When we woke up this morning we thought our laptop had completely snuffed it as it wouldn’t even turn on. It has been playing up a bit recently and the dreaded blue screen of death has been appearing fairly regularly. Anyway Simon decided it might just be too cold and although I laughed at this idea after half an hour warming in the bed with the electric blanket and a few sweet nothings whispered in its ear it worked like a charm! Hurray!

We decided to get up and go and find a hearty breakfast to warm us up and like a miracle just as we finished eating the relentless rain of the past two days stopped. We take advantage and head off for Black Dragon Lake Pool. It is a lovely park and has some really gorgeous walks through it. We are most interested in trying to see the snow capped mountains and march enthusiastically to the key photography point. Anyway when we get there they are completely hidden from sight by clouds and the fantastic image we have seen of the lake, with a bridge across it and the Snow Mountains in the background is completely out of the question.

Still it’s a beautiful spot and we get some great shots anyway. The walk around the lake takes us past Taoist pagodas and there are some pretty trees and plants to look at. Despite the cold we all enjoyed the walk and the fresh air as we have been cooped up for a few days. We manage to spend a couple of hours wandering around before its starts to drizzle again and decide to head back to the old town for hot chocolates and homemade cakes. We want to buy a few souvenirs and settle for a wooden pig (It’s the year of the pig in China), a silk pashmina, some Yunnan coffee, green tea and a Tibetan cushion cover. We will add this small collection of stuff to the terracotta warrior we already have in our rucksack. I wanted to get a furry yak as well, but Simon said no.

We do some school work and it goes well, definitely an improvement on yesterday. We revise what we have already learnt about China’s ancient history and tackle the huge subject of Chairman Mao and The Cultural Revolution. I will try and explain what we learnt as best as I can. It is very complicated and I apologise to our new Chinese friends if I have made any mistakes.

Following the end of the last Imperial dynasty, by 1930 China was laden with social problems including child slave labour, domestic slavery, prostitution and starvation. The communist party led by Mao Zedong advocated rural based revolt against the government. Years of instability followed for China. They were invaded by the Japanese who carried out one of the most brutal occupations of the 20th century with a policy of “burn all, loot all, kill all”. But by the end of WWII the Japanese had been defeated and thrown out and the communists were in power.

Due to this, The Peoples Republic of China (1949) began its life as a bankrupt nation. Drastic measures were needed and Mao decided to “weed out” right wing intellectuals for a start. They were sent to labour camps for re education and thought reform. The road and rail networks were in a massive state of disrepair and every household was told to build blast furnaces in their backyards to increase steel production. This was called “The Great Leap Forward”. Farm tools, pots and pans and door knobs were all melted down. In Mao’s view, any obstacle could be overcome providing everyone worked together. The upshot of this actually being that with so many farmers involved in the steel production project an estimated 30-60 million Chinese people died from starvation through a lack of grain.

The enormous failure of The Great Leap Forward led to Mao resigning as head of state but he remained Chairman of the communist party. He was becoming increasingly isolated within the party and in order to regain some of his previous popularity many of his thoughts were compiled into what became known as the “little red book”. This was introduced into the general education system and was to become one of the symbols of the era.

In 1966 a play was released that criticised Mao. A huge purge of the arts followed. University students were issued with red arm bands and soon Mao was overseeing mass parades of students in Tiananmen Square, chanting and waving copies of the “little red book”. The Red Guards had been born. The Red Guards then went on a brutal rampage throughout the country. Schools were closed; academics, writers and artists were killed or sent to labour camps. Any cultural publications were destroyed and temples and monasteries were disbanded.

Physical reminders of China’s” feudal, exploitative and capitalist” past were destroyed and the four olds were banned. (Old customs, old thinking, old habits and old culture.) Family relationships were split up and sex and romance frowned upon. The people wore the blue Mao suit.

In September 1976 Mao died following a long illness and the communist grip on China has been slowly released over the past 3 decades. Mao remains at present pickled and on display in Tiananmen Square. Whether he will remain there as China heads towards 2008 and the Olympics remains to be seen. In China he is remembered as 70% right and 30% wrong in his leadership of the country. Having learnt about the history of places like Cambodia, for us it is obvious there are comparisons to be drawn but I think some of the Chinese people would probably disagree with that and the feeling we have got is that Mao is fondly remembered here.

A massive topic and full marks to the kids for sitting and taking it all in. They have learnt stuff on our trip that I never even dreamed existed when I was younger.

Its 6pm now and we are off out for some food. We are leaving Lijiang at 8pm on the sleeper bus (8 hours) and then hope to get straight on a train for the 22 hour journey to Guilin. Certainly need to be tough for travel in China.

I woke up at 7am to the sound of the rain, a relentless drip drip drip. Not good as we came here with the plan of hiking through “Tiger Leaping Gorge” for a day or so. The gorge is very dangerous in the wet season but even a bit of rain can make it almost impossible to negotiate the steep paths and we’re hardly prepared for wet weather trekking.

If we have to change our plans though that’s ok as there are other things to do here and we want to see some of the Tibetan monasteries in the area. Providing the rain slows a bit we also want to photograph some of the “out of this world” scenery that we have already seen here. The Black Dragon Pool Lake, offers the most stunning views with snow capped mountains in the background. Wow!

Its 4pm and we have spent the day fairly quietly, it is pissing down and very cold and has been all day. I have had a sharp reminder of why I hate the wintry weather so much. We bought woolly gloves and hats today and really tried to wrap up. The old town of Lijiang where we are staying is great, the streets are very narrow and cobbled and the houses all traditional one story “Naxi” style wooden constructions with sloped tiling roofs. Most of the houses are open at the front and sell many traditional Tibetan goods such as fur clothing, brightly patterned cloth, wooden and horn decorative items, yak meat and Chinese tea. Some of the women dress in brightly coloured clothing with lots of large ornamental hair combs and pieces.

The cafes here are very nice, internet is available but very hit and miss but the hot chocolates and English muffins made up for that. We spent a few hours doing some schoolwork with the kids. My good friend Nicky pointed out that we haven’t mentioned it much recently but it still continues painful though it is at times! We have been doing the properties of metals today and again it went ok. Slightly more effort on Maisie’s part than Ali’s but we got there in the end!

We rang my mum it’s her birthday today and had a long chat. Happy Birthday Mum! I’ll have a nice Corona for you tonight if it warms up if not maybe a Jack Daniels and coffee. Cheers!! Or as they say in China gan bei (The only thing I have learnt to say other than hello, thank you and toilet in Mandarin)

Tonight we are going to see the Naxi Orchestra, it’s quite expensive and something we may have given a miss but as the weather is so bad we haven’t got too many plans for outdoor stuff and don’t worry about the cost. We spend an hour huddled around a few barbeque coals swapping travellers tales with a couple from Holland and a Japanese guy. On his RTW trip he is taking in England, Spain, France and Italy. Not heard of too often from the other travellers we have met.

Went for dinner and had some fantastic food I think I enjoyed it more than any other meal I have eaten in China. I think we were quite adventurous with our choice of deep fried yak, roasted pork strips, green cabbage and ham rice and spicy beef dishes and it paid off, the food was delicious. As we were leaving a fella came in with a guitar and asked if we wanted to hear a traditional Naxi song. Ali did, so we paid up and were subjected to5 minutes of the worst singing and guitar playing I have ever heard. Ali’s face was a picture and I couldn’t look at the fella for giggling. In the end we were glad to escape and declined when he asked if wanted to hear another one!

Just got back after an hour of Naxi orchestra, during the Cultural Revolution musical instruments were banned and destroyed. Fortunately some of the very old instruments were saved by the Naxi people who buried them, it also helped that Lijiang is very isolated and therefore the destruction of the music wasn’t as strictly enforced as in other provinces of China. The music was beautiful and hearing the Naxi women sing was lovely. Their high pitched sweet voices are very distinctive and evoked images of rural China that I have seen on the TV in the past.

Despite this though we left early, it is so cold here the temperature seems to have dropped dramatically this evening and we froze our arses off in the drafty building until none of us could stand it any longer. I am sat in bed now, fully dressed with my woolly hat, 2 quilts, 2 thick blankets and the electric blanket on and I’m still shaking with cold. We checked the five day forecast earlier and have decided to move on to Kunming. Slightly further south and at a lower elevation we’re hoping it will be warmer and dry.

After what I can only describe as an arduous (22 hour) journey that we all deserve a medal for we have finally arrived in Lijiang, in the South West province of Yunnan. Close to The Himalayas and not far from the Tibetan border our first impressions are of a cold, misty and rainy if stunningly beautiful place.

Well we left Chengdu on time and were pleased to meet some lovely people on the train in our compartment. The compartment sleeps six and the old Chinese couple we shared with were very kind and shared their meal with us. Although we managed ok with our phrasebook we were pleased when a young teacher who spoke excellent English appeared and we enjoyed quizzing each other on Chinese/English customs and culture. In fact when a wizened ancient work colleague also arrived to have a look at us we had quite a little party going on.

When they asked what we thought of the Chinese people I explained that in England Chinese people are often found in casino’s gambling away and smoking loads of fags and they found this funny and explained it is an important part of Chinese culture. For their part they said they think of English people as being very rich and very serious and we put them straight on both counts in our case anyway!

Now the next huge issue to be discussed about this particular journey has to be the toilets. So if anyone has a weak stomach stop reading right now. I have given this some thought over the past few days and in fact dedicated at least an hour to it when I lay awake for an hour last night around 3am. I really thought that some of the toilets in India were the most rancid, evil places I have ever come across but have realised that the simple holes in the ground have a certain honest quality about them that these Chinese hellholes just cannot compare with.

The problem lies in a number of factors, firstly the hole has a sort of metal shutter across and bless Ali with all my heart, I honestly think he was the only person on the train to bother pressing the lever that releases the huge pile of crap, urine, blood, toilet paper, sanitary towels and cigarette butts that accumulates on the shutter. Secondly many toilets don’t have any doors and all squatting together in the stalls chatting and having a smoke seems to be the norm and lastly there is very often no washing facilities at all within 3 miles of the above toilets. Yee ha !!

I guess the fact that when we reached the halfway point on our 8 hour bus ride and stopped off for a pee, the shed with a donkey, a dog, a pile of straw and a pit in it actually seemed really pleasant perhaps says it all. My answer to this was not to drink anything at all today and subsequently ended up a little dry and dehydrated, One of us ( I won’t say who to save the blushes) unfortunately ignored the call of nature and ended up having a crouchy by the side of the bus with 30 or so interested Chinese having a good look. On a final two notes the Chinese love to spit and snort snot like their lives depend on it and the young fella sat behind us spent half the journey vomiting out of the bus window. Oh god, after this trip I honestly think we will all be so tough we will be capable of achieving literally anything in the future.

The guesthouse we have ended up in is very nice. Actually a family home there are only about 5 rooms here and it seems strange to need the thick quilts and blankets provided. The elevation here is around 3500 metres and Lijiang is a large town set in a deep valley. Throughout the entire journey through the mountains our ears have been popping as we got higher and higher.

Its 8pm now and just got back from dinner. This place is absolutely awesome, so gorgeous and completely unlike anywhere else we have been. Lijiang is the base for nearly 300,000 Naxi people. They are descendents of ethnically Tibetan tribes and the Naxi women are everywhere in the narrow streets, easily distinguished by their dress of blue blouses and trousers with blue or black aprons. It is like steeping back in time and amazing experience just walking around people watching.

Just got into bed and delighted to find the electric blanket fairy lives here. Snuggling down now, really need a decent nights sleep.

Slept in until 9am. Maisie I shared a room and Ali and Simon the other room. Our rooms are on separate floors and although we have done this lots of times there are loads of people in this hostel, some whom look a bit dodgy and as the security of the rooms is really crap I feel more comfortable being in with the kids. Had some breakfast and then spent a bit of time chatting to the 3 English girls we met here yesterday. They’re really great, only 18 and have been volunteering teaching English in South East Asia. I admire their enthusiasm and confidence about it all and hope that Ali and Maisie choose to do something like that also in a few years.

We went for lunch at Wenshu temple just around the corner. This Tang dynasty monastery is Chengdu’s largest and best preserved Buddhist temple and despite having visited many temples in South East Asia we were impressed. Very ornate and with elaborate carvings, it is a beautiful and serene place away from the bustle of the surrounding streets. Best of all though was the food. Described as a vegetarian restaurant, we were surprised to see sliced ear on the menu but hey. When in China etc. I have been struggling with the greasy Chinese dishes, lack of vegetables and sweetened drinks but our simple meal of rice, sweetcorn, celery, broccoli and water lilies was excellent.

Back at the hostel, we are leaving in an hour to catch the train at 6pm. I feeling quite nervous about this journey but I guess it will be ok. (Hoping) I will let you know

Oh my god, its only midday and I’m feeling sick and exhausted. We arrived at Chengdu bang on 5.30 as expected and were met by a friendly Chinese fella from The Mix Hostel who I initially liked. Got to the hostel and unfortunately our rooms weren’t ready but as we were half expecting this we weren’t too concerned and happily waited for 2 hours chatting to 3 English girls.

Had some breakfast, plain porridge again, the diet obviously isn’t working too well. The “nice” Chinese fella asked me if I was expecting!! Oh my god the humiliation!( I blame it on the bread) As we have now been waiting for our room for nearly 4 hours and I’ve been up since the middle of the night I think I answered that question with extremely good grace if a bit of embarrassment and politely informed him that I didn’t think so!

We had planned to visit the worlds largest Buddha today and sort it out with the hostel staff to share a minibus with an American couple. Unfortunately though it seems to take ages to sort all 6 of us out and as it reaches 12 o’clock I finally lose my patience. It will take us 2 hours to get there and after a bit of a family discussion we decide to give it a miss for today at least. I think the kids were relieved really, they look pretty tired and we decide that Simon will head off to the station to try and sort out on onward tickets. In the meantime I’m going to spend an hour doing stomach crunches (Kidding!)

Just had some lunch, tomato, noodle and egg soup and have returned to slob out the bed for the afternoon. All the hostels in China are very similar and have a laid back traveller air about them. With lots of dark corners, endless cups of coffee and cigarettes, a great choice of books and DVDs, comfy sofas, people from at least around 20 different nationalities all comparing travel tales and always someone strumming a guitar they are the sort of places where you could happily crash out for weeks. We have spoken to a few people who have done that and I think it would be easy to get caught up with hanging out and lose sight of why we came to China.

That said there is no point feeling guilty about losing a day here, Simon has returned with our tickets to Panzhihua and we will be leaving tomorrow night and then onto Lijiang. It seems very adventurous our trusty lonely planet doesn’t even mention Panzihua and I posted on the Thorn Tree forum asking for some accommodation advice there earlier. If our plan works out though, we will be heading straight off on a bus from Panzhihua to Lijiang.

Its 10pm now off to bed. Want to get plenty of sleep credits as I guess the next few days will be tiring.

Its 4pm now and we have been on the train to Chengdu for nearly 3 hours. We arrived at the station to find the usual scrabble to get onto the platform and after a bit of pushing and shoving find our carriage and get on the train. For this journey we have booked soft sleeper as we will be awake for at least half of it but our compartment isn’t as nice as I had hoped. It reminds me a bit of an old grannies parlour with nets, lacy things on the seats and a sad looking filthy plastic rose in a vase.

Still its safe as the door has a very sturdy lock on it and although the floor needs cleaning the sheets and pillows look clean enough. In some ways its good because we are on our own in here and can spread out, do as we please etc but on the other hand Simon pointed out that we won’t meet anyone which is a shame as we have found out some good information on train journeys and met some lovely people.

We seem to have stopped at lots of stations already and eye up the station snacks on offer with interest. Chicken heads and feet on skewers seem to be one of the most popular things but we have had some noodles, Oreo’s and coffee made with lemon flavoured milk. (Surprisingly not too bad) As we continue on our journey we start to go through a series of tunnels. As we come out of the tunnels for a few seconds we get tantalising glimpses of the stunning scenery. We realise this train actually cuts right through a mountain range and wow is the only word to describe the amazing views, brief though they are.

I have to brave the train toilets soon and think back to our first train journey in India. I feel like we are squat toilet veterans now but have noticed some differences in China to the rest of Asia. Some of the Chinese girls don’t seem to be too shy and we have ventured into several toilets to find the doors all open and everyone crouching down having a good chat and a cigarette! Very friendly!

A lady comes round with a food trolley and we order some non descript looking pieces of fat and gristle with green chillies and rice, a few beers and a bottle of red wine that tastes like strawberry cordial. At 10pm I insist on lights out. Our train will be arriving at 5.30am and I’m not looking forward to the early start. Listen to my beloved MP3 player for half an hour. Pink Floyd across the mountains of China -yeh this is the life!

We have had a great day. We set off at 1000am for the hour long journey out to the site of The Terracotta Warriors. The warriors were discovered in 1974 by a small group of local men digging a well. Ranked with The Great Wall as one of China’s top historical sights, the life size army of 6000 figures are stunningly well preserved and probably the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century.

The army dates from 210bc and the documentary we watched in Vietnam explained that they stand watch over an ancient imperial city. The first emperor of China (Qin Shi Huang) had the army built to protect him in death. The majority of the site has not yet been excavated due to the huge costs involved and it is thought that a larger army may lie around the emperor’s tomb which is 1.5km away. The mausoleum itself also remains at the moment undisturbed. Probably containing many treasures, historical reports describe how the workers were all buried alive in the tomb to protect its secrets.

We stop off on the way at a massive factory selling reproduction warriors and some beautiful Chinese carpets, furniture and wall hangings. We’re not really too interested though and just have a quick scout around before jumping back into the car. Soon we are
on “The Terracotta Army Motorway” (Very impressive) and before long arrive at the site.

There are 3 pits to see and we head straight for pit 1. The largest pit containing 6000 warriors, it’s really impressive. I had heard that the warriors aren’t as big as expected but we were all awed by them. They looked big enough to me and I definitely wasn’t expecting the detail on them to be so fine. However we were surprised to see that many of the warriors were broken. Simon read that they were unfortunately destroyed by subsequent imperial dynasties when the Qin dynasty was over.

Pits 2 and 3 have only been partially excavated and we tell the kids they will have to return in 50 years time when the full extent of the site is known. We walk around all three pits, they are all covered and we can just make out some of the warriors underneath the earth. It’s an amazing sight and we felt one of the top things to see on our wish list for our trip. We take lots of photos and after a couple of hours head back to the car.

We are going to stop off at Huaqing Pool on the way back for some lunch and to see the hot springs. I have read that the naturally occurring springs were a favourite place for relaxation for the emperors of The Tang Dynasty and their favourite concubines. When we get there I can see why. The backdrop to the pools is a beautiful mountain range and the whole area is very pretty with some carefully restored palace buildings from the Tang era. We wanted to try The Imperial Toilet but got too intimidated by a fella who told Maisie off for putting her fingers on the side of a fish tank and all scuttled out

Its 9pm now and I’m feeling quite tired, we got back to our lovely hostel and I spent an hour chatting to a fella from Holland. His 8 month overland trip through the Middle East sounds very interesting and he assures us that Iran, Afghanistan and The Lebanon were beautiful places with friendly people. At the moment though I think I’ll take his word for it and don’t have any plans to visit any of those places in the future.

Just got back from shopping I bought some new sunglasses and a few other bits and pieces. Simon and I were saying on the way back how great it is to be able to nip to the shops at 10pm here. Also how we were surprised how big Xian is. (6.5 million people)

We are leaving Xian tomorrow for Chengdu and I will be sorry to leave. Xian is a lovely city with much more to offer than just the warriors. Unlike Beijing I felt very comfortable here and it’s been a pleasure to be able to buy the things that I want, see some of the lovely sights and chill out a bit. Can’t wait to get further south though. Everyone describes southern China as fantastic and as the thought of travelling to Tibet is firmly in our minds now we want to investigate that a little more. Better buy some warm stuff if we go there or maybe hire a llama/yak to cuddle up to, we shall see.

We got up around 8.30 and one by one braved the smelly bathroom. We have worked out that it’s the water that stinks but although I’m reluctant to shower in it we force ourselves in.. We have decided to make our way into town to a traveller’s hostel that was recommended but unfortunately full and arrange our trip to see the Terracotta Army from there. The hostel turns out to be great with very friendly staff and loads of information. We can’t resist asking for a price and when we find out they now have rooms available for 9 pounds each we decide to sod the expense and move.

We have some breakfast in their cafe and then head back to The Fenghe International Youth Hostel. We pack up our gear, pay them half of the cost of tonight’s bed and check out. The kids are pleased, there were no facilities there for travellers and when I braved the local laundry I was a bit upset to see our clothes return dyed yellow.

We arrive back at The Han Tang Inn Hostel and to the kid’s dismay tell them we have to do some schoolwork. Since the middle of our holiday in Vietnam we have been very slack and I explain to them that we have to crack on with it. They actually do ok and I break them in gently with some literacy (Their favourite lesson). They write out the answers to some questions I set them about China and then write the introduction to a story about the train journey from Xian to Chengdu in the style of a horror writer.

Maisie and I go shopping. We buy a few things and I discard some of our clothes that are now knackered. In all honesty I wasn’t that upset to see them returned ruined, it has given us an excuse to buy some new things! We have a great time practising our Chinese with our trusty phrasebook.

We arrange a night out at the theatre tonight, a huge expense but it looks really great and we’re all excited about going. The Tang Dynasty (610-907 AD) was one of the most splendid periods in Chinese history symbolising China and its vitality and I have read this performance is unforgettable. At 8pm we leave for the theatre and are soon settled at our table eating popcorn and drinking wine-hurray!

The opera is described as an over the top spectacle of traditional dance, music and singing and its absolutely wonderful. I’ve only been to the opera once in England and walked out at half time but this is lovely. So beautiful, graceful and elegant that I cried during some of the dances. My favourite pieces were the masked warrior dance where the fearsome warriors scare off ghosts and demons, the dance of the girls in the spring fields and The Feather Dance. The English announcement explained that the first emperor of The Tang Dynasty was very musical and following a dream of celestial beauties he composed this piece of music and then gave it to his favourite concubine who created The Feather Dance for him.

We all loved it and Simon and I were so pleased that Ali and Maisie also enjoyed it so much. It seemed to me to be, the most Chinese of everything we have done here so far and a completely memorable experience.

Back at our hostel. Sweet smelling bathroom. We arrange to visit the warriors tomorrow, unfortunately the bus turns out to be full and we are informed that we can hire the hostel car for the day instead at a cost of Y300. This may turn out for the best as we don’t like being part of a tour group anyway and it will be more flexible this way. It is slightly cheaper anyway, definitely a winner.

Off to bed now. Feeling very excited about tomorrow. Tonight I feel at last I am beginning to fall in love with China. It has taken a while but I am feeling a lot more comfortable now and looking forward to the rest of our China adventure.

Our train journey went without a hitch and I’m pleased to say we have arrived safely in Xian. We got to the train station early and sat on the floor for an hour until we were allowed onto the platform. There are so many people here and everyone is pushing and shoving. It is a bit intimidating. We find our train carriage and I glad it looks clean although so tiny. Our beds are the 4 top bunks in two separate compartments and we decide Ali and I will stay in one and Maisie and Simon in the other. This works out very well for Maisie as there is a 12 year old girl in their compartment who speaks excellent English.

We chat to an interesting and informative Swiss fella who seems to have travelled everywhere. This train goes all the way to Lhasa in Tibet crossing the Qinghai Plateau and takes over 40 hours. I can remember watching a TV programme about this train. As the elevation is 5000 metres oxygen is piped into the carriages to combat acute mountain sickness and a comprehensive health declaration must first be completed. It’s fascinating and we immediately add that “once in a lifetime” trip to our list of future places to go.

The lights are turned out early and I go straight to sleep and sleep like a log. Good job really as the space we have is so restricted I wouldn’t have wanted to be awake for any length of time. Ali spends an hour listening to his German lessons on his PSP. Without any encouragement either. (Very good Ali, a gold star for him) Wake up at 7.30 and it’s nearly time to get off.

Its 6pm now and we have had an exhausting day. We found our hostel ok and were pleased to see we have a massive room. The bathroom absolutely stinks but for 12 quid a night we are just going to put up with it.

We head off into town and try and get some western food for breakfast, unfortunately the only thing we can find is a fast food place and I’m worried as my diet is so hard to stick to here. We decide to visit The Bell Tower; it’s a large and ornate building dating from the 14th century and restored in 1739 during The Qing dynasty. We have a wander around and admire the beautifully carved ceiling. The Chinese really know how to decorate in style and we have seen some fantastic examples of fine architecture already.

Next on our agenda is to return to the train station and book our onward tickets. We do some shopping first; I buy a new t-shirt (I am so sick of wearing the same clothes all the time) and we get Ali some jeans. We get a taxi to the station and are slightly alarmed to see massive queues but when we ask at the information desk a lady ushers us into a side room and sorts it all out for us. How kind – she gives us a discount and no queuing hurray! We have decided not to visit Shanghai as all the reports we have heard are of a huge and very polluted city. Instead, on the 8th we will be heading further south to a place called Chengdu in the province of Sichuan.

We get yet another taxi to the Shaanxi History Museum. The Shaanxi Province is described as the centre of Chinese history and loaded with important archaeological sites mostly around Xian including the very famous Terracotta Army.

The museum is really good and has explanations in English as well as Mandarin. We have learnt that there were 15 Chinese dynasties and take our time examining pottery from the Ming and Qing times. The kids are great; they must be tired of looking at old pots but seem quite enthusiastic especially when we discover that some of the oldest remains of prehistoric man were found in this province. (Over 1,150,000 years old). One seriously ancient skull!

I’m really knackered now and we head back to the hostel. I’m finding China exhausting and think this is due to a combination of the difficulties we have trying to make ourselves understood; (Easier now we have a Mandarin phrasebook) and the distances between places. Really enjoying it though and looking forward to planning our trip out to see the warriors.