This blog has been a long time coming - basically because I have been too caught up sightseeing and partying! Oops! This is long and I’m sorry so I have split into two blogs– read and ignore as you wish…I'll will TRY to keep it short....

8th - 10th Oct: 3 Gorges boat ride on the Yangtze River
We boarded the Golden Sun, our 'upgraded' boat from the older Silver Moon. It creaked so much that when you stood on the top deck the metal plates beneath you moved with every footstep! On the other hand the route down the river was relaxed and extremely good looking. The 3 Gorges were a breathtaking sight in my opinion despite the foggy weather and when I finally get pics up you can see. A highlight for me was a 2.2kg fish hotpot style dish which Dragon ordered for us at lunch. There were a few too many of those mouth numbing spicy Chinese peppercorns in there though!!!!

11th - 13th Oct: Yangshuo
This was and probably still is my favourite place so far throughout the whole of my trip. If you looked from above you would see a landscape peppered with upside-down cup shaped mountains - 100s of them. So we did, on a hot air balloon ride at 5am. Through the middle was a river which looked like it needed looking at, so we did on a Kayak for 12km. Ouch my shoulders!! No-one told us it was 12km before the trip!! We went on an 18km bike ride through the mountains and saw farmers in their rice paddy fields, stopping half way to climb the steep Moon Hill and go Water Caving where we got covered in mud and went in a natural hot bath. YANGSHUO IS FANTASTIC! One particular memorable moment was Jen driving a moped full throttle into an old hunchbacked lady trying to sell flowers to us! "Listen lady, we told you we didn’t want any!!"

14th - 19th Oct: Hong Kong
We arrived in HK after a long train journey and many many checks at the Chinese/HK border. Visiting Victoria Peak (the mountain on HK Island) at night was cool as the whole city is lit up in neon lights and they have light show on the buildings. A bit windy though for my long hair up there!! AFRO!! HK is an interesting place to be; you can stand at the end of a cobbled street in the mayhem of Soho, look to your left and see a temple, look to your right and see an escalator going up the hill and look to the end of the street and see a glass skyscraper towering over the whole lot. There is even a racetrack within the high-rises!
We visited some more relaxed islands, Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha which apparently houses one of the original Buddha’s teeth and Lamma Island to take a long stroll from one side to the other, stopping on the beach to admire the beautiful deep blue sea and the less beautiful power station to our right!!