Currently on the bus back from tiger leaping gorge to lijiang. Just finished an incredible two days of trekking through the tiger leaping gorge in the foothills of the Himalayas at about 8500ft. Breathtaking scenery during the day and hundreds of perfectly clear stars at night. From Guilin I went to fangchenggang on the south coast of china. It looked like a lovely place in the guide book but turned out to be pretty boring with absolutely no english speakers, n...

Guilin is a lovely small and scenic city by the Li river, surrounded by sharply protruding (and very beautiful) hills. The small lakes (picture) in the middle are surrounded by little walkways along the banks which are shaded by foliage which is mostly made up of 'osmanthus' trees. The Chinese word for these trees is "Gui" and "Lin" means forest - so Guilin means forest of osmanthus trees. It is a very relaxing place and everyone is very friendly. I've been on ...

After nearly a week in hk soaking up the city and meeting some interesting people, including a crazy canadian and some jahovas witnesses (but unfortionately not snowden)... I'm finally in china. Its very rare that anyone here speaks even one word of english (I probably should have learnt some mandarin) which makes things interesting. I'm currently on a sleeper train from GuangZhou to Guilin listening to a nice bit of Buckethead. Racing through Chinese countrysi...