China's Huangshan mountain was an even more incredible spectacle than Tai'shan, and again I'm not talking about the views! As with Tai'shan, every pathway is fully stepped or paved, and there are also three cable cars carrying tourists to the summit area from different base points. If I was to suggest that there were probably in the region of twenty to thirty thousand people up there (and it wasn't even a weekend!), it wouldn't even be a Paula-esque exaggeration ...

Tai'an - our first experience of being the only white people in the village! Only it wasn't a village, it was a city of over 760,000 people - and we were the only Westerners! Well, true for about twenty-four hours, then we saw some Swedish guys coming into our hostel (who we didn't see again), and on Mount Tai'shan on our third and final day there, we probably saw another handful. But not many! In fact, it started on the train to Tai'an, from Beijing, which was ...

Completely mind-blowing. Just thinking about Beijing a week after we moved on from there immediately leaves me short of breath, and definitely with no idea where to start writing about it. In terms of a sensory experience, I think a week in Beijing was like a cross between being at a festival, going to Alton Towers and watching something at the IMAX all at the same time, and I'm sure that isn't even doing it justice. It was utterly unlike anywhere else I've ever ...

Mongolia was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! I say "was", as I'm writing we'll actually still be in it for a few more hours, as we're heading southwards on the train to Beijing, enjoying our progressively warmer platform walks at each stop (I'm obviously now typing a week later, but was originally writing on my note pad, if that's not too confusing!...). I'm sure we'd have loved the uniqueness of this country however our visit had unravelled...

Irkutsk was a funny place! In hindsight, I think we were a tad cautious there at first, a little niggle from having read that the only muggings reported outside of St Petersburg and Moscow were in Irkutsk, but it only ever really takes a day to feel familiar with a place, and once that happens the inhibitions one has about wandering aimlessly, finding shortcuts down backstreets and exploring busy local markets quickly disappear. Anyway, like I said, we were immed...