Dear All,

Thank You for all the comments and messages so far! By popular demand Kirsty is going to write the remainder of the blog, with a little input from me, as we have a lot to catch up on!

Today we have arrived in Chengdu after a long over night train journey from Xi'an. Tomorrow we are going to see some giant pandas - well excited!!

Yangshuo: After a few chilled days due to Jonny being ill, we had a couple of days exploring the region. We hired some bikes from our hostel for the day and headed out to the countryside. It was a scenic ride through country villages, farms and rice paddies that were enveloped between the limestone peaks. Absolutely beautiful. Part of our ride involved a bamboo raft trip down the Yulong River where our bikes were attached to the back. The river had a series of mini waterfalls so we went 'surfing' for bits of it. Was fun! Jonny started a water fight with some chinese tourists and we were promptly soaked!

We took a walk to the local farmers trading market where we saw some dogs being boiled!! Awful! also there were lots of fish and vegetables. We tried 'Beerfish', the local delicacy, which we both loved. On our last day, we went out to the Water Cave where we swam in hot springs in the cave which was cool. There were also mud baths but we did not pay for that with the hope of sneaking in for free (jonny's idea!) but unfortunately our guide caught us!

Chongqing - Yichang: After a bus ride to Guilin and a flight from there we arrived in Chongqing at 1.30am. We slept for a measely 4 hours and got a bus to Wanzhou (3 hours) to catch a hydrofoil down the Yangtze River through the three Gorges to Yichang. The cruise, despite the drowsiness, was superb. Steep valley sides surrounded the river, which narrowed to about 50m in some parts. The cliffs were extremely high and whilst some gorges were sheer, others were folded on their side at strange angles and others had triangular (Toblerone like according to me) sides! We arrived in Yichang and checked in at a motel close to the bus terminal.

Next morning was another early start. We went on a 'chinese' tour to the Three Gorges Dam (we didn't want to pay for an english guide!) Because of the weather we couldn't see much of the dam and the water level was high so it didn't look spectacular - certainly not like the worlds biggest dam! Nonetheless we were happy to see it. Weirdly, some chinese girls wanted their picture taken with Jonny!! (really don't know why!! haha)

Xi'an: We took an over night bus here after seeing the dam in the morning. This was certainly an experience! The bus not only carried people but fish too, consequently the bus smelt of fish as well as jonny's feet! The bus stopped at some 'makeshift/hillbilly sevices' which consisted of a few tarpalin sheets and some people cooking pot noodles. The toilets were dire - no cubicles just a drain pipe and some wooden barriers! The worst squat bog yet!

We arrived at 5am in the pouring and freezing rain and took a much needed nap. After waking up, we went for a stroll along the old city walls. Jonny experienced another photo session with some chinese people! We met a nice Israeli girl called Ian! We got a much needed early night after all the travelling.

The next day was our trip to see the Terracotta Warriors - dubbed the 8th wonder of the world by the chinese authorities! We were both a little disappoited by the whole thing as we both expected to see hundreds of warriors lined up but many were smashed. It was still great to see but we were not blown away. In the evening we tried some street food, some good, most bad!

Mount Hua (Hua shan): I'll let Jonny descibe this to you, since it was his favourite day so far;

We woke up early and headed to the bus station where we got a bus to the village of Hua Shan (2hours away), even though we were up and away at 730, we didn't start out ascent until about 11am due to the horrific traffic that seems to plague China. The first 4km of the climb sloped upwards to some superb scenery (pics and videos to come) and then the mountaineering began! Literally thousands of steps lined our way to the tops of the valley. The mountain had 5 peaks - N, S, E, W and centre peak. It took us until about 4pm to reach The North Peak - a cool 6km and 1800m in height!! The ascent was harrowing- especially for Kirsty who's little legs suffered, but with a sheer drop of at least 500ft never further than 2 steps away it was dizzying and dangerous! We scrambled up thin corridors of steps which were so small you could only fit your toes on and traversed features such as 'blue dragon ridge' and 'cloudy ladder 'and who could forget 'The thousand foot precipice'!! AFter reaching North Peak, instead of going down in the cable car we continued to The East Peak- where we stayed to witness sunrise the next morning. The Journey from North Peak to East Peak was more treacherous and culminated in a vertical ladder of steps, with a chain to hold on- it really was squeaky bum time and we were both delighted to reach the hostel near the top just in time for sunset!

We shared the night in a dorm of 10 people, including a family of Chinese people, who had, to put it politely, poor personal hygeine standards. There were some 70 years olds with walking sticks in the family, God only knows how they had got there! They woke us up regularly in the night, majorly at 1am when they seemed to have a family gathering. One man was probably the loudest snoring man we have ever met, the sheets were dirty and damp - it was a grim night overall! This was all forgotten at 5.40am when we woke to see the beautiful sun rise over Mt. Hua. It was red and brilliant and well worth the hardship of the previous day! After a descent to the North Peak we got the cable car down, equally as scary as the ascent! Thoroughly tested, mentally and physically, we got back to Xi'an in one piece!

Back to Kirsty :)

The hike up the mountain was terrifying, painful and exhausting but i am totally glad that i did it. the views were amazing (when i dared to looked at them), especially the sunrise! The scariest thing i have ever done!! We purchased a good luck padlock on the descent that we attached to a chain - we should have perhaps done this on the way up! A brilliant experience.

Hope you are all well and survive this long blog!

Lots of love Kirsty and Jonny xx