Ian Rambles
We caught the train from Hong Kong, through the New Territories to the border with China. Customs and immigration were much less intrusive than we expected - though they did spot and confiscate a brace of apples.

At Guangzhou east station I took the easy option and piled everyone into a minibus to transfer between stations - and was glad I did. Guanzhou main station was surrounded by a heaving crowd of travelling chinese all being filtered through a couple of security gates and x-ray machnes - not, apparently, for fear of terrorism but beause travellers have the habit of carrying dangerous quantities of explosive materials - with occassional fatal results.

We all imediately liked Xi'an and our Hostel. The Seven Sages has its own Cafe in one of the courtyards. On our first night there was a shadow puppet show. Most nights they play a hollywood movie - though, as these are chinese bootleg copies, there is always a possibility that the dvd will overheat before the end.

A couple of the menu items, translated directly from chinese characters, offered classic "Chinglish" moments ( see pictures )

Fiona's Journal
Early on the 29th we rode the MRT one stop to Hong Kong main station, where we had to go through security and passport control, before boarding the train to Guangzhou.

It then took me at least half of the 90 minute journey to Guanzhou to fill in the next batch of five immigration forms (arrival and departure sections). We have had to complete these annoying forms every time we are about to cross a national border. Mostly that has been during a flight and Ian and I have taken it in turn to do them. What is really irritating is that the arrival form and the departure form ask for 90% identical information but they are not produced as self-duplicating pages.

At Guangzhou East station we went through Chinese passport control and no less than three bag scanning check-points, having two forgotten apples confiscated at one, before emerging into The People's Republic of China. We got a minibus across town and were deposited us just outside the forecourt to Guangzhou Central Station. It was a heaving mass of people, as far as the eye could see.

We had no idea which, of the many entrances in the wide station facade, we wanted so we joined a shoving crowd at random and after slow and sweaty progress with our heavy bags eventually realised that we were the wrong side of a hefty, uncrossable barrier. We fought our way back out onto the road again and moved further along and then ploughed back into the crowd, pushing there way towards a police security check point.

Through this bottle neck and we were in another cattle pen of humanity pressing towards a station entrance. Once inside the station entrance hall we had to lug our bags through another scanner check-point and then head across the main concourse to the departure boards. We worked out that we needed waiting room 4 but, although it was the size of an Olympic swimming pool hall, it was packed solid so we found a spot on the landing outside and prepared for a long wait.

After an hour of reading, and eating the M&Ms I bought in the HK duty free shop, our train number was called and we all traipsed round a circuitous route of stairs and corridors to the platform where our train awaited.

The bunks on this train are all fixed in open compartments of six, three opposite three, with enough head space above the lowest bunk for this one to be used as a bench seat during the day. There are two fold- up seats, on the carriage wall opposite the bunks, for additional seating.

Once underway I could relax and actually take a look at China, as bits of it passed the train window. The urban bits feature mass housing, mostly in block after block of high rise apartments. Some are drab, grey and stained concrete, some have been recently refurbished and painted (blue and yellow seems to be favourite) and others look recently built.

In the rural areas I can see rice paddies and fields of maize and small groups of cattle grazing and people in the classic Chinese straw hats working in the fields. There are also lots of rectangular lagoons of murky brown water with people and ramshackle wooden huts perched on the mud dykes between them and I have no idea what the purpose of these is.

People with carts race up the passageway of the train periodically and you have to ambush them if you want to buy anything. There is a samovar supplying ad lib boiling water at the end of each carriage so we bought some tub-noodles ( a big version of pot-noodles) and added boiling water and they were surprisingly good. We all retired to bed about 9.00, to read our books, and all the lights went out at 10.00pm so we went to sleep like good little communists.

When I awoke and looked out the window it was overcast and drizzling and that made me very happy! At the risk of being lynched when I get back to England, I have become very bored with endless heat and sunshine and blue skies. I love waking up on a train anyway. There is the feeling of progress having been made while I slept and progress continuing, whether or not I bother to get up.

We arrived in Xi'an about 4.30pm and as we crawled our way into the station the stewards were whisking the carpets out from under us and sweeping the floor beneath our obediently raised legs in their hurry to get the train clean and ready for the next journey. For the first time in Asia we stepped out f the station and were not hit by the blast furnace effect. It was a pleasantly warm Summer evening with a light breeze blowing. I was immediately predisposed to like Xi'an.

Xi'an
The Seven Sages Hostel is rather beautiful and looks as if it may once have been home to some sort of temple or monastery. It consists of single storey stone buildings linked by stone archways and courtyards and paths with flowers and plants growing everywhere and small garden birds, not dissimilar to English sparrows, fluttering about.

Our rooms are simple and monastic and cool and very comfortable. There is a bar and restaurant in the central courtyard where we had many excellent meals and drinks, and watched a lovely shadow-puppet show and where they played an American DVD every evening, which the boys enjoyed having been deprived of English language TV for weeks now. Add to that, the fact that the young staff and lovely and all speak pretty good English and they have three resident dogs, a Beagle and two Pomeranians, and you'll understand why we loved this place.

Xi'an itself is a pleasant city too and seems to be reasonably unspoiled by the explosion in tourism it must have experienced since the warriors were dug up. It is a walled city and the 14km rectangular stone wall has been completely restored over the lasr decade so that you can now walk, or cycle, or take a rickshaw right the way round the top of the wall. We have Wilhelm, fellow passenger on the Isa, to thank for this information because it is not advertised at all as a tourist attraction.

The boys and I set out to cycle round the wall, on our second full day in Xi'an, and headed first for the North wall as that is nearest our hostel. On finding that there is no way up onto the wall on this side, Arthur and I had a childish argument about which way to head from here and he stomped off back to the hostel, taking the map with him. He was, in fact, right and we should have headed straight for the South gate. Instead of which, I tried the East wall next and then ended up with an even longer walk to reach the South Gate, so Harry and George were tired and grumpy before we even got there.

Despite this inauspicious start, we all three really enjoyed our cycle ride. It cost 40 yuan for me and 20 each for the boys to go up onto the wall and then you have to hire the bikes at 20 yuan per person for 100 minutes which is ample time to complete the circuit if you don't stop every few seconds to take a picture. There are no small bikes so george had to make do with the back seat of a tandem with me which made him sulk for a while but once we got going he couldn't help but cheer up.

The wall is about 20 foot wide along its top, with fantastic views across the city, and it is breezy up there which makes cycling pleasant. The surface is of stone sets, about the size of a thin house-brick, and very good in parts but rather pot-holey in others, where sets are missing. It is approximately level which makes for easy cycling and allows the hire bikes to get away with having no gears and pretty poor brakes. There are steepish ramps up onto the stone watch towers which you can whizz up and down if you want a more exciting ride. We took loads of pictures and got back with just 40 seconds of our 100 minutes to spare, so we got our deposit back.

Total cost 140 yuan for the three of us (wall access and bike hire), about £10.00 and well worth it. So well worth it, in fact, that we did it again the next day, with Arthur as well this time!

On our return to the hostel the first time, we couldn't find an empty taxi for love nor money and Harry and George were getting really tired by the time we were half way back so I approached a lady tut tut driver. I said Beixien Street and Qixian Hostel in my best Chinese accent and she smiled and nodded and in we hopped.

Now we had already decided that the Chinese all drive like adolescent youths with their first car, but this woman was just a complete hooligan! Every road she turned into we were driving against the prevailing traffic and I definitely brushed sleeves with startled pedestrians on zebra crossings at least twice! Eventually she came to a halt and we tottered out and paid our agreed 15 yuan. She waved cheerily and shot off under the nose of a speeding taxi and across a 6 way junction. We looked around and had no idea where we were – at all!

I ended up going into the lobby of a smart hotel where a kind and patient receptionist got out a paper map and showed me where we were now (rather further from our hostel than we had been when we picked up the tut tut) and I was able to pinpoint Beixien Street so we walked home from there. It seems to me that walking is very much easier, and usually faster, than communicating with foreign taxi and tut tut drivers when you don't speak their language and can't write in their script.

Ian, by the way, dutifully stayed behind at the hostel on both these occasions to catch up with our website, and his paying customers work, and to get many loads of washing done for us

Arthur's Log:
XI'AN
Coffee, underground, train to Xi'an and half way across China as smooth as can be!

Guangzhou, where we changed trains was the weirdest place i have been so far. The security of the station was heavy. Two human checks and two x ray checks to get in. I get the fealing that china has too many people and not enough jobs. I see people with the most pointless jobs known to man - like standing in front of a 7-11 and shouting "hello! you"re welcome" and ushering you inside. Security slowed us down quite a bit and we didn't have long to wait in the station before were were on the train.

We arrived at Xi'an early and ecaped the madness of the station. Got a taxi to "the Sseven Sages Hostel" - which I love!

They had some shadow puppets (the direct translation is donkey skin puppets, cause thats what they were made from originally) I didn't really under stand the story but it went something like this
"Man and a woman have argument and storm off"
"You see each one on their own and they each gear up with weapons and practice"
"The meet each other - but a lion jumps on the girl"
"The man kills the lion"
"They live happily ever after"
At least thats what I got from it,, we went to bed shortly after that.,

Dad failed to get tickets to Beijing this morning the station being as hectic as allways.

Dad did get the tickets to Beijing finaly - but only after getting a chinese girl to write down what we needed.

Me and mum had a rather childish fall out. We were told to go to the south gate to get up onto the wall . But first we went to the north gate cause it was much much closer in case we could get up there. But we couldn't get up there and we were near the station and mum was talking about going to infomation and i knew the station would be awfull at this time of the day then she went on about going down via the east gate and i just gave up, i didn't want to do either of those things.

Today me and mum and harry and george went to the wall again (this time straight to the south gate) george wanted hs own bike but there were none small enough so he ended up on the back of one with me. He was disapointed but I cheered him up by riding fast, pretending to fall asleep then wake at the last moment and basically riding badly. The wall was amasing though about 20 foot wide and 30 tall it runns 14k all the way round the city.

We ran through the rain to catch our train and in the station we got talking to couple of guys, one was translating for the other and because of this translation going on it got other people intereted so we had crowd of over a dozen people by the time it was time to go.