What you doing in Taiwan boy............

Not updated for a while as China is not the best place for freedom of speech so the blocking of blogging sites has been a bit of a problem!!

Getting back to Ulanbaator from Moron was possibly the worst journey we have experienced ever!! We thought it would be a decent size coach with a fair amount of legroom like our first bus ride into the countryside but it was a cross between a 4x4 and a small bus. Alex couldn't get his knees in between the seats and there was hardly any legroom anyway due to us being sat over the wheel arch. To top it off, they had at least 8 people sat on bags dotted down the aisles so we knew it was going to be a nightmare trip before we set off, lucky we packed some vodka!! Hardly any sleep ensued and we managed to make it back to pick up our chinese visas later that day.

We decided to leave Mongolia early in the end so our 2 week extension proved to be useless but Jo was happy at the prospect of eating something other than mutton in China after falling ill for a few days in Moron. She has not been disappointed since!!

Sleeper tickets were bought for the cheaper version of the trans-mongolian train to the Mongolian town of Zamyn Uud where we were hurried off the train into a jeep to cross the border in the most bizarre border crossing we have ever seen in our lives!! Everyone had to cross the border in licensed ex-soviet jeeps or on buses which we were informed were the slower option. It was like wacky racers, jeeps flying everywhere trying to jostle for their starting place at the border crossing where you received a number from border officials. Then the border opened and everyone was jumping off road to fight for position for the next phase of the crossing, it was so surreal. We almost didn't get through customs as Alex didn't get a tiny stamp from the London Mongolian Consulate but after a 15 minute wait and Alex blocking the window of the customs official, we were dealt with. You knew you arrived in China by the hotel like building with air-con and a military precision operation to get you through their side of the crossing!!

The next bizarre moment was getting on a sleeper bus in a town called Erleen on our way to Beijing where we were confronted by hospital type beds that felt like you were in a cocoon. The trip wasn't too bad altough you were in bed from 4 in the afternoon til 7 the next morning!! Beijing was a pretty cool city and we were excited about trying some new dishes, a lady we met who was moving to China to improve her Mandarin recommended we have the Peking Duck in a restaurant behind the well known night market. We opted out of the delicacies at the market suprisingly but they had a range of treats like sheep's testicles, scorpion, seahorse, worms, beetles and much more to test your bottle. The great wall was bypassed due to the amount of money, time and effort it would have involved, not to mention the millions of tourists. A visit to the forbidden city was the highlight along with wandering the back alleys.

A trip out of Beijing took us on the equivilent of the Japanese bullet train to a place called Taiyuan which was just an overnight stop but took the train conductor by suprise when we were going through the station onto Pingyao at our mis-pronounciation and thought we wanted to get to Taiwan!!

Next stop was Pingyao, a preserved ancient city and most of the guesthouses were in tradional style homes. We passed on most of the usual siteseeing activities and were happy wandering the town and on the second day decided to get a tandem bike which was pretty a great way to see the town. Alex was convinced to have a pedicure as Jo was missing her pampering, you should have seen the ladies face when she saw the state of his feet!! The next day we indulged (if you can call it that) in a neck and back massage where they really worked your muscles, it was bordering on pain at times.

Xi'an was a fairly quick stopover to go and see the Terracotta Army which was incredible. They have 3 pits that were excavated and some that are still being excavated, it was recommended we worked backwards from pit 3 which had the smallest amount of life size warriors upto pit 1 which was at least the size of a football pitch. If you ever get the chance to go to China you should definitely add it to your itinery.

The 28hr mammoth train journey to Guilin nearly topped the nightmare journey in Mongolia. After turning up at the station and approaching our booked carriage we noticed everybody sitting on hard seats and not laying on hard beds as we thought we had booked!! The next issue was one of the seats was double booked and we were sitting 4 to 3 seats with a very pissed off Jo & Alex. Even our translated piece of paper with 'can we get an upgrade' didn't come in handy like it did on a previous train so we resorted to sitting back down and cracking open the beers for a long night ahead. Luckily within an hour, a guard approached saying they had found 2 beds for the upgrade which was such a relief. We just felt sorry for some of them we managed to speak to who were spending 2 days on a hard seat!!

In Yangshao at present, which is absolutely beautiful but we will update you in the near future. Lets just say, a man's best friend is not a saying that some of them would agree with!!

Jo & Alex