Well this was an epic trip.  We started our China adventure in Beijing visiting all the main highlights: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Sacred Way, Summer Palace, and exploring the Hutongs.  We then overnighted on a sleeper train to Xian.  Just outside of Xain is the amazing Terracotta Warriors.  It's a fantastical story - at age 13, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC) ordered the construction of his mausoleum.  For the construction, he ordered 720,000 labors to build an army of 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses.  Amazingly, his actual mausoleum has not yet been excavated - it lies nearby under a 80 meter high pyramid shaped mound.  While in Xian we also visited the Ancient City Wall and Drum Tower.

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We then flew to Chengdu to spend a memorable day with Pandas. For an extra special experience, we had pre-booked the option to be 'Park Volunteers' where you get to feed the baby pandas, and clean-up their enclosures. This was a lot of fun (except the poo bit) - we even tried their food (bamboo cakes)!

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We then flew to Southern China and boarded a full day Li River passage to Yangshuo.  This region is dotted with some 70,000 pinnacle-shaped limestone karsts.  We had an enjoyable few days relaxing in our traditional accommodation and drinking Tsingtao on the small Yulong River. This river is used by locals to transport goods on floating rafts. We also visited a Longji mountain village with its amazing terraced fields.

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