China

Spent a night in Wuhan which looked nice but we were only here for a night so we really didn't get any time to have a look around. the next day we spent travelling, First of all caught an day/overnight train to guilin , shared a cabin with two chinese OAP's among a massive retirement group with long johns and a lot of snoring! we arrived at 5:30 am. NIGHTMARE. Got off this and then it was a 2 hour drive to yangshuo. Yangshuo is very tourist based and we have seen alot more western people here. Fab small village with lots of pubs and places to eat and they do a light show that is the chinese equivalent of riverdance - brilliant!

We spent a day walking around the place and yes you guessed it Deborah bought something !!!! Meet the rest of the group in a bar for cocktail happy hour which started at 6 !!! Left the place at 1 am locked. Good fun. One of the boys in the group ordered bamboo RAT, so i had to try some, not the best, he managed to eat the lot of it even the teeth!

Woke up the next morning with both of us feeling very dodgy. Both of us had stomach bugs. There was a cycle through the country side booked so we decided to go, got to halfway through it and could not go any further so we came back to the hotel. checki out pics of intels new offices on the Li river and gers new job!

Spent the rest of the night staying very close to the toilet !!!!

Well we are heading for hong kong today, so another over night train and lots of travel. Not looking forward to it, but then onto Thailand at weekend for some serious relaxing! gers attempt at growing a beard and becoming a wannabe Tom Hanks didnt last very long as he looked more like desperate dan from the beano!

will update again soon
love D&G

After a nightmare of a journey on a public bus - subjected to chucky from ChongQing who liked to eat boiled eggs.... we arrived at our cruise ship for the next three days a bit worse for wear to say the least, but our boat turned out to be ok ( lucky number 12 ) even though our guide Harry we reckon was wapped out constantly..
We chilled out for the first day and then took a trip off the boat into the 3 gorges on the second day which was really fab, seen some hanging coffins and got entertained by 2 gorgeous young chinese kids on the way home with model and singing shows..

Ended the evening with a karaoke on the boat and basically took over completely with ger joining in with the local wacko jacko all he was missing was the white socks!

The following morning we took part in the local dragon boat race - which we agreed to the night before... the whole group piled into the boat and set sail, we had to row to the beat of a drum from the chinese dude captain at the top of our boat but all went well and we actually won - surprise surprise, seeing our competition had the combined age of 500!

That afternoon we all headed out to see the 3 gorges dam project - a huge feat of planning that the doozers in fraggle rock would be proud of!

We then left our boat just as cabin fever was setting in for a lot of us and had to travel 5 hours to Wuhan and then a 13.5 hour train to Guilin... nightmare in a hard sleeper with a chinese retirement group who liked noodles and drinking a lot of tea!
Arrived in Yangsuo at 6 in the morning class place and we have sussed out the bar street so heading out for happy hour tonight but have a bicycle trip tomorrow in the countryside followed by some bamboo rafting..so that should be fun!
Will update you guys again soon, we finish the trip on sat and head to thailand so keep in touch and dont forget to check out all the photos in the photo gallery!
love D&G

This is the first chance we have had to get to the internet for updates guys as we have been staying at 2 monasteries for the past few days, up the Emei mountain, its been really surreal - and bloody freezing, but amazing!
They start chanting and banging drums at 430 in the morning followed by tai chi at 730 all of which we are supposed to join in on... so its been eventful, think i scared some of the monks with my bed head this morning too... dont worry Ger took photos to prove how bad it was! lol
Had to climb 1200 steps to get up to that last one we stayed in called Hongchunping in the mountains and that was after trekking through monkey land to get to it - felt like dorothy in wizard of oz... ger had a monkey try and get in his pocket looking for food as well well funny - cheeky buggers though, but the monkey police were on hand to sort them out!

Also had a boat journey to see the 71metre Dafu buddha that is carved into the mountain - well impressive!

Heading down the Yatzchi river tomorrow for 3 days so will update more then...no sign of shitty wok yet dec but we will keep looking, mind you have had some shitty chicken! Ger going a bit stone mad at the lack of meat too as most of the food here is veggie.. but hey it keeps you regular! hee hee
check out some pics attached
love Deb and Ger

PS just adding some pics as we meet the newlyweds - Marion and Paul in the Baoguo Monastery on the wednesday afternoon - was class totally mad to see them there, but they were in great form and in true irish style we all headed out for pints immediately, just a pity the curfew for the monastery lads was 9pm! had great craic anyhow and said our goodbyes again ithe following morning before we had to head our separate ways again - them North to Beijing and us South to Hong Kong..V. sad!

Well Folks,

Okay so here are some pictures for you then !!!! Well we arrived on an overnight train from Beijing, what an expercience that was, not built for people over 6 ft them things so we had to get drunk to make the trip easier, oh and you guessed it and aul mcparland special game of charades !!!!! Classic Stuff. Went to see a light and water show the first night which was cool, deborah and another girl decide to become part of the show and run through the water, all was going well until deborah falls and about 500 chinese people go 'ooohhhh' at the same time, very funny, Went to see the terracotta warriors today which was brilliant. The pictures tell the story !!! We then took a bike ride around the city walls. Weather is hotting up as well, about 27c today. NICE !!!!

Well that is all for now.

ps smog here is unreal...

Later

Just about to leave Beijing on a night train to Xi'an, but have had a fab few last days here...
After seeing the Lama temple and doing a Hutong tour and visiting the Forbidden city, temple of heaven and Tiannenmen square we also completed our 4 hour hike of the Great wall of China! the highlight so far being the great wall, it was absolutely amazing and very sureal as it was a great day and the sun was shining as we stopped for lunch (ham sandwiches, apples and bananas..)at the 15th tower across our hike of 30.. so as a treat to ourselves and our legs we both decided to get back down by taking the flying fox - aka zip wire across the river to the bottom..class!

leaving in an hour or so now but we will upload photos at our next stop - heading for terracotta warriors on friday so we will update you all then some more...
love D & G