After leaving UB, we got back on the Trans-Mongolian train for the final leg to Beijing. Ant was asleep for most of the day sleeping off the night before. The scenery became more arid, dry and hot as we made our way through the Gobi desert. I read, played on my DS, woke Ant up a few times and listened to music. Later that night we came to the Mongolian - China border - again a mound of paperwork to fill out. I tried out my chinese phrases on the customs officials without realising they were Mongolians - not that it mattered as my pronounciation was dire. Later that night we pulled into a station where the train had to have its bogies (wheels) changed as the Chinese railway is a wider guage than Russia and Mongolia. I stayed up until 11pm watching how they jacked the carriages up and then simply removed the old bogies and slipped a wider set on (the geeky Engineer in me). The next morning we had breakfast in the Chinese buffet car, bread and 2 eggs - one which exploded on me when I thought it was hard boiled. The scenery slowly became more arable, with chinese farmers working the land on contraptions powered by donkeys, cows, bulls and the odd woman... It seemed the primary mode of transport was bike, all the farmers seemed so content getting their rice fields prepared. As we got further into China it was clear that we were entering a land that is still developing on a monumental scale with cranes everywhere building new high rises, motorways etc everywhere. As we were approaching Beijing lots of the guidebooks said you could see the Great China wall, so we were stood in the corridor staring out the window cameras poised ready to take a shot, finally we got a brief view of it in the distance. Before arriving in Beijing we went through a huge valley/gorge and loads of tunnels. As we came into Beijing it seemed huge - we walked to our hotel which was ok but a bit cold. We spent the remainder of the day trying to find a laundrette and an internet cafe, after about 3 hours of walking around and me going into a wheelchair shop to act out laundrette and cafe we gave up. Beijing is really spread out with lots of buildings still covered and under renovation in preparation for the Olympics. That night we found a nice Chinese restaurant and had duck (Peking style) which was nice. The following day we walked to Tian an men square and got talking to a couple of chinese art students who took us to see their art exhibition. Having read about these scams I was on my guard. They tried to sell us art, but we kept saying: 'Wor Boo Yow' which means I don't want. They finally painted our names on scrolls for free and we did a runner. The rest of the day was frustrating as we were trying to book train tickets to Xi'an. The following day we joined 6 other people in the worlds smallest bus. The one lad travelling with his mom was still drunk from the night before and slept on Antony's shoulder almost the entire 3 hour journey (which he was really fine with as you can imagine). We arrived at the wall - we went to Si Ma Tei - the less touristy part of the wall and hiked 10km. The views and scenery was stunning as youi will see from the photos. The tour allowed us 3 hours to get to the next village along the wall, but we being the keen kids jogged and raced each other and found ourselves at the end with 1.5 hours to spare. There were many enterprising locals trying to sell T-shirts and beers along the wall, we often had to run them out to get rid of them. The hotel and bar at the end were overlooking a dam, having a beer relaxing was the best (although I was burnt like a gibbon). The drive back took an eternity due to Beijing legendary traffic. That night after wasting 2 hours trying to upload photos in an internet cafe full of Chinese gamers, we gave in and were drawn to KFC (although ordering took a while as I did not know the Chinese for 'go large with diet Coke...!' Our final day in Beijing was fairly relaxing, having to catch the train to Xi'an at 6pm we decided to get a taxi to the Summer Palace - this was great, almost like the gardens at Alton Towers (without the rides). There were temples and lovely gardens around a large lake - apparently the palace had been designed by a queen many centuries ago as a place to relax and gain good health (although I ran around needing the toilet most of the time). There were some lovely scenes with weeping willows (my favourite tree) over bridges and rivers feeding the lake. Ant having been there before only got the entrance ticket whereas I got the one that allowed access to temples etc - given our time constraints I raced around them in and out like a lunitic branding my camera at every opportunity hence the dicky pictures... We finally got to the train station that afternoon and were hustled into a waiting hall. About an dhour before departure a large queue started, so we joined and spent the next hour sampling the body odour of several hundred Chinese. Once the gate opened we raced to our carriage - knocking kids, packages, dogs etc on the way. I was surprised at how clean and ordered the carriage was, it was 3 bunks on top of one another in an open plan format (a bit like a moving hospital ward). We were both on top bunks which had about 12 inches of room between our noses and the roof. After a severly hot pot noodle we both hit the sack and looked forward to arriving in Xi'an 16 hours later...