As we flew over the ice caps of the North Pole we were wondering what if we landed here?

After 13 hours of flying we could see China’s Great wall stretching miles across mountain tops. Eventually to our destination Chengdu.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province and the political, economical, and cultural center of Southwest China. With a history of more than 2,300 years, it is one of the most famous historical and cultural cities in China. Alex and I traveled to Chengdu along with four other Motorolans; Alex’s co-workers from Plantation Florida USA. We spent 4 days in Chengu.
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We took the hotel shuttle back to the airport for our flight to Chengdu. We had a dim sum breakfast at the airport, where the food is wheeled around on trolleys and your point to what you want. The veggie was better than the pork, which had a hidden shrimp inside (I don’t like shrimp, especially when they sneak up on me like that). We flew on Air China and they treated us very well. We had the feeling they were reading the airplane safety notifications in English just for us. Our first Chinese plane food was not bad, see photo. It did have some unidentifiable goo on rice, a strange meat product and a very spicy hot radish in a package. The radish we brought home as a treat for friends (not well received).
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Wow…so here we are in Hong Kong - I have to say straightaway that it is truely a great city, there is so much to do and see, we have loved it here. However, we did n’t get off to a particularly good start here - when we arrived at hostel that we had booked and paid a deposit for, we were told by a very rude security guard that we were too late (it was 1.15am but we had emailed to tell them we were coming at this time) and to find somewhere else to sleep!! What bastards! Lucky Hostel is the name…..Anyway so we found some other hostel in Chungking Mansions,let me explain about this place, it is a massive old decrepit tower block in the centre of Kowloon (major central area of Hong Kong) which is full of budget hostels (though we still paying the equivalent of 18 pounds), Hong Kong is so expensive as a city, this was the cheapest we could find, it is like staying in a shoebox, very small but clean enough. The block houses people from every part of the world, Africa, India, Pakistan, Europeans - it is extremly multiethnic.
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I wirte to you today from an internet cafe in Yangshuo, a backpackers retreat of SW China. Getting here was a bit of a mission but we made it here a little after 6 am this morning.

After overcoming our first experience of Chinese bureaucracy we got our longer stay visas in HK and then took a ferry, train, metro and then a bus to arrive here just shy of 24 hours of travel later.
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Everyone got to sleep in a little and Matt went to work for a few hours. We got up around 10 and then headed to meet Matt at his work. Right below the office is a Starbucks (screams China) and we had some Chinese breakfast that Matt got us from the street. They were these little dumplings filled with Chicken and spinach, or meat. They were 25 cents a piece and super good.
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Everybody makes mistakes. Ours was to attempt to travel through China during Chinese New Year, which broke the records this year as the biggest migration of people in the world ever. Needless to say, this had a fairly damaging effect on the Chinese transport system…

We had hoped to get to Yangshuo from Hong Kong via a comfortable overnight train. However, with all trains booked and crazy waiting lists, we opted for a bus instead. The next best option was the sleeper bus, installed with fully horizontal beds (although small ones at that). Details »

What can we say this country is amazing, we arrived and were met at the airport and were taken to our first hotel.We met up with the group and all went for dinner, everyone is fantastic.

On Tuesday 1st May we went to the great wall of china, we left at 6.30am and it was a 2 1/2 hour journey to get there. We walked up loads of steep steps through trees to get to it, when we got on the wall it was breath taking, the landscape and scenery were unreal much nicer than any pictures we had seen. Details »

Our original plan to get to our next country, Nepal, involved flying back to good old Bangkok and the catching the flight to Kathmandu from there. The problem was however that a month’s budget would be used up getting these flights as they were far from cheap. In limbo, not quite sure of our next move we began looking at a huge map of the world to see if we could overland it. Missing Nepal was not an option!
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I can’t believe I’m in China! This is a place I didn’t actually think I would realistically go. Last night at the safety briefing they told us we’d be coming into port at 2 AM, so naturally I set my alarm for 1 and planned to get up. Planned. I did finally roll out at about 1:45, but Lucía was still up and said we’d docked an hour earlier. Even if I had gotten up when I set the clock for, I still would have missed out. So I got up and had a quick look through the fog, or rather, at the fog, and went back to bed. We had to meet with immigration at 7, and then I ended up sitting in line for 2 ½ hours while they stamped the passports and processed the group visas before the individual visas before they’d even let us in. So that was my morning. Yuck.
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The Lao Cai, Vietnam/Hekou, China border crossing was easier than I expected, although by the time I got there after the bumpy 3-hour ride down from Bac Ha, I’d already had enough of buses for the day. Little did I know that I had my longest travel day ahead of me. After a short motorbike ride from the Lao Cai bus station, I moved through first the Vietnamese border control then the Chinese side along with all the locals carrying huge bags of who-knows-what. There was not another tourist in sight. At the Chinese checkpoint I was given the VIP treatment as a border guard came and escorted me to the front of the line, whisking me past the Vietnamese and Chinese. The sleepy-eyed guard who looked over my passport and visa tried out his English on me, an opportunity that I suppose he doesn’t often get at Hekou: “Where are you from?” New York. “Oh, capital of the world. You are only one?!” Yes. “Welcome to China!” And I was through.
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