Finally we find the tourist zone

I'm loving the internet cafes (网吧 or Wangba to those in the know) in China. They are invariably enormous with around 100 - 200 pcs, dark, equipped with sofas, widescreens and fast connections. All have headphones and video cameras, and typically cost around 20p an hour. Best of all though, there's at-computer food. While sitting browsing, someone came around shouting something random. As he passed I mimed eating, he nodded and two minutes later I had a bowl of tasty noodles, for about 30p.





Most places we'd been in China to date had not been on the tourist trail but Wulingyuan is a world heritage site and we were expecting the full tourist paraphernalia. It was still excrutiatingly difficult to make ourselves understood. No-one seemed to understand our request to find the bus to the park, and when we got there we found the hotels available were sterile and expensive. We arrived and were trailed by an English speaking Chinese guy who was a wannabe guide. He followed us around the village as I looked for a place I'd found listed on the internet advising us that he could get us a good rate in his hotel. After half an hour of this we caved and followed him into a hotel where he promised us the rate was 180 Yuan per night (about 12 stlg). We paid up and went to the room thinking we'd escape him that way. But no. After 20 minutes we had a call to the room asking if we needed a guide. We said no. Then we went to the park. He intercepted us en route and trailed us into the park asking if we needed a guide. We said no, again. Eventually we shook him off and enjoyed a fabulous walk through the kind of scenery you only see in films, only spoilt by innumerable Chinese tour groups toting megaphones. Fortunately all they seem to do is go to the nearest beauty spot, take their posed shots and leave. We soon shook them off, which is more than we could say for our friend who was waiting for us on the exit to the park and offered us massages, dinner, tours, you name it while regaling us with a guilt trip about his lack of work and money that day.

In the end we caved (again) and asked him to organise a rafting trip we had been unable to organise ourselves due to the supreme lack of tourist infrastructure and english speakers in the village. China just doesn't do international tourism - why would you when the domestic tourism market is probably the biggest industry in the country? As foreigners we were sufficiently unusual in this major tourist attraction that one chinese guy took photos of us on his mobile phone.

We warmed towards the guide slightly and even let him profit from a vastly overpriced dinner at his commission restaurant. That was until we discovered the price of the hotel he'd led us to was not 180Y per night, but per person, which made it very costly indeed for China. Clearly he was getting the cut of the profits here and our rafting trip was tainted by resentment as a result.

The trip the next day was booked through an agent in the city and we joined two Chinese couples in a minivan. Together we toured the biggest cave in Asia (Jiuntian) (commentary in Chinese only), a Ming dynasty village where an old lady allowed us to see her house and was so delighted to see some foreigners she could hardly wipe the grin off her face. We were ordered into another (we can only assume) commission restaurant to eat horrendously overpriced lunch at 11am. The waitress was very upset with us when we told her we wanted what the Chinese couples were having, presumably because it wasn't the most expensive thing on the menu!

Then came the rafting. We had thought we were going whitewater rafting. In fact it was more like bananaboating down a river on a motorboat. The full force of the China tourist machine became evident. We thought it was just the six of us doing the rafting waiting on the river bank, when swarming over the brow of the hill came 50 (mostly male) chinese who'd arrived on a tour coach. We jumped on the banana boats and headed downstream through dramatic limestone cliffs towering about 600 metres vertically above us. At the half way point we were unceremoniously dumped along with the 50 other tourists onto a tiny rock where entrepreneurial chinese hawked photos of drenched tourists on their boats from their digital printers which were miraculously powered on the isolated outcrop.

The lack of women everywhere in China is noticeable. To a limited extent this may be to do with the one child policy and the notorious selective abortions. But not to the extent we notice. On the rafting trip, for example, I counted 7 women and 40 men, and this from a tour bus. On the buses and trains the ratio of men to women is roughly 2:1 and on beaches more like 8:1. Just what are all those women doing while their menfolk are merrily lapping up sunshine and floundering down rivers? Answers on a postcard please.

We were quite relieved to leave Wulingyuan after all the guiding stress, though it is truly fabulous and the photo I have here doesn't do it justice at all (my battery failed at the crucial moment). Wannabe guides are fine if you want the help but when all we wanted to do was walk around the park it was very unwelcome.

Next stop Fenghuang, reached via a two hour winding road through a patchwork of rice terraces, with naked boys swimming in rivers, butterflies flitting around, melons for sale by the side of the road. If we hadn't been bouncing around on a suspensionless smoky minibus it would have been a fabulous journey.

Fenghuang is a gorgeous riverside town mostly built of wood, some houses stilted and swarming with (mostly Chinese) tourists. I counted 7 westerners, including ourselves, but that's quite a lot for a place two hours from the nearest rail line. After dark we bought a heart shaped paper candle boat for our 6 year anniversary, and floated it downstream. It promptly caught fire and eventually sank in flames. I wonder what that means!


We're currently in Huaihua. We were just discussing how you might pronounce it to ask for the right bus in the station in Fenghuang when a guy bowled up to us and seemed to know where we were headed. Within a moment we were hustled onto the bus. LP reliably informed us the bus departed every 20 minutes. It was 10am so we could expect to leave by 10.20 at the latest. However, the fullness of the bus is far more important than the timetable in China and the powers that be won't let it leave until each corner is equipped with a pot noodle toting customer, and it took an hour for our bus to depart.


We agreed after attempting to buy train tickets in Huaihua that bus travel is infinitely preferable to train travel. We queued for about 40 hot, sweaty minutes just to get to the counter to buy our tickets to Sanjiang. When we got there, 50 impatient Chinese clamoured behind us eager to purchase their tickets and getting increasingly agitated at our inability to understand the frenzied Chinese of the lady in the ticket booth. Steve stood his ground though and miraculously an English speaker was procured. Again we couldn't get a ticket the same day and have an enforced stopover in a nondescript place, having curtailed our time in gorgeous Fenghuang unnecessarily. Ah well. Internet here is virtually free so I'm not complaining... Over and out...

That's Chang SHA!

From Shanghai we took a bus to Hangzhou. It's a short hop and the bus is much less stressful than trains, as you can just buy and get on. In railway stations you face a ticket buying scrum every time. Here's an example of the scrum at the ticket office in Changsha - they're all like this. It takes at least 20 minutes to get to the front of the counter, and you can rarely get the train time you want (every ticket is specific to a train in China - there is no online booking and you can only buy from the town you are in, not from a future destination, so as travellers, trying to buy a ticket on the day you want to go often means all seats are booked out. As soon as you arrive somewhere, you buy your onward ticket.)

We wanted to get a train from Hangzhou to Changsha and so on the Lonely Planet's advice, asked the hostel to book the next ticket for us. They said they couldn't due to "government regulations" in Zhejiang province. So we went to the tourist office, which the LP informed us would book tickets for us. They wouldn't, and told us to go to the train booking office. We searched for hours, even getting further instructions, and couldn't find it. Eventually found one and with the aid of the LP's language section tried to work out when we could get a sleeper to Changsha. "Tomorrow hard sleeper?" we asked. "Mei You" (not have) was the reply. "Monday?" We asked, "Mei You". "Tuesday?" "Mei You", Wednesday? "Mei You". At this point our language skills failed us and the word "When" - meaning "When can we get a sodding train to Changsha then?" got a shrug. We established there were hard seats available tomorrow but Steve put his foot down and said "I am NOT taking a hard seat overnight". Much argument ensued but in the end we went to the railway station to try our luck in the scrum. Luckily for us, our language failure came to our aid. By mistake Steve said "today" instead of "tomorrow" and miraculously a soft sleeper berth was available (this is the best and most expensive sleeper available). So our time in Hangzhou was curtailed. In all we spent about 18 hours in Hangzhou, around 8 sleeping, 6 trying to get a rail ticket and 4 sightseeing!

I had by mistake left my PJs in Shanghai and as we were in a dorm, it was imperative I got some more. I had up to this point avoided clothes shops in China as I had assumed that nothing at all would fit me in China, where the average size is probably a UK size 6. We located the nightwear area of town (shops in China are located by district: sportswear, antiques, shoes etc.) and went into a shop that didn't look too pricey. I found a simple short / vest top combo that I thought would do and asked the assistant (hovering over me like a bad smell as they all do the moment you enter a shop) what size it was. "No size" she said. I asked if it would fit me. She shook her head and led me to the elephant section, containing floral print matron outfits which I have seen elderly chinese ladies wandering the streets in at night. I burst out laughing in embarrassment.
"I can't wear that!" I said. In the end we compromised on a mickey / minnie mouse t shirt and white pantalons. Steve couldn't conceal his sniggering when I wore them...

I discovered what the Chinese have for brekky (thanks Jane!) - Congee. Here's a breakfast I had in Hangzhou. Steamed buns, congee and pickles. Congee is rice porridge. It was OK, the buns were nice, but the pickles made me feel physically sick. Some jam would have gone down nicely but the Chinese don't really do sweet things.

Hangzhou is very famous in China for West Lake, a landscaped lake with myriad footpaths, bridges, pagodas, stepping stones, and pools which looks a bit like the traditional willow pattern. A day can easily be passed wandering. After the ticket buying we now had less than a day but managed to see Red Carp pond and emulated many snap happy Chinese tourists on our walk. We saw some bridal couples having their photos taken against the beautiful backdrop (clearly not their wedding day, but their wedding photo day). We hired tiny bikes and tried to cycle around. They were so small I actually missed the seat and hit the back carry rack when I first tried to sit down. It was almost unbearably hot and humid. Just sitting still left us drenched with sweat yet the Chinese wander around in Lycra tops. There has to be some kind of different physiology there.

We've met two 3 year old boys over the past couple of days. The first was sharing our soft sleeper compartment with us and his parents. He was well behaved, smiled at us a lot, pointed at things often and said "La!" - haven't found out what this means yet. He also vehemently corrected my Chinese pronunciation of Changsha to ChangSHA (sound angry as you say it and you won't be far wrong. I am just too easy going (no sniggering at the back there!) to be able to pronounce Chinese correctly). Dad had the top bunk and messed around on the laptop the whole time, Mum had childminding duties and shared a bottom bunk with the little boy. There wasn't enough space for the two of them and she got very little sleep.

The second little boy was hanging around in a restaurant in Changsha. He seemed to be a fixture of the place. Supernanny would have had a field day with him. He pulled tablecloths, shouted a lot, ran around madly and was generally over-coddled by the legion of waitresses. He was so loud that I couldn't hear what the waitress was offering us to eat.

Changsha is definitely not on the tourist trail, ours or anyone else's. We only intended to stay a couple of hours on route to Zhangjiajie but the Chinese rail system failed us (no sleepers available on the same day) and so we've spent about 40 hours here. However, we've had quite a nice time. It was boiling when we arrived and sweat was literally pouring off us so we crumbled and went to a "5" star hotel. Not 5 by western standards but very nice nonetheless, complete with gloriously frigid air con, buffet breakfast, slightly camp but very friendly bellboy Dean who went out of his way to secure us a taxi, concierge service that managed to post Steve's excess baggage on to Australia, and, wonder of wonders, a swimming pool. All for only about 42 pounds for the room.... Bargain.

We managed to see a massive Mao statue while in Changsha and did a spot of shopping since my one pair of trousers are wearing out. I was a bit nervous after the pyjamas but found an army surplus store where I was able to go into men's sizes. Due to the lack of tourist traffic the people here seem genuinely interested in us, haven't even thought of trying to trick us and a few have come up to us to practise their English - and not in a scammy way as you would have in Shanghai or Beijing.

Next stop is the hard sleeper to Zhangjiajie. It's the gateway town for Wulingyuan, which is supposed to be fantastic. We'll see...

Along the East Coast of China

(Never fear, we have got around the Great Firewall of China, kinda....)
This bit by Steve, in case you were wondering.

11th June 2008

On the Beijing to Shenyang train we got trapped in a worm hole, time travelled and our expected 6 hours journey became 4 hours. Either that or we had paid more for the fast train. Jo didn't like having to carry all my bags off the train because I had gone to stand in the vestibule at our stop. The taxi driver and his pals got very confused with our map of Shenyang, as if we were showing them a map of Bristol or something. It has English on it I grant you, but they must be able to recognise their own city surely?

At the hotel we had what I consider to be our first and defining meeting with hotel staff who speak absolutely no English at all. Just saying bed as a question and putting on a question face clearly wasn't going to work here, not even the international sleeping symbol of head to hands was working. So, out came the Lonely Planet language section, a bit of pointing, and we got there slowly. Our 10 pound room was, well, what you would expect for a 10 pound room. It had the hardest bed in the world, like sleeping on one of those camping mats except we weren't camping. You could see the entire workings and plumbings of the shower. It had bright pink coving and cream walls.

We were to learn a hard lesson that if you sleep in the middle of the day in China, you miss things, as we did when we went all the way out to the Botanical Gardens, arrived at 4.30 and were waved away by the security guard. I was still fighting a running battle with the squatter toilets that infect this land, and I thought I would be in for a treat at the site for the 2006 International Horticultural Expo. I pushed open the door of the marvellous toilet and there it was, goading me, the squatter toilet. Obviously gardeners aren't too demanding.

On the 12th June we moved on to Dalian. My Chairman Mao watch was winning friends amongst the Chinese taxi driving community. At the train station, I stood in the wrong queue for 15 minutes. When I got in the right queue, the cashier stumped me by asking me when I wanted to go, so a Chinese man in the queue who spoke English had to help me. The Chinese have this infortunate habit of, regardless where they are in the queue, thinking they are being served, so talk to the cashier and poke their money through the slot. As you are trying to engage the cashier with your pointing, you find lots of arms being thrust under yours, and you become some godlike 8 armed being.

The Chinese are impatient. The baggage check they enforce at stations is absolute pandemonium. The problem is, they try and throw their weight around but the majority of them are about 5ft 5 dwarfs and weigh 7 stone. Chinese train stations are like airports - they scan your bags, then you go up the escalator to one of the waiting rooms, your train gets called, you're let through the barriers, and then you're on the train.

We had 3 hours until our train, maybe we'll have to wait less for trains when we can ask for the next one, so we looked for an internet cafe and I successfully asked a guy where the nearest one was, hurrah. Unfortunately it was closed. But we now knew the symbol for internet so managed to track one down.

On the train, it's interesting scenery. It's hilly on both sides. There are lots of crops, and little huts made of wood - like big pig sheds, I wonder if people live in them? There are miles upon miles of rice fields and many people tending them. From massive urban centres to the agricultural countryside.

We arrived at Dalian. As we emerged from the station, a man asked "taxi?" We showed him the map of where we wanted to go, a hostel on a warship about 6km away on the coast. He seemed confused about where it was. A second larger man came over, he seemed to know where it was. I asked how much. He pointed at 1000 yuan in the Lonely Planet list of numbers. That was about 70 pounds for a 6km journey! Well, I'm sure that's what he pointed at, although Jo thinks he pointed at 100. We walked away. The man followed, shouting at us. I thought we were going to be chased. He stopped me and made an 8 with his fingers, for 80 or 800. I pointed at 30. He made a dismissive noise and we were free to carry on. Then the first guy came over and said he would take us for 30. He led us to a smelly little van that was clearly Dalian's odd job van. The clutch squeaked, the windows didn't wind up and the handbrake didn't work. We drove 20 metres, then he got out and him and 4 men pored over the map. He got back in and talked on his mobile phone while driving, including doing a u-turn on a dual carriageway. We stopped again. Jo and I sat there as the handbrake made funny noises and I had visions of us careering backwards down the hill with him in hot pursuit. Finally we got there, the hostel on the warship. Ah this was going to be good. But then, an old man said we couldn't come on! Dalian's local government had decreed the warship hostel was unfit for foreigners to stay on (although it was still open to Chinese people). We must have looked pathetic as a big crowd gathered round us and I thought a chorus of 'Let them on, Let them on' was going to start. The Bristol Two.

So we walked round to a normal hotel that some Young Americans said was alright. Before we could have our rooms, another Dalian local government masterstroke meant we had, for the first time, to do a police check. We were escorted down to the police station, where 5 of Dalian's finest looked at us derisively and laughed at me when I gave them my EU passport! Why did they do that?! Then an almighty row broke out in the foyer between 3 coppers, 2 men dressed in combats and 3 men dressed in civvies. It seemed to end when one of the original 5 went out, shouted quite loudly at one of the civvies, then retreated back behind the glass to smoke a cig and watch the telly.

In the alright hotel young ladies called us up in the evenings offering massage services. I tried to discover the price but my chinese wasn't really up to it;-)

Next day we were starting to wonder what the Chinese eat for breakfast or lunch. We think it's kebabs or noodles for lunch and not sure about breakfast. Dalian is famous for beaches so we put on our beach clothes that we had lugged round Siberia and set off on the road to the Beach. We got there an hour and a half later. The map had said 2km. We rounded the headland and there we were, the beach. On the Yellow Sea, the water was quite cold. We went for a swim. We thought there might have been some female exclusion zone on the beach because Jo was one of the rare females. It's mostly men hawking and spitting at an even louder volume than normally, as if being by the sea needs some extra effort. One man even did a wee on the beach in full view, standing up. A young couple get into a big inflatable drum, roll it down to the water's edge, then fall over as soon as they're on the water, not managing to stand up again until they get out. A fantastic spectacle.

We woke on the morning of the 14th and limped around the hotel room with horrific sunburn to our legs and ankles. We took a ferry from Dalian to Yantai. People stared at us constantly, even peeping round corners, bizarrely. It was 8am and now was the time to solve the question, what do the chinese have for breakfast? We walked into the restaurant and found them tucking into noodles and beer. Now we knew. Their ferry terminal infrastructure was poor, it involved being bussed out to the ferry, budget airline style.

We weren't lingering in Yantai, we went straight to the bus station for a bus to Qingdao. Jo joined a queue saying all tickets for all directions and was then told to join the queue next door for tickets to Qingdao. More scary toilets, this time a sign urged people to stand closer to the urinals. The bus was being driven by a guy in a surgical smock, like he'd just come off the set of Holby City. The bus had a meek little attendant, who ran in little short steps. More scary toilets on the halfway break after 90 minutes. Getting back on, I cracked my head on the TV, in front of the whole bus, who laughed like drains. We had 2 emergency stops on the bus as suicidal mopeds weaved across the road.

Our lucky taxi streak continued and we got into one just where the bus stopped in Qingdao. The driver had awful breath, didn't want me to wear my seatbelt and the boot didn't close on the bags. We arrived at the hostel. Hostels were now a beacon of civility where we could use a washing machine, and the internet, and sit on a proper toilet. Although they should get lifts. We ate at a local restaurant where one corner was having an almightly sing song. One of them, a young girl, was later carried out looking very drunk. As multiple plates of food were brought out regularly for the locals, we sat there nursing half of what we ordered.

15th June

I hadn't eaten breakfast for a week and so the quasi-English fry up tasted so good. I limped up and down the 3 flights of hostel stairs with my gory swollen sunburnt ankles. We found the internet cafe. It was a vast, dark room with 200 up to date computers inside. 11am on a Sunday morning, and it was full of mostly men, playing games, as good a place as any on a swelteringly hot sunny day I suppose.We couldn't figure out the password and they had to help us as we managed to close down the computers twice. I finished with a flourish by inserting a USB stick, pressing what I thought was ok, and putting the computer into some kind of suspended reboot. Time for a quick exit.

We hobbled down to the sea front. The promenade was packed with Chinese taking countless numbers of photos of each other. One man berated a girl for getting in his shot, it's serious business over here. Where do they store all these photos?

Back in the area around the hostel, we got some postcards in a religious bookshop still celebrating Christmas, and went for a haircut. Which turned into 5 members of staff treating us to a 1 hour massage, extended haircut and them looking at our holiday snaps. For the equivalent of 7 pounds for both of us. Look closely at the two photos of me here and you can see the amount of hair removed...

Next day, it was colder. We saw, well, heard actually, our first road traffic accident just outside the hostel. A van had hit a motorbike, but the bike was ok, the van for some reason couldn't go anywhere. A sign perhaps of how durable their vehicles are. The van driver and bike rider stood in the middle of the road shouting at each other, then the rider rode off, with the driver trying to stop him but failing. I don't think they swapped details.

Jo's squeeze on the International postal system continued when she demanded some stamps to the UK in the post office and had to be content with enough for one and a half postcards. We went food shopping and managed to find an entire subterranean shopping centre that extended about 400 metres. Maybe these are all over China and we hadn't realised. We walked through a market for the locals, with live scorpions in bowls and fish and squid with not much ice or refidgeration going on. Rubbish everywhere, but not unlike many English markets. But pretty scary looking open faced building on either sife - dark, dingy. A drunken man carrying a front door on his back staggered down the market slope. A lady filled a carrier bag with beer from a keg, Qingdao is famous for this. Although we're not sure what they do with it after that, surely it's far too tricky to drink from a carrier bag, so do they pour it into something else, or dip their cups into it?

Moving on to Shanghai on the 17th we endured a 10 hour "soft seat" train journey. It was fine except that we were in a three-seat block so getting out for the loo meant moving two people. We didn't manage to get anything to eat as there is no buffet car and the food being wheeled through the carriage didn't look great. Everyone's got their noodles out.

Shanghai is hot and rainy but a lot more cosmopolitan than Beijing. There are croissant shops everywhere on the metro and pizza huts galore. Our "hostel" would be a hotel anywhere else. For 12 pounds per night we get a double room with fridge, kitchenette, fancy shower, ensuite toilet and pc with free internet.

We walked through People's Park. I made some new friends who spoke great English and we got on so well that they insisted I come to their tea festival. Jo didn't want to go as she said it was a scam or something ; )

We watched an old Chinese guy walk backwards along a walkway in the park then into the public toilets. Backwards. Does he wee backwards too?

The Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition was fascinating for urban planners but it also featured the biggest urban model ever, it was the size of a small house. And I'm not exaggerating. Very impressive. The Shanghai urban strategy is basically: knock down slums. Build high rise apartments. Eco homes. Green spaces. Improve sewage treatment to 90%. We don't know if 90% is good, bad or indifferent by international standards. It's difficult to tell when you only get one side of the argument.





Went up the Jinmao Tower. The observation deck is on the 88th floor which is 340m up, the tower is a bit bigger than that. There is a post office up there, well, I say post office but I don't think you'd take your ebay stuff up there. It was cloudy so the best views were down the central atrium which looked like the backdrop to Luke and Darth Vader's fight scene. According to the signs up there we were almost equidistant between London and Wellington, 9350km and 9450km respectively. I hear you cry, but Steve you set off from Buckinghamshire and Jo set off from Nottingham and you said you don't know where you're going to live in NZ - but you get the idea. It was also 3240km to Urumqi in west China, it's a massive country.

We were determined to eat healthily for dinner, we had earmarked Zentral Healthy Eating restuarant in the guidebook, on 567 Huangpa Rd South. We eventually found 567 Huangpa Road South. But, it was just a doorway with some stair leading up. I could see a restaurant through it. So I blundered through and was greeted by some slightly shocked looking women working in the restaurant, and I can see their point, I had clearly come through the back entrance to the restaurant. After a bit of sign language, it seemed Zentral didn't exist anymore so we ate there. instead. The women all had matching Mao t-shirts on, unfortunately I didn't have my Mao gear on or I feel the international bond between the UK and China would definitely have been strengthened that night. They were watching a very funny Chinese over acted, badly written soap opera. The next morning a quick internet search revealed that Zentral had indeed closed, but that where we were was exactly the same place, except they had obviously stripped out all the classy interior and (somehow!) replaced it with a faded Chinese restuarant! I'd like to meet those interior designers.

On the 19th I achieved a dream and rode on the Maglev for 8 minutes, well 16 minutes if you count the fact that it was a return journey to Shanghai airport. But it didn't reach 431kmh as the guidebook and promotional lierature says, but it got up to 301 kmh at the drop of a hat which bought a big smile (I think the track continues on and that is where the 431kmh is reached, but this stretch of track is not available to the public.)

Onwards and westwards. It gets even wetter from here on out. Floods in southern China. We avoided the earthquakes only to hit another natural disaster.

The Land where Spitting Rules

So here we are in China. Definitely off the beaten track in a city no-one has ever heard of but which would be the second biggest city in the UK (6 million) - more than twice as large as the entire population of Mongolia. We are in Shenyang, a mere stone's throw (4 hours on the train) from Beijing. We haven't seen any other foreigners nor met anyone who speaks english here. But everyone spits madly. I can't work out why - perhaps it is to do with the pollution? Anyway we both cringe each time we hear the distinctive hawking noise in case it comes our way...

Compared to Shenyang, going to Beijing was like a trip to Brighton. Almost everyone spoke english, even the metro speaks to you in English, and it is friendly, easy to get around, many things to visit too. Being in Shenyang is a bit like trying to have a weekend away in Runcorn. You wonder why you're here and so does everyone else! (apologies to anyone from Runcorn, I've never been there, and for all I know it's a lovely place!) To be fair to Shenyang, its public parks are great. The Chinese must lack for private space because parks become playgrounds for everyone. We sat for a while and watched people playing badminton, line dancing, practising Tai Chi, flying kites, salsa dancing, roller blading - it was fabulous.

Anyway Beijing was fun. We arrived and Steve had forgotten to print out details of our hostel. So we got in a taxi and spent a good 10 mins trying to explain the way to the first hostel we found in the lonely planet. We got there and of course it was the wrong one so after checking on the internet finally found the right one.

It turned out to be in a great location, right in the centre of Beijing's coolest district with bars for foreigners and clothes shops even out of our price leagues. Nearby was a lake swarming with well off Beijingers out at night. They were participating in a mass line dance in the street.

The prices in Beijing are pretty crazy actually. Prices for beers seem to routinely range between 3Y and 15Y - between about 20p and 1 pound. We found some soft scoop ice cream for about 3.50 STLG a scoop (no joke) but then the zoo only cost 1.50 to get in.

On our first day we hired bikes and cycled to see the Olympic Stadium (the "Bird's Nest") . We could hardly see it due to the incredibly bad smog that day. We were amongst tons of Chinese tourists also snapping away merrily so felt very much at home. Next we went to the zoo. Again swarming with tourists. It was an ordeal getting there as the roads are all enormous and cars seem able to drive across pedestrian crossings even when the green man is on, no turns appear to be banned so you are never too sure where any vehicle is coming from. You soon get into the swing of it though and unbelievably everyone avoids each other. The zoo was fun and remarkably up to date. There was an entire display about the earthquake less than a month

before. It was great to see the pandas. We had decided not to go to Chengdu (where most pandas are in the wild) since we were advised that all the tourist infrastructure there had closed down due to the earthquake so instead went to see the pandas in the zoo.

Cycling around the hutongs (Beijing's back alleys) is fun. Hans Monderman would love them (transport planners will know what I mean!) They are all completely uncontrolled - pedestrians mix with cyclists, rickshaws and cars. They all move pretty slowly but cars and scooters seem to rule - they beep their horns and everyone else scoots out of the way which seems the wrong way around to me.

We also made the obligatory trip to the Great wall between Simatai and Jinshaling. This is a slightly less visited section of wall, and apart from some chinese tourists we were indeed the only people there. It was a really hot day - about 35 degrees and I was struggling. Steve took the cable car up and a short cut and even that was pretty tough I think... There was one section that was so steep it required you to use your hands. At the top my heart was pounding and I had to sit in the shade for 10 minutes to recover.

An interesting thing we noticed was that lots of Chinese couples seemed to be wearing the same t-shirts. We thought this was very odd but then found a shopping mall selling loads of the t shirts which were basically matched sets! They are cloyingly sweet and say things like "Our love will" (on one) "Go on forever" on the other. Or Steve's favourite - "Love Team". We thought they were so funny we bought some that say in Chinese "Sweetheart" and "Husband" - on mine and "Wife" - on Steve's - they are stamped "love department". The girls who translated for us said they were sweet - they cost about 1.75 stlg for the pair! See the photo of the shop showing all the matched t shirts....

We also visited the Forbidden City. Very impressive in scale - we couldn't hope to cover all of it. My favourite part was the imperial garden with "grotesque" (their word) rock formations, goldfish ponds and pine trees.

Unfortunately we missed Chairman Mao. We are not having much luck rendez-vousing with dead men. You'd think it would be easy to catch up with them but both Lenin and Mao have eluded us. Perhaps we'll have more luck with Ho-Chi-Minh.

Now we are moving on to Dalian, a big city by the sea where we hope for some R&R time. It will be good to get away from the smog....

Gobi Desert Adventure by Steve

We arrived at Ulaan Baator, the capital of Mongolia, at 6.30 in the morning on the 31st May. All our travelling companions were met by their tour guides except us, somehow the times had been mixed up. We ended up paying for a guy in a poorly converted van with a bench in the back to take us to our hotel. The girl next to me kept asking me what the weather was like in Holland until we managed to communicate we were from England. You could see we were moving into Asia with the hustle and bustle.

Our guide Dalai and driver Migal ("call him Michael" grinned Dalai, "like Michael Jackson") turned up in a HUGE off road car, which it turns out was entirely necessary for the trip we were about to undertake. Dalai's name means 'ocean' although he'd never been outside Mongolia. We spent that afternoon looking around Ulaan Baator and learning about Mongolia, which is a very interesting country. Everyone is very friendly. They have a cool national symbol. 45% of the population are nomadic and live in tent-like gers, moving with their cattle. But they like baseball.

We went to a performance of traditional Mongolian dance. It reminded me of the David Brent dance in The Office. One lady balanced cups on her head. A contortionist did strange things that reminded me of an awful monster in a film with legs for arms. One guy gargled a song.

Next day, 1st of June, we headed out to the desert. We stopped for some water and I got chased around a shop by a very scary all-in-black security guard with one of those police sticks. I bought two bottles of water and was thus ready for desert survival! We left UB on this awful road out to the south, with Michael Jackson overtaking on a hill bend. Mongolians beep whenever they overtake to warn the person they are coming - with the amount of holes in the road and the swerving this makes sense. After about 5 miles we swerved off the road and it was the last time I would see a paved road for a while. Our road through the desert was now the car-carved one!

We travelled over tracks that were just so horrendously bad in places, real car breakers. The sun had baked the mud and sand incredibly hard, making huge bumps. These would often be at the side of the track, so hit them at speed and you risk flipping the vehicle. A relatively flat road would often be hiding a very nasty track wide divot created by a dried up stream or a vehicle track, which if you take too fast your vehicle nose dives into the road. Being inside the car was like being inside a rally car. At one point the dashboard seemed to be shaking itself loose, and Michael was checking to see if it was still attached.

We sped through an enormously diverse terrain - grassland, shrubland, dunes, heathland, steppe, some even resembled the surface of the moon! Sand typhoons raced across the horizon. Birds of prey nested in telegraph poles becuase there are no trees. The gazelles are fast but have a habit of curving round in their route away from you, which means you can intercept them further on. Michael absolutely hammered it once and we were so close to one as it crossed out path I could see the whites of its eyes.

We were looking for a lunch spot and Michael kept looking around as if lost. I have no idea how he got us around the Gobi over 4 days as we only saw one signpost the whole time, visible probably from about 10 metres. We eventually found it after going back on ourselves and asking at a petrol station. The jeep got stuck in the sand and I looked on as Michael selected Reverse and we didn't go backwards then Drive and we didn't go forwards. Whilst I was thinking that I hadn't seen Michael's desert survival kit yet, he twiddled a knob called DIFF LOCK and out we came. Dalai had forgotten the forks so we had to eat with bits of twigs pulled out of the sand.

Throughout the journey we listened to Michael's mongolian music and Dalai's Best of 90's Mongolia. It was like being in an Indian restaurant. One tape played 4 times back to back. There was no point reading or writing during the journey, so you had to sit back, look at the vastness in front and get used to Mongolian music.

We arrived at the ger camp at 630pm, we had driven 267km. We were in the middle of nowhere, nothing to see anywhere as far as the eye could see. It was how I imagined living on another planet would be like, and the central building even looked a bit space centre like. The toilets didn't though. We ate a good meal which fused together baked beans and sushi. I thought some beer would go down nicely, so asked if they had any as it looked like they had a bar. I was told that as tourist season hadn't started yet they had none. The guy who was in charge was insistent that he went and got some. In the next town. 20km across the desert. On his motorbike. We tried to dissuade him but I think we had breached some kind of hospitality rule and he had to go. Later I lost at chess to Dalai, who I think found out was ranked 1, 800th in the world! We played Top Trumps and Snap, Dalai thought this was the best thing ever, Michael was very competitive and both of them cheated.

Two girls lit a fire in our ger using sheep dung and it was fabulously warm. I woke at 5am freezing.

We stopped at a monastry the next day. In front of the building a small boy pulled his trousers down and did a wee. As we charged through the desert Michael stopped at a few people gathered around a motorbike. These were the first nomads proper we were to meet, their cattle was over yonder and their ger was over yonder also. Suddenly 3 generations of the Khurel family converged on us, 4 young children, one sullen teenage boy, father, grandfather and lots of women. Suddenly Grandad pulled from his big shirt a baby goat!

We raced off again, and Michael chased a Marmot that had lost it's hole. Poor thing but it was very funny at the time. Michael's driving was erratic. He had a sleep after lunch and drove like a maniac for the next hour.

Day 3 in the desert and Dalai responded to our comment that we hadn't eaten much mutton, which Mongolians eat a lot of, by giving us Monglian noodle soup for breakfast. As we drove I counted 120 gers in 52kms.

Getting petrol is interesting in Mongolia. You pull up at a petrol station which usually consists of a pump and a shed. You then wait for as long as it takes for someone to come and serve you, beeping, shouting, asking the locals. You could be waiting 5 minutes, you could be waiting 35 minutes, but you wait until someone comes. At this particular one a boy on a horse did a reccy for us, then an old man and women arrived on a motorbike, put the code into the pump and we were off. We hadn't driven long when Michael asked if we would like to go and vist the people in that ger over there. He didn't know them. We said ok why not. Inside we were greeted by a lady with 2 boys, a grumpy 3 year old and shy 9 year old. They gave us some refreshments. We were joined by an old man and woman who were the elders of the area. He handed round some snuff in a colourful bottle, Michael had so much he had to go outside for some air. We were soon joined by the rest of the Tserendash family - Dad, Grandma and uncle. The lady opened the oven contraption on the stove and inside was a sheep's head. She put some pastry on top. I didn't think we would be eating it, just for flavour or something. We went next door and the lady put the food out. It appeared we were going to be eating the sheep's head after all. There were 3 sharp knives. Michael and Dalai and the Dad proceeded to carve meat off the head. Bits of tongue. The tail. Michael even gouged out both eyes and ate the bit around them. I looked on bewildered. I didn't quite know what to do. I wimpishly sawed at a few bits. Dalai gave me some of his. Towards the end I built up the courage to carve a bit off a leg but I'm sure I didn't do it very well. The women looked on, this seemed to be a man's meal. We played football with the 9 year old, with his first kick he booted it at Jo who had to take defensive measures. We gave them some English coins, and they gave us some beautiful needlework.

Day 4 we went to Kharhourin which is the ancient monasty of Mongolia. I haggled poorly for a map, I'm sure I'll get more practice in SE Asia. We then drove the 400km back to Ulaan Baator. The drive in was very interesting. They are building a road along the path that we had driven, and as we got to Ulaan Baator we had to drive across the building site. Dust billowed up around us so we couldn't see beyond the hood. Cars came this way and that. There were pits and bumps in the track. It was insane. We went through the checkpoint into Ulaan Baator, Michael had to pay some money to a man in a booth, then got annoyed when a lady in a little yellow car pulled out in front of us and tried to run her off the road. Then we drove past a petrol tanker with smoke and flames coming from one side and it's driver on the other side oblivious, smoking a cig. Michael yelled out of the window and the look of panic on the drivers face, he ran away, then ran back with about 6 men. The last we saw these men were gathered round it hopefully doing something about it.