We were up bright and early to pack for our ascent of Hua Shan, a 2,000 metre mountain considered holy by Taoists. I was armed with a new 6 quid rucksack and a 4 quid purple plastic poncho to help me on my way. After a couple of hours of constant rain on the bus to the base we weren't sure how safe the ascent would be but we overheard some Germans preparing for the ascent and goddammit we weren't going to be outdone by the Hun! The beginning of the climb was a ...

After a bit of a lie-in and a session getting back in touch with civilization on the internet we headed out to walk the old city walls of Xian. They are apparently the widest defensive city walls still standing in the world (up to 18 metres at the base in places) so we set out thinking it would be an interesting walk. Unfortunately, however, we found the only attraction is the wall itself as the view down into the city is pretty charmless. If we hadn't been to Pi...

We arose early in the morning and packed as quickly as we could, ignoring the breakfast apparently included in the room price, god know what that would've been like! We had to fend off the driver we'd told the girl on reception we didn't want but she'd booked anyway (price: 160 Yuan) and headed via a supermarket to the bus stop for a local bus (price: 1 Yuan) up to the Longmen Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The caves were created by Buddhist monks from the ...

As we rose & packed to get ready for the trip to Luoyang the hostel was already starting to feel like home. We handed our main rucksacks in for storage and pottered about for the day, wandering the streets and using the local internet cafe, on the 6th floor of a shopping mall. As afternoon hit we headed for the train station and felt like celebs as we were ushered into the designated soft seat lounge (we'd been warned about the ubiquitous 'hard seat' section ...

I was really looking forward to our tour of the terracotta warriors and excitedly boarded the bus with a motley crew of fellow travelers and an insanely perky chinese tour guide. The warriors are part of the tomb of the man credited by most historians as China's first true Emperor and the man who built the great wall Qin Shi Huang. It is a matter of debate whether they were to guard his tomb, follow him into the afterlife to help him rule there or a huge decorati...