Thursday 2nd June - overnight train to Kunming. Friday 3rd June - fly from Kunming to Shenzhen and then cross the border to Hong Kong. Flying straight to Hong Kong would have counted as an international flight and been much more expensive, hence us entering via Shenzhen. Hong Kong is hot! Having spent the last few weeks up in cool, rainy mountains it's a bit of a shock to the system! Our hostel, Hong Kong Hostel, turned out to be a disappointment. There were no...

Monday 23rd May - fly to Shangri-La. This place really lives up to its name! It's so peaceful and quiet and beautiful countryside it's just a short bike ride away. It feels like we're on holiday! Our room at Kevin's Trekker Inn is amazing - our room has views over the city on one side, and the other is all glass opening out onto our own balcony with chairs and table! We wondered around the old town a little. This is a slightly odd place as the old town is relati...

Sunday 15th May - the train to Lhasa. We boarded the train at 9 last night and don't getting off until 5 tomorrow evening (44 hour in total). There wasn't much to do except read and admire the scenery. As soon as we hit the Tibetan plateau the scenery did change drastically. Gone were the steep green hills, rice paddies and tea plantations. We were now greeted with vast plains stretching out as far as we could see, interspersed with huge blue lakes, snow covered ...

Wednesday 4th May - arrive in Chengdu. The hard sleeper train was quite nice as it turns out. Instead of seat the carriages is divided up into compartments of bunk beds, with six beds in each compartment. The bottom bunk also doubles as seating when the person on that bunk isn't sleeping, and there are a few additional seat down the carriage. We both slept really well! In the day time we were mobbed by small Chinese girls once they saw Chris' iPad. We barely got ...

Wednesday 27th April - arrive in Xi'an. The train station we got off at turned out not to be the main station, but a shiny new station miles out of town. Every taxi we tried to flag down refused us as apparently they were all going to the airport and not into town. Eventually we managed to get a taxi to wait long enough for Chris to call the hostel and pass the phone to the driver to get directions. We're staying Shuyuan Hostel, close to the centre of town. Xi'a...