Why d'you need a brolly when it's sunny? Get a hat for goodness sake, then I won't have to wear protective goggles and a hard hat to avoid the spokes. Beijing was the only place in China where we managed to escape the rain but even that wasn't enough to endear us to its charms or reduce the number of umbrellas. Despite the beautiful parks and famous sites, we left feeling weary and tired. The air was sticky and oppressive for most of the time, and although hot ...

What we feel about a place is often influenced by the type of experience we have there: whether we feel welcome, whether we have a chance to really explore all aspects of a place, whether we like the food and the people we meet. It was taking longer than usual to like China, mainly due to the awful rainy weather which was hampering our meandering, but Shanghai changed all that thanks to the hospitality of two of our past Host students Yan and Miranda. Having s...

We arrived in Xian to another downpour, so felt the only sensible option was to try and commandeer a taxi to our hotel. The hotel had written directions prior to arrival and told us to expect the fare to be 17 yuan. Initially, we couldn't find the taxi rank, so ducking umbrellas and large puddles we headed for the information centre across the concourse outside. They didn't speak much English, but seemed to recognise the word taxi and pointed towards the side of ...

Many of you have asked how we cover the long distances in China. Well for the most part here the answer is trains. We loved using the trains in India as we found you always knew where you would end up, something which was always a surprise when using the buses, so we're keen to compare transport in the two countries. The Kunming to Xian sleeper is a 35-hour journey, so we'd opted for what the Chinese call soft sleeper (at least they would if they spoke English)....

We've been to Kunming twice now, once on the way to Lijiang and once on the way back as we couldn't get an easy route from Lijiang to Xian. When we'd originally planned to stop here we were encouraged by all the advertising which described Kunming as "The City Of Eternal Spring". Thoughts of pleasant springtime days abounded in our imagination, and we headed to the City with enthusiasm. The first time we were here we got soaked everyday.....and abandoned a plan...