Hello! So to bring you up to date with our blog - we are staying at the farmhouse up in the hills at Yangshou and don't want to leave! Unfortunately we have to leave tomorrow though as we are going to the Lonji Rice Terreces for a treck (which we are looking forward to but could really do with some more days here as we love it so much!).

This morning we got up in our own time (the rest of the group went to learn how to cook Chinese food but we didn't fancy it) and had a late breakfast home cooked at the guest house. Matt has a bit of a cold and they made him the most amazing ginger tea where they boil the ginger up with brown sugar - really good! We then decided to walk back in to Yangshou (an hours walk) as we need to buy supplies for the next few days as it appears we are leaving civilization completely and need our Oreo fix. The walk was really nice - hardly any traffic and we saw some school kids who decided to follow us laughing and imitating us walking! In England they would have got a slap for that, but it was just so funny! We've obviously chilled out a lot!! The walk really did us good too - it's still quite overcast and the mountains are still misty but we can still appreciate the amazing scenery.

Now we're back in Yangshou and updated our blog. We're now going to buy some food from the supermarket before heading back to our guesthouse which we want to make the most use out of as we love it so much!! Hopefully we'll get to see the family that own it and their kids who are so sweet. The place is full of chickens (the rooster woke us up this morning) and their dogs - you feel so at home there. And the homemade chocolate cake and ginger tea is calling!

Tomorrow morning we leave the guesthouse (booo) and have a 4 hour coach ride in to the rice terraces. From there we have a walk to our next accommodation where we will stay for 2 nights. We shall we enduring a long treck of the rice terraces which we are really looking forward to and then heading back to the train station for a 17 hour train ride to Hong Kong and back to civilization. We've loved this part of the trip so much that we will be sad to leave, but excited about HK too. From there the trip will end and then we're on our own - still debating how to get to Vietnam, we think we'll get another train and this time it will be for nearly 2 days which we are dreading but it seems the cheapest option. We'll probably not be able to write now until HK (although however remote, there always seems to be electricity and internet access!) so will be in touch in the next few days! Lots of love as always, H&M xxxxxxxx