So… We were now left on our own to fend for ourselves. Some of our group had left already to get back home, Sjofn had gone to spend a few days with her friend in another part of Beijing and Dan had a few days left before continuing his travels. After moving from our lovely 4 star hotel (which we were becoming accustomed to) we headed over the road to the cheaper hostel. Clean and comfortable and it only had to service us for another 3 nights so all was good. ...

Our last day in Xi'an we were determined to make the most of, so it was off to the city wall first thing to hire a bike. Sjofn was with us and we were soon on top of the ancient wall and riding our bikes of choice. Paul and I went for a tandem which was a first for both of us but looked like it would be fun. We had pretty good views over the city, particularly the inner, older part as the building here is restricted to certain heights and it contains the maj...

After being stared at and shoved about in Beijing it was good to know that we were off to a lesser visited, more remote area to walk the world famous Great Wall of China. The main area that draws the tourists in their millions each year is Badaling which is kind of your Disney world of the Great wall where it has been completely restored with shiny new brickwork and pointing with more souvenir stands than you could shake your "authentic" carved great ...

It was up nice and early for our 2.5hour drive out to see the Terracotta Warriors with the hope that we would get there before the crowds. We arrived around 11am and met up with our local guide who at first seemed as much use as an underwater hairdryer with the charisma of a pebble but once we'd got him to slow down his speech significantly so that we had a chance of understanding him, he eventually turned out to be not only very informing but a good laugh too....

Xian Early the next morning we embarked on another day and night of travelling on the trains to reach our destination at Xian the following morning. The usually mundane task of travelling was broken up by myself, Katie and Sjofn playing Mahjong in the open sleeper compartments of the train. We were happily playing by ourselves when at one of the stoops our neighbouring carriage was filled by some locals around our age who not only found our appearance intere...