Zhong Yin Hotel Jinggangshan

... br>Our travel partners for the trip are two young Chinese. One a girl aged 23 and an 18 year old boy. They are visiting a friend in HK, the Chinese are only allowed 7 days in HK so they are taking the full week.

As it turns out they are band mates. The girl Leo is the lead singer and the boy the guitarist. On top of this ...

... in our town Taylor and Sarah. We all upgraded our tickets and had a private room with four soft sleepers. It was so nice and we got a good night sleep! Reminded us all of Harry Potter style cars, except we had nice beds and no amazing treats. Just ramen noodles and beer.

We arrived in Xi'an at 4:30 p.m. the next day. YAY!

... Yangshuo and the driver, obviously realising the bus was quite family orientated, decided to show a violent porno flick on the onboard telly. Yangshuo is billed as a bit of a backpacker haven with loads to do in this beautifully scenic town, charming small alleyways surrounded by very green hills. Plus anything you want to do you can probably do in Yangshuo. I opted for a bike ride and a walk up moon hill on the first ...

... rather than a steady flow. This quarterly policy may make for impressive economic reports (though Xinhua News Agency reports a growing disfavor with the eight-year-old Golden Week holiday system), but it creates a havoc that is all of dissuading foreigners from extensive travel in China. Indeed, every summer scores of Western backpackers are stranded in Shaanxi's provincial capital city of Xi'an, home of terracotta warriors ...

... Lunch and Chinese dinner. Bit of a overdose but we are keeping well. Dreaming of croissanrs and Nutella but we will have to wait till Vietnam with the French influence. The plan is to head down South to Guilin for monday and down down the Li River to Yangshou and then cross the border to Vietnam. Hope everyone is keeping well. Regards from China Nicolas and Lupita

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 ...

... by the Zhuang to make their mountainous land arable, with construction beginning in the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) and lasting over 400 years. Today the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces, as they are called, now cover over 16,000 acres. Viewing the scene from the hills above the village really is an amazing site, particularly when you see the flooding and drainage systems, essential to good rice growing, ingeniously installed on every terrace. I spent 3 nights ...

... subtly in front of us, and then theyd snap away. it kind of made us feel like zoo exhibits. havent come across it anywhere else. so that was china....great place, had over 5 weeks there, but am ready to move on. ive had more than enough of the smoking and spitting there - and its not just the men - women are just as bad. its so gross - EVERYWHERE, museums, on public transport, in restaurants when you are about to take a mouthful of food. YUCK!!! im ready for the next part of this adventure!!!