Jian Ye Hotel Jinggangshan

... is a published poet, 2 books in total.

We grab a signed copy of her book, it is in chinese. However we notice a few words of English, PJ Harvey, Nirvana. Leo explains she learnt english by listening to music and watching Independent films.

A good journey and interesting people.

现在再 见

We started our first vacation which is Chinese National Day. We planned a trip to Xi'an which is in Shaanxi Province. We took a bus from Xintian to Chenzhou which has the nearest train station to us. It took about 3 hours to get there. We got there with enough time to walk around and buy some stuff before our 22 hour train ride. YIKES ...

... were approached by a policeman who started getting his notebook out which looked rather worrying for us, but as it turned out the policeman doubled up as an order taker on the dining cart, and using his very good English translated some of the dishes for us. Me and Ben opted for the Spicy Chicken as it sounded quite a safe dish .... it arrived with among other things 3 chicken heads a few feet and other parts I really ...

... in China, where 1.3 billion people must contend with both limited time and space during the country's few and far between national holidays. But where Western travelers, not unlike their world-exploring forefathers, pride themselves on independence, requiring little more than a backpack and a point in the right direction to circumnavigate exotic new countries, the historically communal Chinese tend to have quite a different ...

... Wall was magic (not as good as the one in Cardiff Andy!!!); The forbidden city is massive (4 hours spent there were not enough to visit the entire place). The drivers are nuts and we do not think there are rules. It is organised chaos between bicycles, buses, car, taxis and pedestrians. Very pushy drivers. Seen a couple of accidents but it is not surprising. On ...

Another 5 trips got me to Guilin and Yangshuo by travelling between the fragrent harbour(Hong Kong) and West peace capital(Beijing). Its my favourite place in all of China. The 'Karst' limestone mountain formations and the paddy rice farms, the peanut harvests ...

... north to Longsheng (about 2 hours) and from there a minibus, along windy river roads, to the Zhuang minority village of Ping An (30-40 minutes). Chill'n Ping An is in the heartland of the 13 million-strong Zhuang nationality who, although largely assimilated into the ways of the Han Chinese (who make up 92% of the 1.3 billion Chinese population), have their own distinctive features. The Zhuang ladies, for example, wear dark blue embroidered trousers and ...

... and quiet, and the great scenery. i took a trip out to near longsheng, to the dragons backbone rice terraces. and what fantastic scenery there was there. the terraces completely cover all the nearby peaks - some up to 800m. and of course, there are people working on them all the time, ploughing with cattle, or planting by hand. it was really great to see. one day i did a circuit round the main village, the next day i walked between two villages, hardly meeting a soul on my way ...