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 ...

Maria couldn't sleep so decided to spend the night in the corridor and in so doing identified some interesting signs for the benefit of the passengers...well foreign travellers at least!! We arrived on time, about 0800 ish, at Liuyuan train station, some 128 km north of downtown Dunhuang and met our new guide, Kevin, for the drive to the next town.

Maria hardly slept a wink last night as she felt as if she was the midnight snack for gazillions of hungry little visitors.The western breakfast, as advertised, wasn't, so we were in great spirits for the day ahead!In fact, we had contemplated scrapping some of the day's itinerary as the guide book advised against visiting the Bizaklik Caves and Grape Valley as there was nothing worth seeing there.We decided to judge for ourselves and set off on the 30-minute d...

We drove the 2-3 hours to Turpan on the 113 mile expressway, passing vast wind warms that, judging from the lack of motion from the turbines, were generating about as much electricity as a Toyota hybrid breaking.Turpan is a basin in the mountains of east Xinjiang, has the lowest elevation of any place in China and is the third lowest depression in the world at 154m below sea level.It is insanely hot and the temperature in the summer reaches over 40°C, which is...