Chapter 5 Guangzhou, third biggest city in China I believe. As per usual when I arrive in these massive Chinese cities I'm totally lost and miles away from the city centre. Its 5am so I decide to just go as far as I can out of the city. It's still warm and I enjoy the ride somehow through the industrial nightmare around the parts of old Canton. I follow the compass on my watch and the sun east and decide I can't go that wrong if I do, it's the coast after all....

Chapter 4. Visas arrived in with no problems and it's time to leave Nanning. Manage a night out and once again enter the stylish clubs in our bum attire and have all our drinks paid for us by fashionable locals who want a westerner to sit at their table. We leave Nanning for Vietnam and have an uneventful few days of cycling, camping, binguans and fried noodles that we've gotten used to on the road in China. Eventually we arrive at the border and prepare fo...

Chapter 3. After a week of sloth in Chengdu, burgers, beer and the infamous CC club which I frequented about 6 times (though this is a story for another time) I met Regula, one half of the Swiss Guard and joined her for a mini tour to XiaoJin in the Sichuan Mountains to meet Iris and accompany her back to Chengdu. A days bus travel over some terrifyingly high mountains that disappeared into clouds (over 4000m high) then we were in the sunny mountainous Amdo (T...

So now the next part.... After I returned to Urumqui I said goodbye to my travel pal Nick and headed off to Dun Huang on my own. A 23 hour sleeper bus (again, they smell like a gym locker room) though the desert until I arrived. All very nice desert Oasis and quite a nice little town. I found some accomodations next to the Singing Sands Mountain (massive sand dunes that are up to 1700m high) and settled in for the next chapter. Didn't fancy paying to get in the ...

Thought I better start writing a blog, it's been nearly 3 weeks now since I got rid of everything and decided to try by hand at travelling China for an extended period of time. Beijing is always a great place to start, it's easy to get around, people are friendly and helpful and there is much to see and do. It's also bloody hot and the air pollution is something else, it's pretty bad. Found a great backpackers in an old Hutong and stayed there for the first w...