Nanning: 2nd October Our trip from Hong Kong to Hanoi in Vietnam has so far been our longest journey - it involved us having to cross the border back into China and then catching a coach and train through another border crossing to get into Vietnam. When we got to our first checkpoint city of Guangzhou we were met by the travel agents who informed us that we were due to transfer to our new sleeper bus. As we waited patiently for this wonder bus, that we were ...

21st September 2009 - 23rd September 2009: Hangzhou is only a two hour train journey from Shanghai so we set off on Monday evening so that we could spend all day Tuesday wandering around the lake. The train was one of the newer models with extremely comfortable semi-reclining seats and power sockets for the computer and made for a very enjoyable journey - apart from the "human germ" sitting behind Sean who spent the whole time sneezing, splattering an...

17th September 2009 - 21st September 2009: We got the overnight sleeper train from Xi'an to Shanghai and compared to our first journey it was pure luxury. We had a lovely bed each with fresh linen, power points to charge our various gadgets and the lights went out so we could have a good nights sleep. We have really taken on the travelling vibe and chose to get to our hostel via public transport rather than taxi - although that might have something to do with t...

14th September 2009 - 16th September 2009: We took an overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an but when we were booking the tickets they only had 'hard seats' left. There are a few different classes of seats on Chinese trains and this is one of their lower classes. We thought that it would be okay but……… it wasn't! Literally, hundreds of people crammed into the carriage, some even without seats just standing or sitting on the floor. Everyone was smoking and ...

8th September 2009 - 13th September 2009: We arrived in Beijing on Tuesday 8th September and to be honest for the first couple of days we found it quite tough as it has been a big culture shock on so many levels. We finally realised just how big an adventure we were undertaking and the home comforts we were giving up, including seeing our friends & family. It was also difficult to grasp the cultural changes in China - the people here have very different vi...