China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 214 (24)Flight to BeijingFriday 8th October Despite Sandy’s misgivings about our ability to get out of bed in time, we got up this morning with a minimum of fuss. On travel days, I always find it easy to get myself going anyway. It sometimes helps to […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 215 (25)BeijingSaturday 9th October Despite the very hard beds that make you feel like you are lying on a hard board supported by springs, it was a surprisingly restful sleep last night. Before we finally turned in, I received a phone call from the English teacher […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 216 (26)BeijingSunday 10th October We discovered a small, in-house, cafeteria up on the roof here this morning so we tried to see what might be on offer for breakfast. To our delight, such things as fried eggs and bread & butter were available so to make […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 217 (27)BeijingMonday 11th October We made an appropriately slow start today, our day of rest. Not a single tourist site is on the agenda today and I’ve no doubt that we will both get quite restless before the day is through because of it. Still, the […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 218 (28)BeijingTuesday 12th October I kept telling myself at breakfast that a good night’s sleep should have shaken off the problems of yesterday but little did we realise when we set off this morning that those problems would only be replaced by new ones today. It […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 219 (29)BeijingWednesday 13th October We afforded ourselves another slow start this morning. Breakfast on the roof was leisurely and we pondered what, if anything, we ere going to do with the day. We have now ticked off most of the must-see things there are to do […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 220 (30)BeijingThursday 14th October Today is our last full day In Beijing and we decided that we would take another trip out to another section of the Great Wall, but this time by public transport and without any of the superfluous stoppages for shopping and other […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 221 (31)Train to DatongFriday 15th October We mobilised ourselves quite quickly this morning and set to work packing away all our stuff. Considering that we had been at our hostel for a lengthy six days (the longest we’ve ever been in one place was seven days […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 222 (32)DatongSaturday 16th October We really noticed the difference between the very comfortable beds here in our nice hotel compared to the usual standard issue hostel beds we’re otherwise used to. We awoke this morning completely refreshed and ready to start the day so we got […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 223 (33)DatongSunday 17th October With no pressing agenda for today, we slept in. In fact, we didn’t get out of bed until gone noon and so allowed our bodies to recuperate from the rigors of the past several weeks of travelling through the most difficult countries […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 224 (34)Train to Xi’anMonday 18th October If there were any more tremors during the night, neither of us noticed them as we slept comfortably right through and awoke once again rested. I had received a very strange call last night from the hotel receptionist saying something […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 225 (35)Xi’anTuesday 19th October The train was every bit as comfortable as it looked. After the Chinese guy in the next bunk finally fell asleep, I was able to lean over and turn off his headset. Quite annoyingly, he had the volume turned up to maximum […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 226 (36)Xi’anWednesday 20th October The noise from the bar did eventually die down to the point where we were able to nod off to an otherwise restful sleep. When we got up, Sandy took care of doing some laundry whilst I went out to find a […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 227 (37)Train to ChengduThursday 21st October Today’s journal entry will be a very short one owing to the fact that almost nothing has happened. Today, we are travelling from Xi’an to Chengdu by train and will spend all of this afternoon and the whole night on […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 228 (38)ChengduFriday 22nd October Indeed last night’s train journey was no less comfortable than was the more modern Z-class train that we took from Beijing to Xi’an. The route we took was through quite a bit of mountainous terrain and we passed through a number of […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 229 (39)ChengduSaturday 23rd October Panda fever was clearly reaching epic proportions this morning, as we both woke up and got ready very quickly after the alarm went off on Sandy’s watch. Both of us were very much looking forward to seeing the famed Giant Pandas and […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 230 (40)ChengduSunday 24th October We wanted enough time to explore Leshan but it is a two-hour bus ride away so we mobilised ourselves at a reasonable hour but still afforded ourselves the luxury of just a bit of a rest. We had decided to make our […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 231 (41)ChengduMonday 25th October This morning was a real struggle. Because we were later getting back from Leshan than we had originally anticipated last night, I didn’t get to sleep until rather late. As it was, I was unable to finish my daily log and only […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 232 (42)KunmingTuesday 26th October We got up without any problems this morning and bid farewell to Sam’s. A taxi was once again conveniently waiting for us outside of the hotel building. I guess that’s one of the advantages of the hostel being part of a larger […]
China – Round The World Tour 3 2004 Day 233 (43)Train to GuangzhouWednesday 27th October We made sure to be up and ready on time this morning to avoid being late for our train. With all the effort it took us yesterday to get this next couple of days organised, missing the train would be […]