We went back to the hostel and met the rest of the vols sitting in the restaurant. We exchanged stories and heard what everyone had been up to - some highlights included hearing that Jony and a few others had been chased by a man in a tuc-tuc after he tried to scam them so they ran away. They made it to a waiting cab which they dove into but not before the tuc-tuc driver had appeared at the window and spat in Jony's face. What a charming man, at least it mad...

We set no alarms for the next day but I woke to find Nold already up and getting ready to go out. I got up and showered quickly as did Rob and Henry leaving Pete sound asleep (he was in no fit state to be moved just yet). We had the whole morning ahead of us and went to grab some breakfast and find a temple. In trying to find the temple we came upon the entrance of the Muslim market and it was in this fascinating whirl of colours and sounds that I spent the ...

At the end of the last blog I mentioned that I wasn't looking forward to the next day, I'll now explain why. During the ticket fiasco in Nanchang the week before we had successfully bought tickets to Xi'an which is on the way home from Lanzhou to Nanchang. This move made perfect sense because train tickets worked out cheaper if you stopped off in Xi'an and it meant we could use our few days of holiday productively by seeing one of the most iconic tourist si...