Before we started our adventure, San Francisco was a place that I was really looking forward to. This coupled with the amount of people that we have met on our travels who all have said what a great place it is, just hyped up our expectations even more. Maybe it was something to do with the culture change as well, but gladly to say it didn't disappoint. In Hong Kong airport we had a bit of fun where Ms Akhtar, got a 'random' security check (I'm sure nothing to d...

To fly from mainland China to Hong Kong is expensive as they class it as an international flight and whack a load of tax on top so to save money we flew to the next nearest place called Shenzhen. Because it was a late flight we decided it would be easier (and cheaper) to stay there one night and leave for Hong Kong in the morning. Good job we booked some accommodation because once again our flight was delayed, this time by a couple of hours. I had picked the clos...

We arrived in Guilin a few hours before the couple we met from Yorkshire (who had decided to stay in the same hostel as us since they couldn't bear to be apart from us) and we waited at the bar for them with some drinks. When they arrived, Bryan had harped on about McDonald's so much that we were all craving it. Fortunately there was one a stones throw from our hostel so we wandered over and it didn't disappoint. Unfortunately McDonald's has been too common an oc...

So after the hassle surrounding getting onto the train to Chengdu, we were just happy to make it, even if it was just to an open plan hard sleeper carriage. A good nights rest was needed but we realised that was unlikely when the lights remained on and the music played until late, only to then start up again early in the morning (Sara managed to get by with her ear plugs and eye mask though!) Nonetheless we were hoping that that was all the chaos and bad luck beh...

Because it was impossible to get a train to Xian and we wrote off buses due to safety concerns, we had to fly. It was only an hour and a half journey but it was 4 hours delayed and the airport was so badly organised they never told us anything. We could only hear announcements by our gate so we couldn't wonder off and they didn't say how long we'd been delayed by or what the reason was. After an hour and a half delay we boarded the plane but the plan just sat the...