Up early for an 8am leave and Linz has a cold shower, which I decided to skip. Then she goes to breakfast, on the roof, in the rain, which I also miss as my tummy is still playing up. Instead I spend time trying to make it look like I have had a shower when…

Today it mostly rained. But it was OK. We drove from Dali to Lijiang and then visited the old town which we both really liked. Then we were taken to a lake, and asked to pay a lot of money to either walk near the lake, ride horses or go on boats. We said no to…

So. Hmmmm. Well. We are on a tour organised by a travel agent. Stage one of the tour involves an over night train to Dali from Kunming. I’ve never been on a sleeper train and I was naively very excited. Turns out it’s a bit like that nuclear bunker in Switzerland that we “slept” in that…

First Published – 29 July There is lots of unsuitable clothing worn here. Very high heels, worn at all times including when walking for hours. They also seem to like layers upon layers of lace and on Sunday, they seem to wear a lot of white and cream dresses which are a bit bridal-esque. The…

First Published 28th July Day 3 here and we headed out to see what Chengdu had to offer, and walked towards Renmin park. It was a nice park, if a little noisy. But then that’s all relative, China is an inordinately noisy place. In the park there were people dancing, mainly middle aged ladies with…

Stopping in China is over whelming! The choices are so numerous that I am put off before I even get started. Each department store is a giant mass of choices. Then there are numerous department stores to chose from which makes things even worse. This is a country that is totally obsessed with shopping. In…

First Published 27 July 2012 We had an 11.05 flight to Chengdu from Shanghai Pudong airport. After checking out of the hotel, we braved the rush hour metro. Loaded with backpacks this was a bit of an adventure. Our ticket cost 7 yuan (70p) and took around half an hour. It was busy ,and really…

First Published – 24 July 2012 Day two in Shanghai we met Querida, from couch surfing. She is 19 and studies English at Shanghai university. We went to the Jingan temple, and then she took us to a few different districts. We end up in Dapuqiao – a really cute market with narrow streets, that…

Nope. They just have shorts with a bum hole cut out. Then they poo or wee anywhere they like.

First Published 26 July 2012 We had sensibly arranged to meet a local to show us around. Linz and I met a girl called Kun, after she offered to show us around Shanghai, we’d met her on the travelling website CouchSurfing. We meet her in the morning and we walked down People’s Street and then…

First Published 20 July 2012 Photos, I took a photo of a man dressed as a pig thing. I didn’t realise he wanted a pound for the pleasure. I didn’t even really want a photo of him. So I deleted it and I think he was unhappy. Then there was the girl dressed as something…