We got to Xian at 7am after being stuck on the train from hell. We found the hostel easy as we took a taxi. We had booked a room with only 2 beds as we have always been sharing with people for the past month. The room was really nice and only costing £5 per night. We spent the first day watching films and relaxing to get over the horrible trip. James has also developed a cold, it's too early to tell whether it'll progress to man flu. The second days we met u...

The first night in Beijing was fairly uneventful. We stayed in the hostels bar and drank some cheap beer (40p a pint). We ventured down the road to find some Chinese food - the novelty of using chopsticks has worn off dramatically. It just seems a chore to eat, a shovel would be easier. We ended up having a beer with the Argentinians in our room that evening. We got along surprisingly well, probably as we kept quiet about certain subjects. The next day we got u...

We got off the train at 6.30am, a driver was waiting for us. We got to the hostel and went to bed for a few hours since we hadn't slept at all on the train. We got ready to explore the city. We'd been warned to be careful of pickpockets in Mongolia. I was about to walk of the hostel and the manager stopped me and told be to leave my bag there as the pick pockets would cut it open. That evening we met a guy who has his pocket cut open. It's advised not to go out...

We got up stupidly early and walked to the train station, we got there as the train was pulling into the station. When we boarded the train we would hear a lot of noise. Our carriage was full of Europeans who's body clocks were still in Moscow time so that explained why they were all up at 5am. We found our cabin and it was full of people drinking. We thought 'great' we're in for a bad 30 hours. We soon came to realise that everyone was super friendly. They e...

Getting of the train was a nice feeling. Although the cold did hit us as it was -14, it was still dark at 9am. We had a bit of a discussion which way the hostel was. It took us a while to find as James got us lost... again. He has since been demoted furthermore to my personal luggage carrier. We had a shower, the best shower ever since we'd been 4 days without, had a nap and went to explore the city. The city wasn't what I was expecting, I expected a run-d...