Hi everyone, here's an update about our China adventure..

Quite hastily before we left England we booked an organised Intrepid Tour called 'Middle Kingdom Magic' mainly because when we initially 'skimmed' through the brochure the itinerary mentioned that as well as seeing all the main sights we would also take a camel trek through the desert! As you can imagine this immediately grabbed our attention and basically sold it for us!

Later we read further and saw that the trip rated 4/5 for physical fitness as we would also be trekking through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, biking and taking overnight train journeys but surely 3 months into travelling we reasoned that 'no problem we'll be 'buff' by then, yeah!?'

So as you can imagine by the time the trip came around we were pretty worried! Australia hadn't really made us as 'buff' as we'd expected and we feared that the other people on the trip were going to be fitness fanatics and we were going to get left behind!

Anyway thankfully we coped loads better than expected and live to tell the tales!

We arrived in Beijing at rush hour on Monday 21 May. We were slightly overwhelmed by the amount of cars, bikes and people in the city and the fact that drivers seemed to be peeping their horns for fun! We eventually got to our hotel (all the accommodation was included in the tour), which was lovely, and found that the group would be meeting the next morning at 7am for a trip to the Great Wall!!

We went to Simatai section of the Great Wall - 3 hours on dodgy roads from Beijing and climbed up through 5 towers. We would have walked further but the weather took a turn for the worse and we ended up stranded in one tower for a while! The wall was amazing but none of us realised that it was all steps in between the towers so had a right work-out!!

The next day was our last day in Beijing so we decided to cram as much as possible in - we took the underground train to Tiananmen Square, had a look round the Forbidden City and went to the silk market. We tried to find the famous pearl market but couldn't as there were no signs in English and even the taxi drivers couldn't understand us! At night we went out to an Acrobat show which was unbelievable and then found a night market - hundreds of stalls selling deep fried insects!! It smelt disgusting but Sarah was very adventurous trying snake and silkworm!

The next day we got the 21 hour overnight sleeper train to ZhongWei. After a banquet lunch we were picked up and taken to the Yellow River to 'Sheepskin Raft' (see photos - it's not what we imagined either!!!). It was fun apart from an annoying girl taking up too much of Emily's space and not balancing the raft out properly!!! Also our rafter man thought it would be fun to get caught in a current ensuring that we got wet!

Next day we were up and off on the much awaited camel trek in the Mongolian Desert!! We met our camels, named them and trekked for approximately 10 minutes before we were all in AGONY!!! 2 hours later we had a lunch break where the camels were untied - which then took the men about 3 hours to round them up! We didn't mind as it was perfect opportunity to get some feeling back in our derri�s and sledge down the sand dunes!!! After another few hours on the camels we stopped and put up tents, did some more sledging and then totally unexpectedly the camel leader people brought out beers and Chinese takeaway!!! So we sat there in the desert eating sweet and sour pork with chopsticks watching the sun set, it was amazing!!! The next day we opted for the shorter route back to the vans to be taken back to the hotel! After getting clean - emptying half the desert out of our clothes and shoes - we went to see the Gao Mao Temple in ZhongzWei which was pretty cool, then got the overnight train to Xi'an!

In Xi'an we were taken on an orientation walk and then had some free time. We thought about going to see the Mosque but on the way to it we walked through a market which was definitely more appealing, so decided that an afternoon of shopping was in order!!!!!! Got some great souveniers and practiced our bartering skills, then at night went out for 'hot-pot'- very different to what we expected (see pics)! It was tasty though!

The next day we got the bus to the Terracotta Warriors - the 8th Wonder of the World that some people discovered when digging a well in the area!!! We decided that maybe we should go digging to find the 9th Wonder, but then got a bit annoyed with the heat and the amount of men trying to sell small disgusting Terracotta Warrior figures so passed on that idea and instead sampled Xi'an nightlife.

The next day we got the overnight train to Chengdu. We arrived in Chengdu very early and straight away were on the go - we were taken for a traditional Chinese breakfast of noodles, dumplins and spring-rolls - totally incorrect at 7.30am, we were not impressed!!! Then we went to see the Giant Pandas at the breeding centre - we watched a slightly too detailed video of the process and also saw Jing Jing (an official mascot of the Olympics!!). We were then treated to lunch at the Monestry - cooked by monks. We were hoping for some nice fresh veggies realising that they don't eat meat, however what came was Tofu (beancurd) in every meat flavour possible. Most of the people in our group had already developed a hatred of Tofu after our leader continually kept ordering it when we went out for dinner, therefore there were a lot of unhappy people at this meal!!! In the evening we went to a tea garden to watch a Sischuan Opera which was amazing!!! In Chengdu we also did a cooking class where we learnt how to cook 5 dishes (no Tofu!) and then got to eat them all!

After another 20 hour overnight train journey, we arrived in Kunming where some people left the group and some new people joined it for the next part of the adventure......

From Kunming we got the bus to Liajing where our guest house was in the middle of a maze of brilliant souvenier shops/markets/restaurants and bars - heaven!!! But got there at tea-time and unfortunately only stayed a night.

Next day we were off early to do the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek which I'm pleased to say we all survived - despite some severe up hill sections, not to mention clambering over waterfalls and narrow cliff edges!!! Don't worry everyone it was so much fun, and we had a local guide who has done the trek like 200 times and also brought her 6 week old puppy! So it wasn't that dangerous! The most scary part was the 3rd day getting back to the starting point in the back of a Ute on the narrow cliff edge roads and having to climb over a land slide that had actually blocked the road and get another vehicle to drive the next section!!!

We walked about 15km each day -it seemed like more cos of all the uphills and windy sections though. The first night stayed in a guest house on top of a mountain which had cool views but disgusting squat toilets. The second night the guest house was basic but thankfully had really nice western food and proper toilets!!!!

After all that we got the bus to Zhongdian/Tibet and stayed in Shangrila. We were at really high altitude here which made everyone feel a bit wierd - out of breath and a bit sick, plus the guest house was rubbish - our room 'the cell' didn't even have a window!! Unfortunately stayed there 2 nights, and all there was to do there was visit a Monestry and shop in the market and try local wine!! (The Monestry was under construction which was a bit rubbish but the giant Budda inside was pretty spectacular!!! Most of the wine was awful - apart from the bottle us cheapskates bought for 12 yuan (less than a quid) which everyone agreed was the best!

After that we got the bus to Dali.... where we did a long bike ride round the city which was cool - went up to the 3 Pagodas and then down hill to the Lake - across some cobbled tracks next to all the rice paddys and alotment type things then back up to the town.

We got the bus back to Kunming on Tuesday 12 June - which is where the tour ended and had a final night dinner and said our goodbyes to everyone. As our flight to Thailand was on the Friday we decided to 'pamper' ourselves with our free time and visited the hotel's beauty salon for a lovely although slightly painful massage and leg waxing which was also an experience!

We flew to Thailand on Friday 15th and after being so busy in China decided that we needed to get to a beach immediately in order to celebrate Em's birthday and top up our tans. We got a bus out of Bangkok on Saturday (Em's birthday) and headed for Ko Samet, however for such a 'monsoon proof' island with 'more than average chance of a week of blue skies' according to our Lonely Planet Guide, it certainly tried its best to convince us otherwise with the amount of storms we encountered!!!!!!!!As you can imagine we were not happy so went back to Bangkok and found Khao San Road (backpacker heaven) where we checked into the D+D Inn - knowing that even if the weather was rubbish we would at least have other things to do here, but we were very lucky here with weather and therefore spent most of our time sat on the roof next to the swimming pool!!!!!!!

Anyway right now the 3 Worldwives have temporarily separated and Nat is not knowing what to do without the others (hense this essay!). I'm at home in sunny Huddersfield (which is colder than when we left in February!!!), back home for Richard's wedding on Saturday! Em and Sarah as far as I know are on a bus to Ko Samui where Mrs Hird and Charlotte are joining them for a holiday on Friday!!!!!!! They can't wait to see you!!!! I return on Monday/Tuesday and then we'll decide what to do with the remaining 2½ months in South-East Asia!!!

Hope you like our photos from China!

Bye for now!!!!!!!!! xxx