Taishan. Upon arrival in Taishan we have directions to the hostel by bus, so we negotiate our way past the drivers hollering at us to get in their taxi and aim for the bright lights of the road, but see no obvious bus stop. Curses. What follows next is an hour or so of traipsing around trying to get someone to understand us and the most hopeless feelings of despair I have yet felt on this trip - one day we will surely look back on this and laugh…. It's da...

Beijing. We stubbornly walk from Beijing West main station for an hour or so just to reach a tube station and avoid paying for a taxi. Our room at 'Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel' is nice and cosy with giant radiators that don't work. We explore our immediate area and find a bakery café that's lovely and warm, with an incredible selection of delicious looking cakes that would be perfect were it not for the left-over trash everywhere. We manage to waste our firs...

Xi'an. Our China Eastern flight from Shenzhen to Xi'an passed uneventfully and landed around 10pm. We emerged from the airport shivering from the zero degrees temperature and piled into the back of the first taxi waiting in line at the rank. The driver didn't understand the address or phone number I'd written down, so as he slowly pulled away from the airport car-park, he stopped to ask other people we passed if they could speak any English, gesturing a stubby...

Hong Kong to China 15 Nov - 20 Nov. We arrived at Hong Kong International airport a bit later than scheduled and joined the long line of seemingly hundreds of people making their way very slowly through Immigration. Once on the other side we waited a short while for my Dad to arrive - he was joining us for 4 days in the city after some last minute arrangements - and soon we were all in a taxi whizzing towards the Kowloon side, our cab driver chuckling absent...

VIETNAM 25/11/11 - 15/12/11 As we are so far behind, (We're in China, it's the 9th Jan) I'm gonna race through Vietnam like a local bus driver buzzing off red bull and rice whiskey, who's forgotten about the 40 dozing tourists aboard and getting off on the rush of overtaking on blind corners around mountainous bends and charging into oblivion. Ho Chi Minh City 25/11/11 The first thing that you notice in HCMC is the scooters - they are EVERYWHERE. Upon lea...