Yangshuo is lovely, the scenery is fantastic, and we are getting the chance to tuck in to some top-notch Western food for a change here, as it is a bit of a "backpacker's ghetto" - but without any backpackers! There are a few westerners around town, but most of them seem to be English teachers, and a little snooty towards us lowly "normal" tourists. The only problem really has been the weather - when we got here it rained non-stop for about 48 hours, and has been raining on and off ever since. It's still nice and hot, but the rain gets on your nerves after a while. On Saturday we hired bikes and went for a ride into the countryside, but it poured down and we got drenched. We were invited into a locals' back garden overlooking the river for tea and then made our way back to the town. Yesterday we did a full day's riding with a guide and climbed a mountain for good measure! This morning we went for a boat trip down the li river and since then have been preparing for our train trip tommorow.

It's our last day in Yangshuo today, we have booked ourselves onto the train that leaves Guilin for Hanoi tommorow, a 23-hour trip that'll take us into our 13th country.

It's been a great couple of days in Shanghai, but it's looking like time to leave for somewhere more southern and (hopefully) cheaper. We have train tickets to Guilin, (a 24 hour trip) from where we plan to get a bus on to Yangshuo

We got to Taishan station at about 6pm but had a bit of difficulty finding ourself a hotel. It was pretty obvious that we were heading off the beaten track a little as everywhere we went we had stares from the local people. Almost everyone broke into a smile and a nod when we waved, though. We set off up the mountain itself at about 2pm the next day - and arrived at the summit at 5.30, not too bad for a 5000 feet mountain, I think! (even tho I do say so myself) We found ourself a nice cheap hotel after some serious haggling, and after a well-earned beer or two, settled down for some kip. At about 5am we got up to see the sunrise, along with hundreds of Chinese tourists - in fact I think we were pretty much the only westerners on the top of the mountain! Unfortunately it was really cloudy that morning and we didn't see much apart from dark, murky mist turning into light, murky mist.

In Taishan we managed to get our train tickets with the help of a Chinese girl (it's fantasic how friendly people are in China, I suppose sometimes it's of mutual benefit as they get to practise their English) and took a 18 hour train to Shanghai. We weren't really planning to come here, but the train was convenient, it's in the right direction (south) and we have heard some good things from people coming the other way. We've been here about 8 hours now and seen more westerners in that time than in the entire journey from Moscow!

Yesterday we got to walk the Great Wall at last! Because of the lack of tourists, the only tour was with a Chinese-speaking guide so we had no idea what was going on.... it was great to walk the wall though, and it was very, very quiet. Today we picked up our passports with Viatenemese visas (our passports are starting to look like a colourful scrap book) and went to the train station to pick up tickets to our next destination. After wandering around the station for a while, trying (and failing) to find the ticket desk for "foreign visitors", we (well, OK - Helen) tried asking a few of the people at the 50 or so "normal" ticket desks whether they spoke English. Unfortunately, at most of them we just got shrugs or blank looks. Eventually, we found a nice young man who spoke a few words of English and, with the aid of the Chinese written in our guide book, we managed to purchase two "hard seat" tickets to Ti'an tommorow morning. We're still not sure what "hard seat" means, but I guess we'll find out tommorow. :) After purchasing the tickets we immediately went to KFC to celebrate. :) At Ti'an we're going to climb up the Taishan mountain (all 6600 steps of it), stay overnight at the summit, and then watch the sunrise on Sunday morning. Apparently, it's the thing to do :) I recon after all the exersise we've had walking the Great Wall, and in Beijings parks and between the numerous restauraunts and bars, it should be a breeze. Hmmmm. :)

When we arrived in Beijing we didn't really know what to expect, and had thought about trying to get the first train or plane southwards and on to somewhere SARS-free - but after arriving it seems that everything is returning to normal. Hardly anyone is wearing masks in the street, all the major tourist sites are open (the Great Wall reopened on Friday I think) and the only strange thing is how quiet it is! There are hardly any westerners about at all, and most of the youth hostels are closed. When we went to apply for our Vietnamese visas this morning there was no-one about at the embassy and there was a sign saying they weren't giving out any tourist visas due to SARS. However, we managed to attract someone's attention and after Helen turned on the charm he decided to hand over the forms! Hopefully on Thursday we should be in possession of the first tourist visas issued in Beijing for months, and the original plan of getting all the way to Singapore overland looks still on! We are planning the next step southwards, probably on to Chengdu..... Bejing itself is wicked - nothing quite prepares you for the size and splendour of the Forbidden City and Tianemen Square, hopefully tommorow we should make it to the Summer palace and on Wednesday the Great Wall.

We've just finished a three night stay in a Ger tent (similar to the picture on the left; I still haven't managed to get my piccies off my camera..) which was about 70km outside Ulan Bator in Mongolia, basically in the middle of nowhere. It was good, we did horse riding (I think my horse might have been a wee bit small for me) and learnt the sheep-ankle game - a game that, suprisingly enough, you play with the bones from sheep's ankles - but I'm itching to get back to city life, we are in Ulan Bator tonight and perhaps will hit a few bars and maybe a club if we can stay awake :). Tommorow morning we take the 27 hour train trip to Beijing, but we are looking to move on from there ASAP - checking the web and chatting to people who are travelling east-west, it would seem that most of the tourist areas are shut and people may be hostile to foreigners, even though it looks like the SARS thing is almost under control. So we'll either fly or (preferably) take the train down to Hong Kong, where we'll apply for Vietnam visas and then overland it to Hanoi.

The 88 hour train trip turned out well - We stocked up on food beforehand in Mocow (bread, cheese, sweets, water, noodles, cheese, vodka) and supplimented that by buying things from the russian ladies who would throng around the train every time we stopped (cheese, beer, chicken, fish, bread, cheese, sausages, beer) and ate them in the cabin. There was a dining car, but the food was um, a little on the small side by all accounts. We ended up in a cabin for four people with two other friendly Brits, Simon and Michael, but most of the people on the train seemed to be either Russian or German. So what do you do on a 88 hour train trip? Um - lots of reading, lots of sleeping, lots of eating and drinking, and lots of card games - I became re-aquainted with the delights of 'shithead' and 'blackjack', and we even managed a quick game of Top Trumps.

At Irkusk, we got a tranfer to the lake, where we stayed in a house run by a lovely old Russian lady who cooked us huge meals (hot food!!!! proper cutlery!!!!). She spoke to us in Russian, we didn't understand a word. We spoke to her in English, she didn't understand a word. (although I do know the Russian for "more tea" now) We got our clothes washed for us (in the river, we think) by another lady, and went trekking through the forest on the mountains that are on the edge of the lake. I'm writing this from Irkusk, where we are waiting for the train tonight at 2100 to take us to Ulan Batar in Mongolia, (country number 11), where we are staying in a Ger Camp for three days. We're slightly anxious about the border crossing and customs out of Russia, (mainly because it can take up to 10 hours, all of it with the toilet locked!) but hopefully everything will be cool.