Shenzhen (Guangdong Province) 4/02/10 14.00 Paracetamols for breakfast before packing up our stuff for a thirteen hour train to Shenzhen. We had to go back to Guilin first which took a couple of hours; we then spent a few hours in a restaurant just killing time. Our train was a 21.30 pm and we felt rough all day, when we sat down in the train station all we wanted to do is sleep but we were approached by a Shaolin Monk who insisted to show me a few Kung Fu mo...

Yichang (Hubei Province) 23/01/10 The hotel manager who we called Gow was a great help, he arranged our onward train ticket and we didn't even have to leave the hotel for this service. We had breakfast / lunch in a shopping mall, again the mall was a busy place and everyone seemed to be looking at us especially when it came to paying for the goods. We eventually figured out that to buy something you need a store card which you charged up, anyway by the time we'...

The Yellow River Datong (Shanxi Province) 11/01/10 11.30 the train changed platform; if you could read Chinese you would have quite clearly noticed this, however me and James can just about say 'hello' and 'thank-you' which didn't help us in this situation. The train was due to leave in five minutes and there was no show of it or any passengers, thankfully a kind Chinese lad pointed us in the right direction and we just made it. Getting to our seats was agai...

06/01/10 Both slightly hung over, the early start was pretty painful but we managed to get to the airport with time to spare. Burger king for breakfast before boarding the plane, the plane was a bit disappointing with the absence of individual TV monitors. I managed to finish my first audio book - Dan Brown 'lost symbol' - pretty good and thought provoking but a bit analogous to his other books. Freezing cold and snow covered, we touched down in China collect...