishing hostel for vodkatrain, we set out exploring our new area and found all the essentials we would need. As most of the others from the vodkatrain group were also staying in beijing for a while we met back up with them and went to the silk market which was quite an experience. You are hassled continuously and dragged to the stalls to haggle fiercely for a variety of fake goods...however we did man...

Arrived in the afternoon and met Alex our honcho at the train station. We were driven to our hostel which was more like a hotel and our twin room was spotlessly clean and very comfortable. In the evening we went for a Beijing duck dinner in a restaurant round the corner from our hostel which has now become our favourite haunt for dinner. After dinner Alex took us to bar street in the sanlutin district where we found a bar which we stayed in for the rest of the ev...