Our hotel taxi was waiting for us promptly at 0630 for our transfer to the airport and our 0950 onwards departure to Mongolia; at last one of the highlights of our trip was fast approaching. When putting this leg of our trip together we'd originally decided that we would love to experience the 30 hour Trans-Mongolian express train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar (UB) but our two train experiences in China had now convinced us to scrap that romantic notion in fav...

We went to the Pearl Market this morning and were not as impressed with it as the Silk Market but we did find Maria a watch, something she'd been looking for for ages.It came complete with a new battery and cost a whopping 25RMB (£2.50).Everywhere we turned, men with cases of watches asked us if we wanted to buy a Rolex.'I have a watch thank you', I said, pointing to my aging Diesel with the crumbling strap.We got written instructions from some lovely ladies s...

An uneventful 6 hour flight from KL saw us land at Beijing around 0600, clear immigration without incident and arrive at the Days Inn hotel, just 15 minutes' walk from Tiananmen Square, around 0700.My God is the smog here bad or what? Our room was thankfully ready as we were a little pooped and although it was okay, the horizontal slit window made the room look like a Hobit Hole so we dug into our pockets again and stumped up the 100RMB (£10) to upgrade to ...

Despite our best efforts to extend our check-out time as late as possible, the inflexible staff would only let us stay in the suite until 1300 so we checked out at the allotted slot and decided to kill time in town.However, before heading out we craftily managed to retain access to the lounge so we could at least help ourselves to the complimentary food and, if we were lucky, could still use the free wifi access. The transfer to the airport wasn't until 2100...

Breakfast was a totally maniacal affair, as the people from the crossing of nations jostled for somewhere to sit, then elbowed each other for plates, ladles, tongs and cutlery from one of the many food stations serving Malay, Continental, English, Chinese or Japanese food. We scrummed down for some pastries, toast and jam then fought our way to our table and relative luxury from the feeding frenzy.'We'll have breakfast upstairs tomorrow' we said to each othe...