We all met in the lobby at 8.15am and then took a private bus to Xi'an airport to catch our flight to Chengdu. After hearing bad things about internal flights in China I was a little bit worried but all turned out fine - better than easyjet, and even included a hotdog and carton of iced tea... Result! We got a private bus from Chengdu airport to our hotel and are a group lunch in the hotel restaurant. Spicy food is a particular speciality in Chengdu so it was a...

Woke up super-early and caught a private bus to the site of the Terracotta Warriors, about an hours drive away from our hotel. The site itself is awash with tourist shops, plus the obligatory KFC and Subway. Once through the gates to the museum, you see that the warriors are spread across three separate pits. Walking around the pits of warriors I found it hard to believe that the whole thing is anything more than an elaborate hoax. The first put is the most d...

Woke up early on the train after a really uncomfortable night. It turned out our driver was a trainee, which meant that throughout the night every time we arrived at the station the train lurched forward and we were thrown across our bunks. Possibly because of the above, the train was running late, so I bought a pot noodle and sat chatting to Rich and Leah - learnt a lot about Chinese politics. Finally got into Xi'an in the late afternoon and got a private bu...

We were all tired so decided to have a lazy morning; Starbucks for breakfast followed by a bit of shopping and a trip to the internet cafe. After yet another pizza hut for lunch we stocked up on food, wine and beer to prepare for the 21 hour train journey ahead. The train was much the same as the last, and went quicker than expected (possible due to the forethought to buy alcohol beforehand this time).

Woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. My first taste of Chinese dim sum was disappointing - a dumpling which turned out to contain some kind of sausagemeat and sweetcorn - pretty disgusting if I'm honest. It was accompanied with radish cake (upon reflection I'm not sure they got the translation right on 'radish', unless 'radish' is also the name of some kind of potent fish) and a steamed cream cake. I also had fried noodles and some bread and jam to take ...