Snow in the ancient town of Fenghuang

We were a bit reluctant about visiting Fenghuang due to its extortionate entrance fee of £15, but we’d regret not going so we went along. Vigilant guards (locals in red jackets) checked tickets at every entrance to the Old Town so there was no way around it. We popped into a couple hotels until we…

Hiking the awesome park that inspired Avatar

If Avatar was based on a real place it would 100% be Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. It’s one of the main images that inspired us to come to China and it looked just as impressive in person. We had our first blue sky day in China and what a day for it!! Due to it…

Exploring Wuyuan’s villages

Wuyuan’s countryside is scattered with beautiful Huizhou villages – the buildings are very distinctive, white washed with curved black roofs, all clustered together and surrounded by hills and vegetable crops. The Huizhou villages are the home of wealthy merchants; young men of the house are sent away to earn money in lumber, tea, salt etc…

Two hooligans cycling around West Lake

It was time to leave Shanghai so we got back on Harmony the super fast train and headed south to Hangzhou, said to be one of the most famous sites in China. When we got off the metro we had a complete change of scenery, we walked through an area of street stalls and everyone…

Exploring Shanghai

We started our day with a delicious coffee at our hostel with the zen garden and trickling pond in front of us and then headed onto the very easy to follow metro line to East Nanjing Road. It’s a huge pedestrianised road with a variety of shops and eateries. We followed it down to The…

First impressions of China

It’s been a whole year since we were last travelling and that was our road trip through Europe – it’s been nearly 3 years since we were backpacking, so understandably we feel a bit behind the times and like a couple of retirees trying to fit in with the youngsters. We’re planning on exploring Eastern…

Kelimutu Crater Lakes, Indonesia

Journal snippet | December 2009 | Flores Island.  We waited beneath the ever warming sunshine for a Bemo (an Indonesia minibus) but as always they only appear when you don’t need one. We eventually gave up and decided to walk 3km uphill to the bus stop in Bajawa. Our backpacks were weighing us down and we…

Remember when: We had lunch with a Rhino

We didn’t have any bus break down’s in our entire 4 months in India. Yet the first bus we took in Nepal broke down and was deemed a piece of scrap metal. We left the other hopeful passengers and sucked up another fare on a different bus…which also broke down. Eventually, we made it to…