Little did we know, when we set off from Kathmandu, that our journey to Tibet would actually be the journey from hell. Okay, maybe that's a slight exageration, but it did start off that way. The bus left 6 hours late which meant that when we arrived at the border (which we've got some photos of by the way, much to the annoyance of the army), everyone in customs had gone home. We then had to surrender our bags and passports until the morning and stay overnight at the border town so that we could collect them in the morning. Our hotel room was so damp, that we could have grown mushrooms in it. However, we made the best of things, and caused entertainment in the local equivalent of the 'greasy spoon cafe' where we had our first noodles. In the morning, we got up and found to our delight that there had been a landslide in the night. Never mind, we thought, we shall explore this wondrous town. The internet cafe wasn't working but we did manage to get our hair washed in one of the numerous salons. The only other facilities in the town were very many w****houses, lit up in red neon and no doubt getting more business than usual from stranded lorry drivers. After two extra nights in Tibet's armpit of a town, we finally escaped by taking the drastic measure of climbing over the landslide, with a crippled porter in tow. Shortly afterwards, controlled detonations were carried out. We then waited for 4 hours for new 4x4s to arrive to take us onwards. After much debate between our guide (organisation skills nil) and the drivers about wages, we finally got on the road. We spent our first night in Tingri with the most amazing views of Mount Everest and a great view from the toilet, which was a dusty floored, wooden holed affair. Drove through some amazing desert landscape to get to Shigatse, a much bigger town with lots of neon. We went to a local restaurant and were proud at being able to negotiate chowmein for dinner but the lady wouldn't let us have any soy sauce on it because it's apparently not allowed. The monastery at Shigatse was fairly impressive and we got had our first experience of chanting monks. Then on to Gyantse, a much more traditional Tibetan town. We spent a couple of hours looking round a stupa (temple) containing lots of old murals and statues and were a having a lovely time when we realised we were actually locked in and everyone was going home for their dinner. Luckily, a nice old wax-collector released us and told us off in Tibetan. We then had to release our friend who'd managed to do the same thing. Pesky westerners. We were followed back to the main street by two impish girls who were fascinated by the pictures in our lonely planet book and were determined to come home with us. We managed to shake them though and had a great dinner including sweet and sour aubergine and caramel bananas. We breathed a sigh of relief on reaching Lhasa, where we stayed in a decent dorm in a good area. We didn't manage to get into the Potala, as we were unable to make an appointment (!), so we consoled ourselves with a good massage and better facial, which involved a large amount of brown stuff on our faces and made us laugh uncontrollably when we looked at each other. The next day we looked round the Jokhang, the most revered religious structure in Tibet, also being visited by many of the 'older' population of Tibet. We flew into Chengdu and arrived in 91 degree heat. We made it to Sam's Place, a recommended hotel, and were delighted to find our own ensuite bathroom, including Western toilet. The following morning, we went to see the giant panda breeding research centre. We discovered that pandas are very entertaining, being among the laziest animals in the world, they move about 2 feet before collapsing as if they've just run a marathon. We also got to watch a very informative video about panda breeding. We went to Chongqing on a very nice bus and boarded our boat to go down the Yangtse, a big, brown river. We shared our room with a Chinese family who had a small, hyperactive seven year old who kept talking to us in Chinese and couldn't quite get his head round why we didn't understand. The highlight of our little excursion to the Minor Three Gorges was probably the part where we realised that our boat was leaving without us. Luckily a man with a walkie talkie managed to call it back and we boarded whilst being watched by the other hundred passengers. Oops. We're now in Yichang waiting for our train to Xi'an and passing the time by catching up on emails and eating more noodles and food that has been fried. Lots of love, Suellen and Rebecca xxx