On our last day in Beijing we wanted to have a look round the Summer Palace. We checked out, put our bags into storage behind reception at the hostel and headed out to the metro, crossing Beijing then hopping into a taxi for our final leg out there.

The Summer Palace, we soon discovered, is less a Palace than an enormous area of Gardens, Temples and lakes the size of a small town. We wandered Longevity Hill by the entrance and looked in on halls and gardens dedicated to all sorts, including happiness, harmony and righteousness (sadly Bill and Ted weren't there). There are far too many buildings for m to list here and the complex is massive, truly a symbol of the power and folly of some of China's former leaders. The first buildings were put up back in the Yuan dynasty in the 15th century but one thing we were dismayed to find was that the Palace's buildings virtually all had to be rebuilt in 1860 after a monumentally petulant act of destruction by British and French forces during the Opium wars. They were painstakingly rebuilt by the Empress Dowager Cixi who decided to use the funds meant for the woefully inadequate navy. Her idiocy was shown up when the Japanese embarrasingly destroyed the remaining navy then the British and French returned to the Palace for another go in 1900 to retaliate for the Chinese having the gall to rebel against them for owning huge swathes of prime land in China's ports. I really do love our history of pissing the world off, it's a miracle any other country'll still let us in! A highlight of the walk round is an enormous boat made entirely of marble, the Empress's one concession to where the rebuilding money was meant to go. She built it as a boat that could not be sunk, I can just see the discussion with the head of the navy on that one!

My overall impression on the Summer Palace is that we simply needed more time. We spent over 3 hours there but to see it properly you really need a whole day. Although it would cost more I would suggest splitting it over two days, taking in more frenetic sights each morning then going for the more tranquil surrounds of the palace in the afternoons. It is a beatiful area on a huge scale. Though the money it cost and the land dedicated to one family in a city that was crowded even then are vulgar to think of you can't help but be impressed.

We headed back into the city, picked up our bags and got the metro out to quite close to the bus station we needed. We tried to flag down a cab but were stopped by one of the nicest men I've ever met. He proudly told us he'd taught himself English and had been a volunteer during the Olympics. We explained where he was going and he was immediately on the case. He ordered one of the young girls with him to ring her boyfriend who would know where we needed to go. After a number of conversations he told us exactly what to say to the driver and pointed us across the road to a line of taxis. Thanking him profusely we headed off and did exactly as instructed.

We arrived at a plush new bus station and eyed the row of shiny modern buses happily. We skipped up the stairs and walked to the ticket office to get our tickets to Taiyuan. A gap toothed older gentleman leaned over my shoulder in the queue to see the Taiyuan page I had open in my lonely planet for pointing purposes and chuckled. As I turned round to him he pointed at the Chinese writing and said simply 'No'. Slightly disturbed we pressed on to the desk to be met by a shocked look from the girl behind and the same 'No'. After much gesticulating and short choppy sentences we established that while our man at the metro station had been friendly, he was sadly wrong. We were at the wrong bus station. Our gap toothed buddy offered to take us to the correct station for what we thought to mean 5RMB. We reluctantly agreed and headed outside to be besieged by offers. It was rather lucky we were as it was then that a different fellow with a calculator helped us deduce that our dentally challenged friend was under the impression that we'd be paying 50RMB for his services. 50RMB is enough to get a taxi from one end of central Beijing to the other, confident we couldn't possibly be that far away we waded through the crowd to an official taxi with a meter. We explained where we were heading and he drove us the 5 minutes to the other bus station for 10RMB. I realise when converted that's a saving of about 4 quid but when you're travelling that's a big difference!

We got on a rather less modern and impressive bus than those in the original station but nonetheless the seats were fairly comfortable and it was fairly empty so Dave and I could take seperate seats to spread out a little. We got little sleep on the 8 hour journey due to the loud films (Chinese without subtitles, though reasonably entertaining) that blared out all the way but arrived in Taiyuan without any hiccoughs, the bag compartments were locked the whole way and there was only one stop so it was easy enough to keep a track.

We headed to where the Lonely Planet assured us there was a hostel and found, once again, the pace of change had swallowed it up and it was now a rather grotty looking hotel so we decided to press on down the road. As it was 3 in the morning our options were somewhat limited wbut we found a reasonably cheap hotel with a number of police cars parked (without lights flashing!) outside so decided we'd be fairly safe. We checked in and headed up in the lift to a clean room you'd expect in a travelodge or similar hotel. It didn't take long for either of us to fall asleep, despite the rather odd programme we found on tv that involved presenters learning to pole dance with children looking on in the audience!