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Day 30- Macau to Hong Kong

Our last day of the tour started, of course, waking up at stupid o'clock on the night train. Followed closely by a 2 and a half hour bus to the border where we were greeted by our original guide, Rosanna. She got us across the border, out of China and into Macau.

We headed straight for an enormous, gold hotel (not a rarity in Macau) to leave our bags and get changed. Then walked to the Venetian, home to the largest casino in the world.

Me and Emma have literally no idea how to gamble to spent a whopping 40 Dollars (£4) on the slots, I did manage to make a profit of 1 dollar 30 (13p) so I'm calling that a win. Emma on the other hand thrashed the slots, winning the grand sum of 100 dollars!! (£10). Danny won a bit as well but Harrison decided the starting bet was too expensive so didn't gamble at all.

The boys felt they'd had enough of Macau and so headed off on the ferry back over to Hong Kong, after an emotional goodbye of course! So then there were 2. Me and Emma stayed with Rosanna and took a stroll down the old town in Macau. It's a strange place Macau, a weird mix of Vegas and Portugal (which makes sense cause it was a Portuguese Territory). The old town is beautiful though, so if you do find yourself there, don't get too lured in by the glitz of the casinos and try and find the culture, it is worth it.

After a wander, stare at the cathedrals and ruins, and sampling of some street food (the best egg tarts in the world incidentally) we made a slow and reluctant way back to the border.

The ferry crossing over into Hong Kong meant the end of the Dragon Trip, and the end of my first month travelling and first stop on the world tour. Tonight I'm staying with Giles and Jane again which is lovely, and obviously wine is involved, before an early rise to jump on the plane to Bangkok in the morning.

The last month has been... well, there aren't really words! To anyone thinking of travelling in China, I really would recommend the Dragon Trip, it has been the most wonderful, awe inspiring adventure and so much of what we saw and did would never have happened if we had been backpacking alone. Sometimes, it feels like paying for a tour is too expensive, but when you add up everything you get for your money, including the guides and their expertise and unique voice adding to each location, I can't think of anything more worth the price! (Which, for a tour is not that pricey).

Most of all, it has been the people on the trip with me that have made this so exceptionally special. I never expected nor could have imagined better people to start this adventure with me. DRAGON TRIP 22, I LOVE YOU!!! Xxxx (ok the bit about you is over, you can stop reading and go back to your daily lives, I know that's all you're reading this for so I thank you for your time).

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Day 29-Fujian

Today we hire bikes and cycled 13km trough the hills stopping along the way to see things.

First stop was a family temple owned by the most powerful family in the town who have been honoured by the, then emperor, now government many times over centuries. From the temple Damon, Danny and I tackled a short but intense hike up to a gorgeous view point at the top of a hill. It looked out over almost the whole of the town. Getting up was tricky but getting down just highlighted how thin the path we had taken was, with a sharp drop into a river below and the bushes so overgrown to the other side you had no choice but to walk through the bushes meaning I am now cut up all down my legs!

We met Emma and Harrison at the bottom, Harrison has fallen asleep on the pavement outside someone's house! Once awake, we got back on the bikes to the next stop, the biggest round house in China. This round house was home to 3 families and the elders still live there now, they spend all day everyday just sitting and gossiping with each other.

Our last stop on the bikes was for lunch in another little town. After lunch we felt we'd earned an ice cream before getting back to the guest house.

I had a little accidental 2 hour nap and woke up realising I still needed to pack, shower and have dinner before getting on the bus to get to our last night train on the trip. A hurried hour later and we were on the bus.

One last night in China and we are on a night train again. Tomorrow is our last day of the tour and we are going to be entering into Macau before heading back to Hong Kong tomorrow evening. I can't believe this part of the adventure is ending already! I feel like we only just started!!!

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Day 28- Fujian

We moved straight out the round house this morning and into a guest house across the small town. After getting settled we got a bus up to a view point over the round houses and walked down the hill from there.

In the afternoon, Damon took Harrison, Danny and I on a walk through the mountains looking over the tea plantations. What's amazing about this area is the use of space, unless it's totally un-farmable, every inch is used to grow tea or something to help families be self sufficient. There was also a pretty epic thunderstorm in the distance.

When we got back to the Guest house we changed into swimming stuff and walked to a river nearby for a swim. I was stunning, a totally secluded section of the river with a still pool in the middle and a waterfall running into it. You can jump from the top of the waterfall into the water, which didn't look too high from the bottom but from the top it seemed like a long way to fall, especially with rocks at the bottom... but after a fuss and my usual dramatics I did manage to do it... lacking all elegance of course. In fact, getting up to the jump spot was harder than the actual jump, you have to climb up right at the bottom of the waterfall where the current is pretty strong, so clambering onto rocks is tricky.

After a swim we walked back to the guest house for dinner and a quite night with a couple of beers and the world's longest game of Bullshit. I also finally managed to Skype home (trust China to only have good enough wifi to Skype in the middle of nowhere and not in the biggest cities!!)

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Day 27- Shanghai to Fujian

A painful start today after 2 hours sleep but managed to drag myself out of bed and downstairs to get the train. It is a bullet train today but it will take 8 and a half hours to get to our next stop, Fujian.

We thought it was weird having just 7 of us in Moganshan and Fujian but now there is just the final 4!!! Me, Danny, Harrison and Emma are the last standing.

8 and a half hours of napping and reading later and we arrive with our new guide Damon in Fujian. We had a private mini bus take us the 2 hours from the station to the village we are staying in tonight. The mini bus comes equipped with KTV, a screen in the front has all the lyrics on, i feel like every car should have one!

Tonight we are sleeping in a traditional round house. These were built by the Hakka people when they escaped the wars in central china and moved to Fujian. The houses are huge with over 60 rooms but they would have been home to just one family! The entire extended family would all live together and, more extraordinarily, today the same families still own the houses as they are passed down through generations for centuries!!

Communication here is particularly difficult as in this area people speak their own dialect and no Mandarin so there is a lot of nodding and pointing involved. It was a pretty spectacular experience sleeping in the round house, real feeling like part of the culture.

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Day 26- Shanghai

I think my liver may actually be in failure... Shanghai has broken us.

First stop today is the French Concession and the propaganda museum. The museum is really hidden and you wouldn't find it unless you knew what you were looking for, it's literally in the basement of a block of flats. It is pretty interesting though! It's strange to read about the history in a China, particularly the Cultural Revolution, in a way that obviously doesn't upset anyone.

The French concession itself was a bit of a let down, we didn't really understand what it was, it's just an area in Shanghai that supposedly looks like France, but I couldn't really see it, perhaps we missed it?

From there we got on a bus to a market to grab lunch before getting a metro to the financial district. The buildings here are enormous! Home to the second highest building in the world, which makes the Shard look tiny by comparison. We are all still feeling a little delicate so we just walked around staring at the tall buildings and admiring the architecture before jumping on a metro back to the Hostel.

That night Ethan took me, Katie, Danny and Harrison out to try a favourite local dish, Crayfish- although the Chinese call them 'little lobsters'. This was unlike any crayfish I've eaten in the uk. They come cooked in their shells and you are given gloves and an apron so you can break them apart and suck out the meat. They were also, delicious!! Cooked in garlic or spice I would recommend everyone in Shanghai to go try them.

We wanted a chilled night so we just headed up to the rooftop bar for a beer and met Katie's friend from home and a couple of other people staying in the Hostel.

Ok, so the chilled night turned into us sitting on the street at 2am, drinking beer and playing with a laser pen that one of the guys staying in the Hostel bought... whoops... we have to wake up to get the train at 5.30am!! That's going to hurt.

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Day 24- Shanghai

Woke up this morning feeling less than fresh.

When we finally made it downstairs, having put our laundry on, we got on a bus to head out to a Watertown, otherwise known as the Venice of Shanghai. It was a lovely little town with gondolas on the river. Kayleigh, Katie and I went straight to find food before wandering around a bit. Some areas were gorgeous with little stalls and shops everywhere, including a Chinese musical instrument shop which I properly nerded out in. I was so tempted to buy a flute (for £20) but I just couldn't see how I could possibly get it round the world in my backpack safely.

Other areas were still pretty but that distinctive food market smell of rotting meat hit you, and with a hangover this is dangerous. So we headed to the river and got a gondola ride around the town.

We met the others and made our way back into Shanghai.

That evening the girls felt we'd had enough of beer and dumplings so had a search for a nice restaurant to treat ourselves to. We somehow found ourselves on the 52nd floor of the Ritz-Carlton, sipping prosecco and enjoying an amazing 2 course meal with a stunning view across the whole of Shanghai. I mean, sometimes this backpacking lark is just tough you know?

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Day 23- Moganshan to Shanghai

I decided, following the sad news from yesterday that I wouldn't go on the hike this morning, I just wanted to chill out this morning, Kayliegh, Emma and Harrison were of the same mindset so we spent the morning sitting and enjoying the view.

When the others got back from the hike we all got packed and headed off to the train station to get the bullet train to Shanghai- only 3 hours this one!!

As soon as we arrived in Shanghai it was time to get ready to go out for our first night out in Shanghai, on the Shanghai bar crawl.

The bar crawl was one of the funniest nights, we started in a little bar for an hour with a dangerous open bar... and a free shot. We met a few of the others on the bar crawl, including a fish doctor from Norway! (I didn't even know fish doctor was a real job!!) after the first bar everyone clambers onto the 'party bus'. I put this in inverted commas because 'party bus' is what the crawl call it... it was essentially a school trip bus with people pouring booze from the bottle into your mouth.

The night gets blurry pretty quickly but to summarise, there were 4 bars and one club, many free shots, a load of photos cause we made friends with the photographer, and at one point Kayliegh was trying to teach everyone to twerk upside down (an extraordinary failure, perhaps unsurprisingly seeing as none of us can twerk the right way up!!)

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Day 22- Moganshan

After a pretty bad nights sleep on a particularly noisy and violent night train we were greeted at the station by Ethan.  

Another few hours bus ride later and we arrived in the mountains of Moganshan. A real rural area of China, Moganshan is beautiful and so quite, such a nice change from the hectic nature of Beijing. We are staying in a cabin like Hostel high up in the hills which feels miles from civilisation.

In the afternoon we hired bikes and cycled through the hills to a fresh water reservoir. The beautiful lagoon was the perfect place to swim on such a warm day and after a sweaty cycle. We all jumped straight from the little pontoon into the water and had a swim, with only a few screams of 'SOMETHING TOUCHED MY LEG!!'

After a bit of a swim (and having to ask Ethan to tell the Chinese tourists also at the lagoon to stop taking pictures of us in bikinis) we got back on the bikes and cycled back to the Hostel.

When I got back I got a call from mum with some heartbreaking news, sadly my wonderful, kind hearted Grandma has passed away this morning. I am struggling to find the words and will now be going back to England for a few days in August for the funeral, as sad as I am to break up my trip I know I wouldn't be able to cope not being there to say goodbye to one of the biggest influences and inspirations in my life.

Everyone on the tour has been so supportive and I thank you all for that, we had a quite evening having dinner and doing a little pub quiz on Chinese culture and history (which the girls lost). After a couple of days of mafia it was time for bed.

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Day 21- Beijing

A bit of an accidental lie in this morning. kayliegh and I had planned to get up at 4am go see the sunrise at Tienamen square but as neither of our alarms went off we missed it but a good 5 hours.

After a slow start we headed to the Summer Palace, we didn't manage to see everything, cause the place is enormous, but we did wander down by the lake and rivers and saw some temples, such as the temple of heavenly mildness.

When the heat got a bit much for us we headed back to the Hostel to shower, charge phones and pack for the night train to Moganshan tonight.

We met Luna, hoped on the metro to the station and then onto the train. Our group is a whole lot smaller now and this is the first time this becomes obvious.

In Beijing we said goodbye to Matt, Martha, Hannah, Ryan, Flora, Joe, Chris and Rachel. It is weird being a smaller group, just 7 of us left now!

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Can't figure out how to flip this round so have fun. He we are eating scorpions

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Day 20- Beijing

Waking up early this morning was a painful one with most people looking a little worse for ware.

We left the Hostel a tad late but headed through the intense heat to Tianimem Square and the forbidden city.

The history of this place is amazing. Everything seems to converge on the forbidden city. Originally built for the emperor to live in with his wife and many concubines- sounds like he was pretty busy to be honest. There is also a river that runs through the forbidden city to the summer palace which we are going to visit tomorrow so the emperor could just hop on a boat to his summer house- alright innit?!

One of the buildings was used as the inspiration for the ending of Mulan (you know the bit where the emperor comes out and then there is a fight on the roof). But, Luna told us that, although Mulan is based off a true story in China, it happened before there was an emperor in China... sad times.

It took us a few hours to get through the forbidden city, mainly because it was just so hot we had to keep stopping in the shade, but also because Luna gave some great history lessons about the buildings and emperors- don't say this trip isn't educational!!

Once out of the forbidden city we walked across to a park where you climb up to a view point. From here we could see the whole of Beijing, but it was so hot we didn't last long at the top.

The real change came in trying to find a taxi home, for which drivers were trying to charge us obscene prices. So eventually, we found a nice rickshaw driver who offered to take us back for 40RMB.

After a quick nap and a phone call home Katie, Kayliegh, Ryan and I got a metro to the Wangfujing food market. This where you buy the weird and not so wonderful food of China, including dead birds on a stick, octopus, spider and centipede. Katie, Ryan and I even braved eating a scorpion each... I'll let you just watch the video for my reaction to that...

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Day 19- Beijing

Woke up at 4am to get up onto the wall to watch the colour of the sky change colour and the sun rise.

I can't actually put into words the feeling of watching the sun rise on the Great Wall in total silence, even the pictures can't do it justice. It was just one of the best moments I've ever experienced.

Once the sun was up we took a wander as far as we could along the wall, but a few watch towers over there is a vertical drop which we realised would have to mean our end to the adventures. We headed back to camp and took the tents down before hiking back down to the bus.

We all fell asleep on the bus and woke up 2 hours later back in Beijing.

After a break, food and much needed shower we got the metro to the fake goods market. This is essentially a shopping centre or department store with a load of fake designer goods such as clothing, shoes, electronics etc. However, rather than just buying the things you haggle for them. It's way more fun this way than at home! I managed to buy a new pair of fake Ray Bans and a fake Michael Korrs purse for £24. The great thing about these things is that they are actually really good quality and well made, to the point where almost no one in china will buy the real designer goods.

In the evening we went to see a Chinese acrobatics show. Some of the acts were incredible including men jumping and flipping through hoops and a man balancing on a giant stack of chairs. But the finale was by far the highlight. This started with one man on a motorbike in a spherical cage doing flips... gradually they added more people on motorbikes one by one, with gasps and screams from the audience, until there were 5 men on bikes flipping in the cage.

After the show we headed to a restaurant near the Hostel to try the famous Beijing dish, Peaking Duck. The duck was amazing! I'm not sure I can ever eat it from the take out at home again now cause there is just no comparison.

From the restaurant we booked a room at a KTV for a karaoke night- seeing as a lot of the group are leaving tomorrow. It took a bit of stress and despite the fact that me, Matt, Martha and Hannah walked with Luna to the room we'd booked, paid and waited for no one to turn up only to get a message saying the others had paid for the room. It was soon discovered they others, in their inhibriated state, had got a taxi to the wrong KTV... but once we smuggled the beer out of our room and into their KTV we had a pretty mental night.

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Day 18- Beijing

Woke up on the train to Beijing.

Arrived and got bus to Hostel.

Grabbed breakfast from a restaraunt opposite, had a shower and charged phones. Also went to supermarket to stock up on food to take to the Great Wall. Repacked bags for camping tonight and got on the bus to head to the Great Wall.

On the way stopped at the Birdsnest stadium and had a wander around. Overriding feeling was despite spending 7 billion US dollars on this they now make no money from it and it's a lot of empty space being wasted in a city already too small for the size of the population. Unlike the Olympic stadium in Stratford that is now used for loads of different events with all the space being used.

2 hour bus to a farm near the wall. Had lunch there as a way of asking the locals for permission to camp on the unrestored section of the wall.

After lunch we started the 40 minute hike up to the wall. It was boiling and pretty steep but totally worth while when we got to the wall! We were completely alone on the wall,  not a tourist in site unlike the restored section of the wall which is packed.

We wandered along the wall for a bit before setting up the tents for the night.

At 7.30pm we walked up the a watch tower, sat on the top and watched the sun rise. It was a pretty powerful and emotional moment for all of us. We all sat and chatted, drank a beer and watched the sun go down over the mountain.

Once the sun was down me, Kayliegh, Katie and Emma went on a hunt for firewood. We jumped down to the Mongolian side of the wall and wandered around in the dark with a small torch searching for sticks. It was pretty dark and every time we heard a noise we seriously freaked each other out. There were even a couple of screams of 'IT'S THE MONGOLIANS!!'

Once decided we had enough (were too frightened to continue searching) we started to fumble our way back up the hill to the wall, at which point Chris leapt out from behind a tree. I swear my heart stopped beating for a second.

Back at the camp and we set about trying to light a fire... totally unsuccessfully... but a valiant effort was put in by all.

Having failed at lighting the fire we all sat around the fire pit in pyjamas eating our dinner of fruit, cookies and surprise bread (Chinese bread or pastries that will inevitably have a random sausage in the middle).

As it got later the stars appeared and so me, Hannah, Matt, Martha and Ryan had a wee stargaze on the wall. A minor extisential crisis may have occurred with conversation often interrupted by someone exclaiming 'holy shit, we're on the wall!' We even got a fantastic moment of genius from Ryan (previously been known for brilliantly worded quotes, such as 'when I get drunk I have to be under water') in this instance though he said 'sometimes, when I look at the stars, I feel retarded'... after a good 10 minutes of hysterical laughing it was surmised he probably meant 'insignificant'... but close I guess...

At midnight we called it a night and headed back to our tents- although getting to bed for me was a challenge as Emma had fallen asleep right in front of the tent door, meaning I had to fling myself through the zip door and over her without waking her up!

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The Shaolin temple- Emma looking thrilled after the 2000 steps.

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Oh, and these! Like the first time I used a selfie stick.

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Wait! Go back, I missed some in chengdu and Xi'an

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The slightly less talented kids at the Shaolin Kung Fu school