Before we had even arrived in China we had heard many opinions of driving in China, mostly negative; they are first generation drivers, no one has any idea of road rules, are you crazy? And so forth… Even the custom official at the border told Fintan and Thomas, very seriously, that they have to drive carefully in China, everyone is a bad driver! When we received our temporary license number and drivers licenses the dates for exit were 4 days after the planne...

We've been pleasantly surprised by the standards of the hotels… although after Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia it's not really difficult to impress us! The rooms tend to be large, with two double beds, an ensuite, a tv, LAN internet. However, they are invariably attached to some Karaoke bar. The corridors and lifts always smell of smoke. In Fengzhen, there was a man smoking in the elevator - I have never seen that in my entire life, how crazy!? Next to the cigarette ...

Even though we have pretty much raced through China, we have managed to see a few sights; the Great Wall, the Yungong Caves and carved buddhas, Pingyao walled city, the Terracotta Warriors, the Large Goose Pagoda, Xi'an city walls and Bell Tower… For the first couple of days we travelled with Verena and Thomas, and we had a great time. It was really sad when we had to part ways (both vehicles continuing south, but us moving much quicker). We visited the Yung...

Finally into China after all this time!! I cannot believe it, I honestly think I'm dreaming! The next 2 weeks is going to be overwhelming, insane, terrifying and over way too quickly. But it's also difficult to update blogs in China… so I'm writing them here and will post them as soon as I can… But it means I can group some topics together a bit and this one is about food! As you may have noticed in my blog we like to eat, and we like to eat good food… I...

Excited, nervous and anxious we woke up at 6:30am and were at the border zone at 7:45. Well, we had been expecting a bit of a queue, but not so many taxis! And then we joined the queue with the taxis. The first time that we have been made to queue, as tourists. Thomas and Verena met us at the border zone which opened at 8am (although the actual border didn't open until 9am) and while the men stayed in the queue, not allowing any space between them and the cars ...