HONG KONG

not a bad view for 25p

WHERE: HONG KONG

WHERE (less detailed): CHINA-ish. China marks our passports with a “left the country” stamp. This in addition to the fact that Facebook is now accessible makes us wonder if anyone bothered to tell China we gave Hong Kong back ages ago.

DAYS: 98-100

WEATHER IS: hot, nice and hot. T-shirts in December. Nothing like it.

shorts in December

TEMPERATURE IS: 22-28 degrees

PEOPLE ARE: a mixture. Thanks to our cut-price accommodation (Chungking Mansions) we are pulled back into the world of annoying, obnoxious and overbearing Indian hawkers. But others extremely nice, and best of all they’re considerate enough to put English signs everywhere, on street corners, in shops and on menus.

FOOD IS: excellent, possibly because for the first time in months we know what we are ordering.

A BEER COSTS: not sure but a cocktail and glass of wine in the uber-swanky Aqua bar overlooking Hong Kong harbour (another great GoToJo tip) cost £16.

(bar)room with a view

HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS: the look of unbridled joy on Rhaani’s face after she is finally reunited with a western style toilet, complete with toilet paper....”This is the most amazing place in the world”, she cries at being able to knowingly order grilled chicken....the ridiculous Hong Kong Harbour light show. If anyone has ever turned a light off to “do their bit for the environment” know your actions have been pointless. In 20-mins Hong Kong creates a carbon-footprint larger than the one you, your family, everyone you’ve ever known and will know in life... the afterlife... purgatory...could possibly leave. And it's a shitty show....the 25p Hong Kong ferry....Paul starts to salivate like a Pavlovian dog after his first sighting of Pick’n’Mix in 3 months....a fruitless search for multi-coloured obviously fake Rolex Watches (another dud Weelian Tay tip)...the magnificent view from our “Mansion” flat - and the landlord told us we’d been upgraded to a family room which had a window! The 45 degree angle’d cable car to the Point....

home sweet home

INTERESTING FACT: Hong Kong is so considerate that you can actually check luggage at subway stations the day before you fly out and then casually trot to the airport the next day.

DAYS SINCE PAUL SHAVED HIS HEAD AND HIS HAIR STILL WONT LIE FLAT ON ITS OWN (monkey boy):60

hardly the light fantastic

THINGS LOST: nothing to add

UP NEXT: JAPAN: land of the rising sun and a million vending machines.

ZHANGJIAJIE NATIONAL PARK



finally...

WHERE: ZHANGJIAJIE NATIONAL PARK
WHERE (less detail): CHINA

DAYS: 93-96

PEOPLE ARE: possibly the most helpful in the world or we just had the most amazing piece of luck. Thanks to Paul’s nonsensical last-day strategy of “always take the downward trail” we found ourselves by a desolate - and possibly long deserted - exit gate. We also found ourselves in the ultimate Chinese backwater. While local women washed clothes on rocks in the river we wandered aimlessly, without a clue as to how to get back to civilisation and more importantly Zhangjiajie city. Despite using our best pointing efforts on several locals we looked set to spend the night in the pig shed. Fortunately we found a local bus and despite the driver not understanding a word we said and looking like the most confused man on earth at the sight of a map he ushered us onboard. An hour later we still hadn’t moved and the bus had filled up with other passengers who then alighted on-masse to get on another bus. Just as Paul started to think about feeling guilty for not agreeing to walk (uphill) towards the main entrance the driver started the bus. Two hours later we pulled up at our hostels front door. As soon as we got off the bus pulled an immediate U-turn. We still wonder if the other passengers were told about the slight detour or if they were just happy to take an impromptu trip to the big city?

WEATHER: freezing cold in our room in the park because Paul failed to realise that the windows were wide open throughout our stay. In his defence Paul didn’t realise he had been allocated such a duty for the year. Otherwise a mixture of mild clouds and crisp sunshine while we hiked.

FOOD IS: either rice or noodles. Rhaani’s attempt to order some vegetables resulted in another plate of rice and her contention that the hostel owner “doesn’t speak Chinese.”

HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS: our fake student ID cards are rejected because we are collectively 32 years over the 18-year-old student limit...a three day hunt for the Avatar mountain....Rhaani’s opinion of the park takes an immediate battering when she realises it contains hundreds of monkeys - wild monkeys! Unknowingly walking the wrong way up our first mountain...the stunning views from the top makes up for any lost positioning - although not the presence of monkeys, according to Rhaani...catching the last glass elevator up the side of the next mountain range...Paul fortunately spots our hostel as our bus-full of noisey Chinese tourists zooms around another sheer drop cliff...two more days looking for Avatar mountain....finding Avatar Mountain....the sad realisation that despite the fact we are in one of the most breath-taking natural location in the world by day 3 we were both a little over continually stunning scenery...

that's a little different

THINGS LOST: nothing new to add

you bored? yeah me too

UP NEXT: Hong Kong

SHANGHAI and the place that features on the back of the 1 Yuan note.

Rhaani manages to escape the crowds, for a second

WHERE: SHANGHAI

WHERE (less detailed): still CHINA

DAYS: 85-91

WEATHER IS: sunny and a little bit cloudy. Not shorts and t-shirt sunny but light jumper sunny. Much like London at the moment I bet. 

TEMPERATURE IS: 18-20 degrees

PEOPLE ARE: oblivious to the concept of personal space and unable to walk five foot without bumping into each other. Its’s like the entire city has signed up for a life-long game of Pinball. It truly unsettling - and this is coming from someone who’s lived in London for 13 years. Take the tube for example. In London there will be the rude few who try and squeeze into the carriage before those onboard have had a chance to depart. Here it’s everyone, common sense - and a basic understanding of physics, dictates it’s far easier to occupy a space when nothing is already occupying it. What makes Shanghai tube even stranger is this urgency doesn’t come from a need to be somewhere fast. As soon as the locals depart the train (through an equally dense mass of bodies) they slowly amble towards the escalator and wait as it slowly rises. No-one walks up the escalator. In addition people are happy to wait in the middle of the throng to get onto the escalator rather than walking up the empty stairs. This lack of urgency continues in the concourses. No-one walks with any urgency and yet they find numerous ways of walking into you. It is incredibly infuriating.

admiring the view: of the cocktail menu.

FOOD IS: starting to retreat into what we can make ourselves. We’ve become the travelling equivalent of the 'A-team locked in a barn' scene. Only we’re trapped in a hotel room with peanut butter, a breadknife, crunchy museli and half a tub of strawberry yoghurt. Much like in India we’ve found there comes a point when eating out becomes more of an ordeal than a treat. The enjoyment and sense of achievement that follows struggling through a game of pointing and dining room charades is outweighed by the length of time and effort it takes to order the exciting and unusual food as well as the fact that most of the meat is a) still on the bone b) consists more of fat than meat.

HENCE - Paul’s readiness to throw off the shackles of his tight Northerner/Scottish roots and pay £18 a head for lunch at the uber-swanky Shangri-La hotel. We took more-than-full advantage of the all-you-can-eat Dim Sum lunch special (83 dishes on offer). In fairness we did find some excellent cheap take-away sushi in a shopping centre.

room for a wafer-thin mint?

A BEER COSTS: £7 in the Jinmao Tower bar, £1 elsewhere.

HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS: the surreal location of the Chinese Propaganda Poster Museum. Again Lonely Planet deserves a slap. The museum is actually housed in the basement of a housing block in the middle of a council estate. As you follow small hand-drawn directions you start to worry that there is no poster museum and instead you’ve been lured into a trap by a fanatical Communist who’s hiding in the shadows with a huge sword and a hatred for Imperialist Western scum who dare call the party’s artwork “propaganda”. Lonely Planet makes absolutely no reference to the bizarre location....the 83-variety Dim-Sum lunch....the Louvre style underground Apple Store...Paul gets to workout in a proper gym! Albeit a proper gym situated on the seventh floor of a shopping centre. Tries and (only just) manages a 100kg 1RM bench press....cocktails on the 87^th floor of the Jinmao Tower (another poor Lonely Planet tip as the Grand Hyatt welcoming bar on the 59^th floor had much better views and the drinks must have been cheaper (although Rhaani maintains her cocktail was awesome and worth every Yuan)....the impressive skyline view from the Bund...Paul nearly buys a pair of attachable roller skates after the street vendor lowers her price from £20 to £3 - surely everything becomes useful when it costs £3...our patience for Chinese maps wears thin after walking for hours to find the “first meeting of the Communist party” building...the inconceivable number of shopping centres and major western department stores in the city. There are currently two Nike and three Louis Vutton’s stores per person in the city, with plans for more....Rhaani defies all logic and manages to fit into a child’s small Reece’s Peaces t-shirt....

also in made in adult sizes, not that we'll ever need it

....we find a Tesco local mini-market but to Paul’s dismay it doesn’t stock soft chewy American-style chocolate chip cookies...Paul hastily backs down in a confrontation with four (possibly off duty soldiers) queue jumpers at the train station....

Waiting for the Great Leap Forward

UP NEXT: Huangzhou, home of the image on the back of the 1 Yuan note.

  

following the money trail

WHERE: HUANGZHOU, home of the image on the back of the 1 Yuan note.

WHERE (less detailed): still CHINA

DAYS: 92-93

WEATHER IS: cloudy when we arrive but beautiful sun the first day (t-shirt weather). A little cold and cloudy the second day but the sun comes out soon enough.

just like the Serpentine, without the ice

TEMPERATURE IS: 24-28 degrees

PEOPLE ARE: nice enough. We’re here for two days and no-one bumps into us so by Shanghai standards they’re saints.

FOOD IS: a huge improvement on our low-rent Shanghai options. We find some more sushi and some predominantly fat meat. We also manage to buy the most carbohydrate-laden lunch from a local supermarket with bread, rice and dumplings for about £2.... A BEER COSTS - £1.50 for a small beer in the hostel bar. By far the most expensive we’ve had in a hostel so far.

"You know Manny Mallet, right?"

HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS:  the magnificently comfortable and newly constructed high speed train link between Shanghai and Huangzhou. Train speeds approach 300kmph and stations resemble airports...just over an hour later and despite a few wrong turns we arrive in peaceful quant massive lake featuring Haungzhou old town - just across the road from the Porsche dealership and a little bit along from the Ferrari and Maserati dealerships...taking a wander down to the park and lake...

... It’s a delightfully relaxing place with obligatory weeping willow tree over the water’s edge... cynical Paul instinctively thinks the people doing tai chi in shiny satin pyjamas must be some sort of local buskers but soon realises they’re just out enjoying the lake... we decide Lonely Planet’s recommendation to cycle around the lake sounds like a great idea and go and hire bikes.... we discover you can’t cycle around the lake...we return our bikes and go back to walking around the lake...Paul’s hunt for the water-pots that feature on the 1 Yuan note begins...

KUNG PO CHICKEN!

...taking a boat ride to the island in the middle of the lake to find the water pots...after 10 minutes and 40 different positions Paul declares the images on the back of the 1 Yuan note is fake... Rhaani witnesses a street fight...Paul’s Kung Po Chicken t-shirt continues to cause much hilarity, especially in the hostel’s restaurant when he orders Kung Po chicken...great food but massively overpriced drinks ...

its a bloody fake!

UP NEXT: the much anticipated Zhangjiajie National Park. Inspiration for the scenery in Avatar.

HUANGSHAN MOUNTAINS

WHERE: HUANGSHAN MOUTAINS ( technically SHAN means mountain so it should just be HUANG. But they’ve started to call the city at the base of the mountains Huangshan as now so technically I’m not sure anymore.)

WHERE (less detailed): slightly northy easterly of central CHINA

DAYS: 83-84

WEATHER IS: cloudy and misty when we arrive in the town delaying our trip up the mountains by a day. But then absolute gorgeous sunshine the day we ascend.

TEMPERATURE IS: 0 - 15 degrees

PEOPLE ARE: exhausted and apparently chained to a tour group and sewn into suits. We climbed countless steps and every second Chinese person was dressed in a full business suit with tie and dress shoes, and copious amounts of  sweat.

FOOD IS: Homemade. Because we were only going to have one day on the mountain we decided to bring a packed-lunch. We finally concede that regardless of how great they taste when fresh, dumplings just don’t work a day old. Luckily this rule doesn’t apply to peanut butter sandwiches which have started to make up an alarming proportion of our weekly meals.

HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS: the mountains obviously, although not one of China’s 5 sacred Buddhist mountains the Huangshan or Yellow Mountain range are bloody awesome.... within seconds of stepping off the eastern chairlift Paul declares it his no1 sight.... It’s the classic Chinese mountain picture with the contorted pine tree and the bare grey granite mountainside....certainly not the 90min wait for the cable car to go up. We could have walked but it’s a 4hr hike and unlike almost everyone else we didn’t fancy spending the night in a dorm room at the top....having our packed lunch with the most stunning of views.... the god-awful mapping system.... there are about 70 different peaks and ridges all with cute mysticy sounding names. The problem is there are about 5 different maps going around all with different translations. The result is a bizarre version of the Times Crossword puzzle at 2,000ft. 5 across: clue: Simian Gesturing at Astral Body or Creature once thought to be early man waves limb skywards, answer: Monkey Waves at Sun...

...also no direction arrows at crossroads just a map without a “you are here” sticker....Paul’s Kung Pao chicken t-shirt (written in Chinese) turns out to be a big hit with the locals who laugh and shout “KUNG PAO CHICKEN!” whenever he comes into view, fun for the first 10minutes of the 3hr descent...turns out the simply stunning western descent is pretty dull and probably only looks decent on the way up cos you’re looking for anything to take your mind off the endless steps, cable car down and more time exploring the summits would have been far better, bloody Lonely Planet ... our joy at making it down to the shuttle bus with 30mins to spare is short lived as the bus driver sticks to the Chinese system of “I’m not leaving until every one of these seats is sold”....arriving in time for the last bus back to the city only to find there was no bus...our good fortune that the distinctive red bus receipt we were waving at random coach drivers was spotted by little Chinese student looking for the same bus. Our new best friend called the bus company demanding a bus to take us home...our bad luck that despite assuring us the last bus back was 4pm the driver now says he’s going to wait until 5pm in the hope of selling more seats  - we’re the only passengers... since the 5pm departure time means we’ll miss our 7pm train to Shanghai Rhaani calculates that it would cost us less to offer to buy every spare seat on the bus than having to buy new train tickets....

...thanks to our new pocket friend the driver starts driving us back to hostel....after a few minutes shouting on his phone the driver turns around and starts driving us back towards the mountains....we are ejected from the bus and squashed onto the 3.30pm bus with us forced to sit in the aisles ....everything seems to be going swimmingly until the police stop the bus and give the driver a ticket for having an overcrowded bus (as bad as Indian public transport was had this happened over there the driver would have been given a ticket for not having a full enough bus)....the upshot is the whities and their pocket guide must leave the bus, walk across six lanes of motorway traffic and flag down a passing local bus to try and get back to the hostel.... after a quick stop for street vendor noodles we make our train and relax for another overnighter.

THINGS LOST: nearly Paul’s left hand Black Diamond all terrain climbing glove but luckily he backtracked and found it on the path, one of our two plug converters...so complete lost list:  our really useful wire cable for tying rucksacks together, Rhaani’s pair of Teva all-terrain hiking sandals, plug converter.

THINGS STILL IN LIMBO: our £5 deposit for our hostel in Pingyao which we forgot to collect before we left. So far the hostel has been reluctant to post it to us and are now ignoring our emails.

UP NEXT: China's Mianchi Mines, only joking Shanghai

BEIJING AND SURROUNDING AREA

******Note: thanks to the utter and inexcusable selfishness of our so-called friend Raj Malagoda, who clearly believes his two week sunshine break in Sri Lanka and the Maldives is more important than the hugely honourable job of updating our blog, we have been unable to relay the exciting and educational details of our trip for the last two weeks. For our avid readers’ loss we are truly sorry. Thankfully our new best friend Julie “Hoolie” Baxter has stepped into the breach and we are now able to bring you a new, if slightly belated post. A huge thanks to Julie**********



Well of course they had to forbid ordinary people entrance, there’s hardly enough space as it is.

 WHERE: BEIJING

WHERE (less detailed): still CHINA

DAYS: 75-82

WEATHER IS: apart from one day in which the temperature dropped, the wind picked up and our ancestors’ bones were frozen we’ve been pretty lucky and mainly enjoyed crisp sunshine.

managing to avoid the crowds

TEMPERATURE IS: -2 – 10 degrees


PEOPLE ARE: supposedly the dodgiest in China but if this is the worst they get the Chinese better not holiday in India or they’ll be torn apart. One of Beijing’s more heinous tourist “scams” involves some “students” inviting you to their “college art show” and when you arrive at the gallery it turns out to be an ordinary art gallery where they try and flog you some paintings - oh the humanity, can people really be that devious?

Nifty forbidden city architecture

FOOD IS: gorgeous and best of all most menu’s have ENGLISH translations. Apart from one day when we wandered off the beaten track and found ourselves in a small local diner. We thought we’d be pretty safe since the menu featured pictures and the ordering system simply required you to tick the corresponding dish. But for some reason we had our non-English speaking waitress in fits of laughter as we failed to understand the one question she had in Mandarin. Even with her talking louder and clearer we strangely still didn’t understand. Culinary highlight was split between the high-end Peking Duck, the £1.80 stir-fried beef and noodles we found in a shopping centre food court and the 10x 10p dumplings we devoured at the Summer Palace.

what’s hot

and what’s not

BEER COSTS: £1 for a litre of house beer at our Hostel, 29p for a 500ml of Diet Coke


HIGHLIGHTS/LOWLIGHTS: our continual embarrassment at the state of the London Underground in comparison to Beijing’s. A trip anywhere in the city sets you back 20p. In addition all stations are bright and clean and feature flatscreen TV’s on the platforms, in the trains and on some of the tunnel walls....




look away now if you don’t want to know the football scores, just don’t look out the window

....we soon discover the sun in this city is much like a Panda’s ass, no matter which building you try and photograph the sun always seems to be shining into your lens ... the royalty in this country are nothing if not self-indulgent - Mariah Carey’s interior designer is the picture of understated modesty in comparison. They had the gigantic Forbidden City for winter, the massive Summer Palace for when things got a little too hot and the huge Temple of Heaven Park for when they fancied a little pray. All of which is decorative beyond imagination....

The Summer Palace, because sometimes you just have to find a little space in which to escape the pressures of Emperorship

....nearly ruining our first impression of Tiananmen Square by nearly using it as a shortcut to the supermarket.

Now I know it’s a little bigger than we first discussed but I still think it captures my unassuming and modest nature.

..Paul starts his research into the city’s best Peking Duck....nearly getting to see the bloated corpse of Chairman Mao without joining the mile long queue...Paul eats fried scorpion (better than brain)...a visit to the highly politicised Police Museum where we see a Chinese photofit machine. Not sure of its effectiveness: suspect’s hair colour - black, eyes - dark brown, skin - light brown. Right, punch that into the database and we’ve immediately narrowed our search down to 1.2billion... visiting Silk Street market, just a nasty big market with pretty ugly counterfeit goods...our first cinema visit for 10 weeks...Paul continues his research into Beijing’s best Peking Duck...






c’mon Rhaani, I swear there’s an expensive shoe shop just over this hill

 ....Great Wall trip, Great hike, Great views, shame about company, two English tourists who declare at the free lunch “I’m not eating any of this foreign crap.”....Beijing Acrobatic troupe, absolutely fantastic, think Glee meets Cirque de Solei. The acrobats were 9-18years old and while the difficulty level of their tricks was easily a match for Cirque they were unpolished enough for you to realise just how hard it was to pull them off. The best thing was that they missed a few marks at the start of the show so when they built up to the dangerous stuff and brought out crashmats and you thought “Hang on, someone could take a nasty fall here.” Much like having a go on a rickety old rollercoaster where at every corner you swear you can feel two wheels coming off the track or the bolts coming loose. 90mins flew past. So so impressed....

less polish = more entertainment

Paul narrows down his Peking Duck search to 4 finalists....we discover every female Chinese tourist has a photography pose...visiting the Olympic city, Stratford has a lot to live up to.




Stratford 2012?

...we finally try the little clay pots with paper lids that can be found at every street vendour, Turns out they’re yoghurt and cost 20p with a 10p deposit for the clay pot....Paul’s plan to beat the Mao Maueseleum queues by forcing us to arrive at 8am on Sunday turns out to be the same one adopted by another 1,000 chinese tour groups, back to bed....Paul finally decides on our Peking Duck destination. Shunning the popular Quanjude and other recommendations we arrive at DaDong Duck, home of the low-fat, low grease Duck. Absolutely fabulous. The service was pretty terrible. Despite making a reservation and telling them we wanted the duck special we had to wait 1hr for them to cook the duck when we arrived. But it was worth it. Fantastic duck and exquisite pancakes, Moonlight Chinese takeaway on Queenstown Road will never be the same again

Rhaani assumes the position

....the unbelievable disparity in height between ordinary citizens and soldiers on patrol. There must be an army barrack filled with mad scientists and stretching racks somewhere......an American who exemplifies the “loud and dumb” stereotype arrives at our hostel....finally get to see Mao and are rushed through in less than a minute, we spent more time emptying our pockets at security than we did looking at his bloated face....Paul buys a novelty t-shirt with Kung Pao Chicken written on it in Mandarin and within 30mins is using it to try and order food in four no-speakey de English restaurants...just as we’re just about to leave Beijing by train Rhaani is pulled out of our compartment by a manic steward with a camera. At first we worry there is something wrong with our tickets or maybe we’ve taken the wrong beds. Turns out China-Rail have read our blog and want to capitalise on our new-found fame by using Rhaani in their promotional material...

this soldier only appears in the photo because he’s 9ft tall

NEXT: thanks to the unreliability of WL Tay we’re deviating from our original plan to go to Shanghai and instead are heading on a 20hr train ride to Huangshan mountain home to sights such as Purple Cloud Mountain and White Goose ridge.


THINGS LOST: Rhaani’s pair of Teva all-terrain hiking sandals.


THINGS STILL IN LIMBO: our £5 deposit for our hostel in Pingyao which we forgot to collect before we left. So far the hostel has been reluctant to post it to us and are now ignoring our emails.

PINGYAO and DATONG and surrounding

 

beats wallpaper

WHERE: two relatively unimpressive cities situated between Xian and Beijing, only noteworthy as jump-offs for the impressive sights that surround them.

WHERE (less detailed): still the People’s Republic of China

howdy there

WEATHER: brisk at best, absolutely bloody freezing at worst. First snow sighting

TEMPERATURE: -5 to 10

steep, even by San Francisco standards

FOOD IS: pretty good. In both towns we managed to find restaurants with pictures on the menu and thanks to the English/Chinese translator we downloaded from the iStore we asked (non-verbally of course) if the dish contains chicken. On the downside we ordered Chicken Knuckles.

Rhaani enjoys a quick bite with her peeps

A PINT of BEER COSTS: 50p for a 500ml of Snow beer.

LOCALS: our first real negative experience. We came out of Datong train station and agreed a price for a cab to our hotel. We sat in the car for a while until we realised the driver’s wife was trying to fit another two people into the car. After some shouting we drove off only to pull a U-turn five minutes down the road as we returned to the train station where two more customers were waiting. After more unintelligible shouting we drove off. We found out the next day that we still paid x3 the metred rate for the journey.

put your back into it foreigner

HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS: sharing a soft-sleeper compartment with the Chinese Men’s Doubles Snoring champions...a leisurely bike ride around the smallest town in China turns into a 2hr hunt for the post office... finding a supermarket which sells the tastiest of dumplings for 4p each...Paul fears our blogs might have drawn the attention of the Chinese government as we are unable to access our email accounts or google during our stay in Pingyao...our first real taste of Chinese street food as we enjoy stir-fried noodles for 30p whilst entertaining the locals...Paul forgets he’s now in a land of midgets and draws blood as he whacks his head on a doorframe...Raising the Red Lantern at Wang’s Family Courtyard...

Rhaani waits to see if her luck’s in

....the extremely cold, underwhelming and misleading Zhangbi Underground Castle (there is no castle just lots of underground tunnels)...Rhaani’s worst toilet experience ever...

Rhaani “I don’t think the women’s toilet is finished yet”

...Paul curses himself for forgetting his camera as a supermarket brawl breaks out among pensioners queuing for flour, security guards have to be called as six octogenarians wrestle on the floor...Paul cursing himself for not being fast enough with his camera as a mother lets her two-year-old daughter pee through her leggings on the train station platform...our first experience of Chinese cattle class, our decision to go cheap on the 7hr day train to Datong backfires, fortunately after 2hrs of standing we manage to find a seat...

The only way to travel

...capitalism in action as woman hard-sells toothbrushes in train carriage...Rhaani’s superb internet bargain-hunting skills find us a 5* hotel (normal price £96 a night) for £20...our first gym workout since leaving London...Paul sets off in-room electronic safe then hides/retires to shower and lets Rhaani “explain” to maid and manager why the piercing noise won’t stop....the highlight of our day in Datong is a KFC branch... confusion and hysteria reign as we pop into local cinema and ask if Harry Potter V is showing in English or with English subtitles. After 10 minutes of painful charades/pictionary reinforcements are called and the English speaking women from around the block tells us no...

A rare moment of interest in Zhangbi

...our hotel turns out to be wedding reception central and no less than five wedding banquets are prepared for Saturday...we reckon with our newly found celebrity status we can easily have a free night on the beers if we pay casual visits to the various celebrations... to our dismay we return from a day’s non-sightseeing to find that Chinese weddings are massively tame events and end before 4pm...Rhaani prepares for our coldest day yet with a carefully planned out 5-layer ensemble: Skins thermal top and bottoms, t-shirt, ice-breaker thermal jumper, North Face extra thick fleece jacket and Mountain Equipment Down Jacket, hands are covered by gloves then skiing mittens. Unfortunately she forgets about her feet and bizarrely opts for lightweight gym socks and a pair of Nike Free 2.0 – Nike’s lightest running shoes...

ready for the cold

now with a bit of dry-walling I could have this mess all cleared up for you in a flash

...probably the best day tour ever! The spectacular Yung gang grotto (craps all over Santa’s) and the gravity defying Hanging Monastery. Both are simply stunning and only a 2hr drive apart. The grotto features over 40 caves in which statues are carved into cave and cliff walls. Stunning and a must see for anyone who visits China ... Rhaani’s no1 sight so far...obtaining student discounts after persuading ticket office worker that our drivers licences were student cards, even though my Paul’s UK licence has pictures of cars and vans on it (sorry Buddha but we are on a budget)...Buddha immediately seeks repayment as Paul is forced to get out and push taxi as snow and ice threatens to prevent visit to Hanging Monastery...the Monastery is a feat of engineering beauty and is built into cliffs 40m off ground....Rhaani informs vertigo suffering tourist the way out is by climbing higher in the precarious structure....

inside or out, both pretty special

TRAVELLERS TIT-BIT: thanks to China’s one family one child law the country is facing a massive child-obesity problem as parents - and especially grandparents - spoil their children rotten.

because everyone knows a fag is essential for good bowel movements

MOST RECENTLY LOST: our £5.60 deposit that we forgot to pick up from the hostel in Pingyao, Rhaani is currently bombarding them with requests to sent the money to Beijing.

UP NEXT: Beijing