Hello from China,

Only 2 weeks left in China now and i will be sorry to leave, it is definetley a cool place to visit and has surprised me at the amount of stunning landscapes it has and how nice chinese cities are (I expected them to be crowded, polluted, horrible and choatic which they kind of are but are still plesent nonetheless)

Anyway on leaving Chongquing i had a brief stop off at a place called Leshan which is famous for its giant Buddha, the biggest such one in the world made out of stone. It was strangely a very nice sight and was built on the confluence of 2 rivers which gave it a picturesque setting.

I woke up in Leshan the next morning and being the 27th June it meant that i was now a 26 year old (no more young persons railcard, and if i enter the X factor i will be deemed in the old persons group). I opened my birthday card which was nice tho slightly wierd as i had been carrying it around for the last month and had no one to open it with. I treated myself to a nice local chinese breakfast before going to the buddha to see it up close and climb around it, which was good for some extreme close ups. The city of Leshan then decided to give me a birthday present in giving me a tour of the city on bus route no. 13, whcih i spent an hour touring round the city after the english sign said catch bus no. 13 to go to the bus station (evidently there are 2 no. 13 buses designed for tourists, one to god knows where and one to the bus station). Anyway i finally made it to the bus station and caught a bus for a couple of hours up the road to Chengdu - Home of the Pandas. I left my cap that i bought in Zambia on the bus tho so that annoyed me a bit on me birthday. Anyway i found a lovely park that day that sold cheap beer so i could console myself at getting old and losing my cap with a gorgeous lakeview and beer-in-hand.

Next day i had a look round the city of Chengdu, but it pissed down with rain all day so my memories of the city are somewhat rain orientated, tho with me pac-a-mac i did manage to find some good temples, parks and squares (the main one with a huge Mao statue) which were pleasent enough even in the rain. I had some wierd White Muslim guy in my dorm room so i didn't want to spend too much time in the hostel so braved the rain most of the day. However the highlight of Chengdu, and the reason for being there, was to go to "The Giant Panda Breeding Centre." Since they are almost impossible to spot in the wild, being less than 1,000 of em left and even trained trackers sometimes tracking them for weeks and only coming away with spotting their excrement and trails, this was the next best thing. The place has the highest concentration of Pandas in the world and is trying to study them and breed them to ensure they don't become extinct. I must have seen around 30-40 Pandas that day happily doing their 3 favourite pastimes (and probably my favourites too!!) of eating, sleeping and playing!! They truely are cute, cuddly and wierd looking creatures, like not many other animals in this world.

That night i caught my first chinese overnight sleeper train and it was probably my best sleep so far in China, reckon i got 12-14 hours that night on the 17 hour journey. The destination was Xi'an and as soon as arrived you could tell it was a nice place. It was seering heat 38 dergrees as oppossed to the 28 in Chengdu so was a bit of a shock at first. I spent 3 days in Xi'an - 2 days at the city and a day at the Terracotta warriors. The city had a beautifully restored city wall going right around the imperial city. I, for some reason, decided to walk (everyone else rents a bike) around on top of the wall all 14KM (9 miles) in the stupid hot minus me hat which i left on the bus. Anyway it was a good walk and surprisingly it wasn't repetitive with scenery changing at each turn altho i did burn me head slightly. The city had lots of interesting sights - The drum tower, the bell tower, The small wild goose pagoda and the big wild goose pagoda. My favourite was actually the small wild goose pagoda, giving the best views across the city and set away from the hustle and bustle in a lovely purpose built park. The big wild goose pagoda was also nice and had an amazing fountain show each night at 9PM. It was rather ironic since the city has a bit of a water shortage problem that the city hosts the largest fountain show in Asia!! Well, i got absolutely soaking wet watching the show which lasted 20 minutes with water flying 30metres high and in every direction accompanied by strobe lighting and chinese music.

Just outside Xi'an are the terracotta warriors, which the museum claim to be the 8th wonder of the world, altho i'm sure a few places claim that title. They certainly are a mind boggling sight tho, hundreds of em all arranged in rows all with different faces in battle formation. There are 3 pits excavated open to the public all with different kinds of battalions and they are still digging and restoring the ancient masterpiece. I arrived at 8am in the morning in order to beat the crowds, a bit too early since it didn't open until 830am but it did the trick as i virtually had the first and most impressive pit to myself wandering around looking at the army from different angles. I actually went back in on my way out for one last look and you could hardly see the army for the see of Chinese and foreign tourists so i was glad at my timing. I thought i had to make the obligatory terracotta warrior purchase from the junk shops outiside, so after bargaining from the ridicuolous starting prices i got my replica statue, only for a chinese student to drop it causing it to smash into many pieces whilst i was completing a questionnaire outside and she was holding my souvenir!! Fair play to the girl tho she went and bought me another one which was actually much nicer and wouldn't stop staying sorry, i wander if this one will make it home (I have wrapped it up in my fleece for protection in the backpack which i regularly sit on at train stations!!)

Next up was the overnight train to Beijing where i was to spend the next week. I arrived to glorious sunshine, prompting me to buy a new cap, tho the chinese aren't as stylish as the Africans so I am not so fond of it. Anyway the next day it returned to the polluted, hazy, overcast city I expected and didn't return to the sunshine until the day I left. I found a hostel 5 minutes south of Tiananmen square (the worlds largest public square - altho i think better known in the west for a certain incident at the end of the 80's) so i ended up there at various stages everyday. The first day I strolled around the city getting my bearings going to a few of the lesser known sights and parks which were nice. The next 2 days were trips to the Forbidden city and the summer palace, both amazing places full of ancient temples and palaces, with the summer palace having this gorgeous huge lake which i walked around (not being able to afford to take the boat trip on the lake, and thinking it may be hard work to operate a peddalo on me todd). I then went to the 2008 Olympics area of town and got to walk in and around the Bird's nest staidium and the water cube, the scenes where Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps made history with their gold medals and world records tally. I stupidly took my swimming shorts and towel for a swim at the water cube, only to find it was a tourist sight and not an operating swimming pool - can you imagine how many chinese people would have been in the pool??!! - wally that i am. As part of Beijings promise to be a green olympics (in China yeah right) they built this huge park a kilometre from the stadium which is the biggest in Beijing and is very beautiful, they certainly know how to make nice parks over here, tho even the lake was ridicously overpopulated with fish as is the chinese way - a one child policy may be hard to implement for fish i guess!!

The following day I joined a chinese tour group for the obligatory must see visit to The Great Wall. I went to the Badoling section which is the most well preserved/restored section. It was truely an amazing sight despite the thousands of people I had to share the wall with. I walked up and down it a few times in either direction, incredible how steep it is in places. You really could stare at it all day strecthing off over the mountains into the distance. The tour leader didn't speak any english which was good as it meant I could leave the group using that as an excuse to get off, altho it did mean i missed the bus from the Ming Tombs to the obligatory Shop stop that you get on all Asian tours. This turned out to be in my favour tho as i got a lift with another tour bus to the stop and of the 70 minute stop planned for shopping and lunch I managed to turn up at the Lunch designated time which was a result.

Back in Beijing I went to the Zoo, mainly to see some more Pandas, tho these ones didn't seem as healthly or as happy as the previous ones - not as much money, friends or encouragement to mate I guess. The Zoo pretty much had every animal you could think off tho with the regular black bears bieng my favourite - but despite the millions of signs saying please don't feed the animals(in Chinese and English/Chinglish) all the chinese were chucking popcorn and bread at them which annoyed me a bit. I also went to this amazing place called silk street which was a shoppers pardise with 6 floors, probably over a thousand shops selling pretty much everything at bargain basement prices, if China was my last stop i would have bought a backpack and filled it up with stuff - i mean 4GB Ipods for 120RMB (about a tenner), it was a typical asian shopping experience however with the girls shouting and hollowering at you to take a look at there shop which was the same as the one you just said no to next door.

I aslo paid a saturday night visit to see the famous Beijing Opera. Though it was a good experience with the first half dedicated to Singing and acting and the second half to tricks and juggling swords and othere performing arts, why the singers have to impersonate Mr Hanky the christmas poo out of south park, sesame street or the muppets characters i don't really understand!! Needless to say I preferred the second half of the show with the sword dancing spectacle.

On my last day in Beijing i paid a visit to see Mr Chairman Mao who has a mausaleum on Tiananmen square. Queueing for about an hour an ten minutes i think i was shuffled through by the guards in under 20 seconds. I'm not totally convinced how much of his embalmed corpse I saw tho as there was an orange light directed on him and it kind of looked like he was glowing, think there may be more lifelike specimens in Madam Toussards!! Oh and I also got to try Dog for the first time in Beijing although it tasted suspiciously like beef. It said cold Dog meat on the menu and the waiter laughed, i think only tourists order it, and it certainly satisfyed a curiosity.

On leaving Beijing i took another night train to the city of Nanjing, can't rember why i decided to go there, just think it was in between Beijing and the next place i wanted to go and had a direct train link!! It was a nice city though for having a look at and i got to go up this mountain on the outskirts via the chairlift for the promised amazing views of the city (only for me to be able to see about 10 metres in fornt of my face at the top due to the low lying cloud/pollution/haze). Nanjing was worth it though for the most comfortable bed i have ever slept in with thick duvet and pillow and fresh smelling sheets - I even considered writing a day off and staying in bed, tho I did get up ten minutes after the alarm went of at 8am!!

Next stop Tunxi (which has now changed its name to Huangshan city to cash in on the tourist trade of the nearby mountain!!). Again this was only a town (small at only 1.3 million inhabitants) which was a base for exploring the namesake mountain. However it has turned out to be a beautiful chinese city like the others but without the hustle and bustle of the bigger cities and generally a nice feel to the place. On Sunday I went on a trip to 2 nearby villages called Hongcun and Xidi which were lovely and a glimpse of life in the rural villages which has remained unaltered for many years, although now opening up to the Chinese tour group invasion of the masses.

Yesterday it was an early start to ascend the mountain of Huangshan said to be Chinas most beautiful. The bus dropped me off at around 800metres up and whilst the majority took the cable car i got to walk up the eastern stops to an altitude of around 1,800metres. Once you get up though there are many peaks so it doesn't end there and having scaled many yesterday for some gorgeous views i retired to my dorm on the summit for an hour or twos rest only to find the chinese equivalent of the Waterboy(Adam Sandler) in my room and he wanted to practise his english with me, well that was fun!! I soon made my escape and got back out onto the mountain to watch the sunset over the mountains in the distance, sunsets are often over rated but this one was worth the time to relax and enjoy. So to today and waking up to the alarm at 4am in order to see the sunrise. Its always special to see the new day in I think and this one was pretty and good fun but where'as I found a secluded quiet spot for the sunset I had to share my Sunrise experience with a few hundred noisy Chinsese and their tour group megaphone led parties.

Anyway soon after the sun had risen into the sky I started my descent down the mountain via the western steps and while I say descent i think I climbed as much as the previous day with there being a few detours up peaks for some stellar scenery. The wlak descended through these tiny canyons and caves and I reckon at its steepest point was about 80 degrees so almost like a ladder (Asia doesn't have the anal health and safety laws of the Engalnd obviously!!) Was a bit scary at times and reckon I might have been a gonner if it was wet or icy, though thankfully the weather was gorgeous while I was on the mountian. Huangshan definelety makes it in the top 3 China experiences so far along with the other countryside places of Yangshao and Zhangjiejie (even outmuscling The great wall, the Pandas and the terracotta warriors on my list I think).

Well I'm back in the city now for some much needed rest, think i may go to bed about 8pm after my recent early starts and another early bus ride tomorrow morning. 4 stops left in China for me now over the next 2 weeks before I get the ferry to South Korea - being Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai and Qingdao. I slightly re-arranged my plans as supposedly the best solar eclipse in the next 132 years is in the Shanghai region on the 22nd July (tho its bound to be an overcast hazy day!!) so I am staying around to see it and rejigged my China itinery- stealing abit out of the South Korea leg of the trip. Just found out today that Man U are in Hangzhou next week but I am not staying around to see them, might be hard to get tickets anyway given that everyone in China is a huge Man U fan, tho surprisingly everywhere you go all you see are England branded tops with the 3 lions probably the most common T-Shirt in the whole of China!!

Anyway your probably bored now and I'm tired so that is it for this latest edition

Ps I think Facebook has been added to the Chinese internet police's restricted list(they block around 10% of websites - I can't even type Essex in google as it comes up with restricted access!!) so sorry if any one has sent me a message and I haven't commented or replied, I ain't been able to for about 2 weeks now I think