You know when you open an oven door with your head too close and you worry you have lost all your eyelashes? - keep your head at the entrance of the oven and you can imagine southern China in August. The following paragraphs assume we are drenched in sweat unless otherwise stated. (It hit 42 degrees on the train 2 days ago. ) Since we left you we have taken a 4 day cruise down the Yangtze river, climbed 'the Yellow Mountain', visited another ancient walled cit...

Well we left you in Bejing but have now been hopping westwards on a selection of night trains. We have been exploring lovely ancient towns and staying in their traditional inns, visiting temples, we went to see the awesome Teracotta Army, did some panda and humungous buddha watching, and generally eating ourselves full of noodles. Dan continues to be the main attraction with many people continuing to photograph him throughout the day. Besides noodles and Dan...

So after a couple of long flights (and calming Dan down over the excitement of flying in a 'double-decker' plane) we touched down in Bejing and we haven't wasted any time here. We have spent most of our time as you would expect wading our way through hoards of Chinese tourists, many of whom found Dan (yet again) a tourist attraction himself. We have explored the backstreets of the old town, wandered the lakes, and of course had Peking duck in Peking! We have ...