The boat set off early this morning. We got up around 9 to go on deck and have a look at the scenery and the first gorge. It wad nice but still a bit misty and rainy which is a pity! Then we played cards for a bit in the common room place while looking outside. We boarded at a town around 12 and went and had a big (really yummy!) lunch, then kimberly and I went to an Internet cafe and booked our hostel for Hong kong, which will hopefully be nice! fairly cheap but...

(28 September) If I had thought Xi'an was different, it was absolutely NOTHING on what was to come. It was like we had entered a completely different world. We thought people stared before...here, everyone stared/followed/shouted hello. The bus station wasn't too bad, clean, and the bus was ok, except for the girl munching chicken feet across the aisle from me, the weird kung Fu movies playing for the five hours, and the incessant horn beeping! Like even when yo...

(27 September) Ok so the next morning we had nearly the full day to ourselves before the night train! So I had a lie in till around half 10, chilled out and packed etc until checkout at 12. Then went with the other 4 girls to the Muslim Market. Unfortunately it was raining which was a bit miserable! We stopped at Starbucks again for breakfast (best blueberry muffin ever!)...think we had all just about reached our limit for Chinese food! The market was really fun...

(26 September) Ok, so day 2 in xi'an! We got up early (left at 8 I think) to go see the terracotta warriors! It was awesome! I don't know what I expected really, I hadn't looked into it much, but it was really cool. There's a few pits at the site, and the main attraction is this army of terracotta warriors which were found buried near an emperors tomb from over 2000 years ago! There is around 6000 of them I think but only about 1000 have actually been uncovere...

15.00 Bit of neglect going on here! I'm actually on a boat on the Yangtze river right now, but will update you on Xi'an! (25th sept) We arrived in the morning to pack our group of 16 (plus bags!) into two pretty small vans/minibuses. Transport is definitely interesting here! More crazy driving and horns every 5 seconds...and possibly a minor bus crash number 2...but neither party stopped despite the definite thud haha. Xi'an was instantly very different from...