Hong Kong

We got our final train in China just as we figured out the train 'etiquette'. This involves talking loudly when people are sleeping, opening the curtains at 6am, and noodles for breakfast lunch and dinner. It's never too early for noodles. On this journey we also had a very old lady staying on the top bunk of the 6 sleeper berth. Everyone was asleep when she got on, but after spending half an hour huffing and puffing, shouting at the train attendent and arguing with other passengers, she resigned herself to somehow climbing to the top bunk, by this time everyone was awake. Why couldn't she just have bought a more suitable ticket?
The next morning we disembarked the train and crossed the border into Hong Kong easily. For those that know Hong Kong we stayed in Chunking Mansions. For those that don't know it is hard to describe but it it's like Leicester Square and visiting a prison. Everyone is trying to sell you anything and everything but everything is dodgy and the sign outside says 'Deluxe Hotel'! We'll post a picture later. (Now added)
On our first day we took the ferry to Hong Kong island and then a bus to the peak. The views were really impressive, especially the skyscrapers and the port. Today we went back to the island and walked through the city before getting the tram back to the ferry.
Tomorrow we leave for South Africa for the wedding.

Guilin and Yangshuo

After a 24 hour train journey we arrived in Guilin. We didn't have much
chance to see the city except for a little wander through a night
market. The next morning we headed to Yangshuo for a relaxing,
peaceful few days in China. The place we stayed at was just outside
the town, between the mountains and the Li river. On the first day we
walked along the beach by the river until I saw a snake, got scared
and we turned back round. On Thursday we went rock climbing. We
climbed a few rockfaces of the mountains surrounding us. The
instructor made us do the hardest one first, because a school group
was on the easier bit. I bashed my knee at the first bit and had to
come down early to get it cleaned and covered. Colin did really well
and climbed to every marker they set for us. It was tough, but really
fun and great to be climbing a proper mountain rather than an indoor
wall. We had to rent bikes to cycle to the mountain, so kept them for
the rest of the day and rode around town. It's pretty scary walking and
riding in China, because there doesn't really seem to be any rules.
Really frustrating as a pedestrian and scary as a cyclist.

The next day we walked into town, had lunch and then back to our
hostel for dinner. The food here is really good, so Colin and i had a massive
maincourse each and dessert. We leave for Hong Kong tonight and cross
the border tomorrow morning. Can't believe our time in China is almost
over, it flew by so quickly. We definitely want to come back one day
to do the things we've had to miss out this time.

Chengdu

We left Xi'an and got on another overnight train to Chengdu. We had 2
random people in our cabin and unfortunately one of them was a very
loud snorer. It was the early hours of the morning and still Colin and
I couldn't sleep. When the other man turned on his light and sighed
about the noise I decided that it wasn't really fair that the snorer
was sleeping while the rest of us lay awake. So I climbed down my bunk
bed, tapped the snorer on his arms and made 3 loud snores while
pointing at him. He laughed, nodded and then lay on his side rather
than his back. Finally we could sleep!

We arrived in Chengdu around midday and wandered through the city,
past a big Mao Tse Tung statue. The next morning we went to see the
pandas. They were lovely and because we went in the morning, they
weren't too lazy yet. We got a few videos of them play fighting. It was
hilarious to watch as they don't look quite real, they look like men in panda
costumes (they definitely were real though). Really pleased we saw them
here and not in a zoo where they don't have much space to move.
Has anyone heard of the saying: "Stop being a giant panda"? It's what
you say if someone is acting like a spoilt brat / lazy. That afternoon we
went to the Wenshu Monastery and walked through the Wenshu Fang
Old Quarter. In the evening we went to a Sichuan face- changing opera
show. It was fantastic! Lots of colourful costumes and bright lights. The
English subtitles were hilarious and eventually we gave up on reading
them and just enjoyed the beautiful show instead. The best bit was the
face changing, but it was all very entertaining and like nothing we'd seen
before.

On Sunday we got up bright and early to go to Leshan and see the Giant
Buddha, the largest in the world. It's carved into the mountain by the
river and it looks amazing. The queue was crazy and almost treacherous
at times on the mountain path to the base with people shoving and
pushing in the queue. Spent the rest of the day walking around the
park there and after a long day headed back to the hostel.
Today we leave for Guilin and Yangshou, which we're really looking
forward to as all the other travellers we've met have really
recommended it.

Xi'an

We arrived in Xi'an on Monday morning and came back to the hostel that
let us sleep on their rooftop. Spent the first day walking around the
city, including going up the Bell Tower. On Tuesday we did The
Terra-cotta Warriors. Our guide was funny and told us interesting
stories about the Emperor Qin Shi Huang who built the Terra-cotta
army. It was amazing to see, particularly pit 1 that has 2000
Terra-cotta Warriors standing in rows and rows. And even the broken
pieces in pit 2 were interesting to see, as you could see how they
should fit together. Only one of the figures was found whole, and they
call this The Magic Archer. After this we went to the souvenir shop as
the farmer who found the Warriors was there signing books. He didn't
look too excited to be there and didn't once smile or allow us to take
photos.

On Wednesday we did a 14km cycle on the city walls. There wasn't much
of a view from there, but it was really fun to cycle round especially
as Colin and I did it on a tandem bicycle. I helped Colin cycle all
the way, unlike the other couples where the girl sat at the back and
had a free ride. Later we walked round the city and through the Muslim
quarter.

Today we went to the fountain by the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. They do a
water show with classical music and the water is in-sync with the
music. I loved it, so fantastic! Colin was more amused at my reaction
to the show. We walked back to Xi'an centre from there to tire
ourselves out for the train journey to Chengdu tonight.

Shanghai

After our nightmare in Xi'an, we arrived in Shanghai having had a
really good sleep on the train. Luckily this time the accommodation we
booked had a record of us and all was fine except we now couldn't book
a train back to Xi'an for another 6 days. There's not been too much to
do in Shanghai. It's the type of city we could imagine living in, but
as a backpacker there's not that much to see and do apart from lots of
shopping. We did lots of walking and the city seems very different to
Beijing, more modern and more "western" shops (including Tesco and M&S).

We did two touristy things here, involving transport. One was the Bund
"sightseeing" tunnel. This was an absolute waste of time and money...
3 minutes of my life I can never get back. I have to try and describe
this bizarre experience. It's 45RMB to get in a little cart / people
mover carraige thing that goes through a tunnell under the river. When
it started moving there were twirling lights and swirling music,
followed by a booming voice which said phrases like: Paradise and
Hell, Magma Flow, Lunar Burst, etc., etc. This only lasted a few
minutes, but it was the most under-whelming experience of all time.
Emilie and Hanna, if you're reading this, then please let us know what
you were thinking when you recommended us to do this, or are things
that dull in Sweden. ;)

Second thing we did was the Maglev train from the airport to the city
centre. This unlike the Bund tunnel was an experience. The train
reached a speed of 431 km/h and it felt like we were about to take
off. This was only a 7 minute journey, but the trip the other way took
almost an hour.

Tonight we're getting the train back to Xi'an, this time we've
definitely got accommodation at the place where we slept on the roof,
but this time we have a room. We're looking forward to seeing the
Terracotta Warriors and the rest of Xi'an.

Thanks for all the comments, we're unable to reply at the moment, but
do like reading them.

The most interesting 48 hours!

Did I say interesting? I meant most stressful / tiring / crazy!

On Saturday night Colin and I set off to the train station to get out
of Beijing. We knew we had 16 hours on a hard seat ahead of us and
prepared ourselves for a tough journey, but we couldn't really be
prepared for the experience awaiting us. We boarded the train 20
minutes early, which we thought was good time to sort ourselves and
what not, but at this time already the train was absolutely packed.
People sitting on every seat and even more people standing in any free
space they could find. And then there's Colin and I squeezing our way
through with our big backpacks and train food and a sleeping bag to
sit on. I could hear people tutting and getting annoyed as we
struggled through bumping people on the way. Then we get to our seats
and there's 2 old ladies sitting in them... we showed our tickets and
asked them to get up. That's right, you read correctly, but before you
judge us let me say that I bet you'd have done the same, you wouldn't
want to stand for 16 hours. Once we'd finally sorted space for all our
stuff and we settled into our seats we saw that we were the only 2
westerners in our carriage and everyone was staring at us. A young guy
sitting next to us spoke a bit of English and started laughing. He
apologised and then explained that the train we were on is the worst
in China and that he'd never seen westerns on it. He obviously
insisted on taking a photo of us amongst all these people, saying it
was a once in a lifetime occurrence. The rest of the journey was
uncomfortable and impossible to sleep, but not too bad.

We had a hotel booked (due to the National holiday, everywhere was packed) 
so knew we could look forward to a nice shower and a nap after our long
journey. We arrived in Xi'an South station, a bit later than scheduled and
found out that we still had a two hour drive to Xi'an centre. We'd
looked at a leaflet that suggested we catch a bus to the centre, but
the buss attendants didn't speak English so we couldn't be sure that
the buses would take us there and then we had taxi drivers telling us
that we had to go with them because only they would take us directly
to the centre.

We decided to take the cheaper bus option and a guy on the bus told us
we needed to change at some point, but that he would show us where to
go. It's so strange and at times scary trusting random people that
don't speak your language, but when you have no better options, then
you kind of check out the person and if they seem fine, then you just
hope your gut instinct is right.

Eventually we do arrive at the centre and find our hotel pretty
easily, but our nightmare was just beginning. The hotel had no record
of our booking and they were fully booked. We struggled to find
accommodation in Xi'an and were relieved when we found this hotel, so
we knew that it would be near impossible to find somewhere else and at
this point it was after 5pm. The hotel staff tried to be helpful and
rung a few places they knew of and at about 6pm Colin and I were
driven to another hotel. We couldn't believe our luck, but as it
turned out, it was too good to be true. First the price kept changing,
then we were told we had to leave our bags in reception at all times
and then we found out it was some sort of funny bath hotel where you
could sleep in a bath house or something, we didn't quite understand
as everyone only spoke Chinese. We both agreed that we didn't like the
sound of this place and were so fed up of people wasting our time,
time that we didn't have as it was now after 7pm. So we walked, we
didn't know where we were going or what we were doing. We were both
extremely tired having not slept for about 36 hours and not eaten much
either. We managed to keep each other going because luckily we seemed
to hit our lows at different times. When we spotted a McDonalds we
grabbed some food there, which we hardly touched because we felt too
stressed to eat the food. Then we started walking again, just walking,
not able to think properly or come up with any sort of plan. And then
we bumped into a man that we'd met on the train from Russia and twice
randomly after that. He could clearly see the desperation and worry in
Colin and I and him and two of his friends took my bag from me and
took the lead in helping us find somewhere safe to sleep. It was
exactly what we needed and we were so grateful for the help and
friendliness. After a few of what would have been expensive calls from
his mobile we still had no luck, so we went to his hostel to use the
internet. We spent 2 hours calling hotels and hostels and after going
to the lady at the hostel to use her phone for about the 50th time I
begged her to please let us sleep on their floor in reception or
anywhere they'd have us. She felt so sorry for us that she agreed to
let us sleep on their roof top on sun loungers and offered for us to
use the staff bathrooms. So Colin and I slept outside, on the roof in
our sleeping bags and this was absolutely perfect.

The next day we booked a comfortable sleeper train out of Xi'an and we
are now in Shanghai, away from the madness.

The Great Wall

Wednesday morning we went to The Great Wall. We chose the least
touristy bit, which was also the longest hike of almost 5 hours. There
were times when the path was almost non-existant and our legs felt
like they were going to give way from underneath us, but the views and
the amazing experience of actually walking along The Great Wall of
China made it all worth it. We took over 50 photos trying to capture
the experience, but we know the pics just won't do it justice. It was
absolutely fantastic to be up there!
Yesterday we did an audio-guided tour of the Forbidden City. It was
really interesting and the main things we learnt were: 1. Most
emperors weren't actually worthy of becoming emperor because their
mother was just a lowly maid servant. So when the emperor became to
big for his boots, his mum would remind him of his roots. 2. There was
a lot of jealousy amounst the wives and concubines, which usually
resulted in someone dying. 3. That if you cry too much from sadness,
then you loose your eyesight. And you don't regain sight if you cry
happy tears.

Walking around Beijing it very much feels like everything has to be
controlled and there's always loads of police and soldiers around. One
of our first experiences here was quite a funny story. We were waiting
at a crossing, there was a red man on the traffic light telling us to
wait and also a police man who we weren't sure exactly what his role
was, but he was there trying to look important. On the other side of
the road a homeless man decided to cross to our side, as there was no
traffic coming and it was perfectly safe for him to do so. The man
nearly made it all the way across the road before the police man
noticed him, but for some strange reason the police man would not
allow the homeless man to step on the pavement. He forced him to go
all the way back to the side he had come from and in the process the
homeless man nearly got knocked over by the only car that finally came
across the road. A split second later we had a green man and we and
the homeless man were free to walk.
Tomorrow we leave Beijing and although we've enjoyed our time here,
we're looking forward to moving on as the smog is getting too much for
us.