We managed to get the high speed train from Zhengzhou to Shanghai, so it only took six and a half hours as opposed to the 13 hours it would have taken on the slow train. The moment we got to Shanghai it felt so civilised - the station was shiny and new, there were restaurants with English menus, and it was all so clean. We stayed in Shanghai for 4 nights and absolutely loved it, especially after our time in Dengfeng.Shanghai is a huge city but it felt really diff...

Chengdu is your typical Chinese city - filled with skyscrapers and malls. It was a lot like Kunming, however we were happy to find that it was considerably easier as most people spoke some English. We spent much of our 5 days in Chengdu wandering around different parts of the huge city. It is incredible just how many malls there are in Chengdu. A mall is quite a big deal in the UK, however in Chengdu there are mega malls on most streets in the centre of town. Som...

By the time we got to Kunming it was dark. Rick, the manager of the apartment in which we were staying, drove us to our new accomodation. The car journey gave us our first taste of modern China - skyscrapers, building developments and hundreds of neon signs. The city looked incredibly futuristic. Gone were the tuktuks and motorbikes of Cambodia and Vietnam. Replacing them were nice cars and electric mopeds that made little more than a quiet hum. We had to take th...

By the time we got to Kunming it was dark. Rick, the manager of the apartment in which we were staying, drove us to our new accomodation. The car journey gave us our first taste of modern China - skyscrapers, building developments and hundreds of neon signs. The city looked incredibly futuristic. Gone were the tuktuks and motorbikes of Cambodia and Vietnam. Replacing them were nice cars and electric mopeds that made little more than a quiet hum. We had to take th...