More of the same

So...............driving in China is an awakening! Thank goodness I wasn't driving. It seems at every opportunity drivers honk as they overtake, while they overtake and after they overtake for good measure. In fact he who honks loudest gets through first and that generally is super fast coaches that come through first. They are everywhere, they even have sleepers with three rows of beds and yep those little Chinese people are fast asleep in them too. There doesn't seem to be any method in driving, if there is a gap, even if its not big enough they will try and get in and from any side. Overtaking on bends, uphill with trucks coming down all seems to be fair game to the Chinese. It must work as we only saw three mangled wrecks........? Oh and one taxi crash outside one of our hotels in a whole months worth of driving.

So this is me sat on a fort on the great wall, how cool is that? To say I was gobsmacked to be here is an understatement. This really was one of the highlights of the trip so far. It is a dream to be here and I never thought I would ever be here. Thanks Odyssey guys for making it for me.

So this is the 'great wall of China' or rather a small part of it. It is in real need of some real TLC, in fact McAlpines should put a quote in to do some serious pointing before it falls down. This was in fact out very last bushcamp (well almost). We set up camp in amongst the trees, we had a great supper thanks to CJ (thanks Charlie it was YUM). We walked up the wall, which to be fair was one of my highlights so far. When we got back to camp, about four policemen came up to camp and I thought wanted to say hello, look at our setup and generally be......well just curious. But no! They wanted us to move on and then some very big Chinese guys all in black turned up and things got rather erm.......animated. It was clear then, we were not welcome and had to pack up. We were escorted by blue flashing light to a very nice hotel in town where CJ did some very astute room negations. Which means we got a very good room rate, in fact far below what the advertised price should have been. It turned out the next morning we had camped in a restricted area, ooooops!

A rather nice view across the town of Lijiang. We were going to stop for beer, but the bar was closed. What a bummer!!!!!

At every turn, young and old are working til they drop dead- quite right too.

There are great photo opportunities everywhere. I think(?) this place was full of good luck messages and hung in the top to create a really good karma.

Bee JESUS, don't wanna get too close to this place, but isn't it great that those clever Chinese folks have thought of everything? Part three of this wonderful place to follow shortly.