We wrote last week that we were a little worried about the mosquitoes at the monastery in Baoguo would do to us overnight. We needn't have been concerned, and should instead have worried about the monks chanting, ringing bells and banging drums from 4am onwards. We suffered from sleep deprivation for three nights, though it was well worth it with fantastic views from the top of Mount Emei, and great scenery during our walk to the second monastery, Hongchungping.

After a long bus ride to Chongqing we boarded our boat on the Yangtze for a two day cruise through the Three Gorges. The Yangzte Dam project will start flooding the river from this July, rising by about 30 metres by the end of this year. The reservoir won't reach its full capacity until 2009. People were busy burning trees and demolishing buildings on the banks of the river ready for the water levels to rise. We went on a side trip to see the Lesser Three Gorges on the morning of the second day. These gorges are much narrower, and if anything more impressive to see. We unfortunately didn't get to see much of the dam itself since the river is temporarily closed on the approach and our boat needed to stop a couple of miles upstream. We drove past it at night, and could only see its silhouette in the dark.

After another overnight train (more sleep loss) we arrived in Guilin and then Yangshuo. The main features here are the stunning limestone karsts, the river winding through them, and the degree to which the town caters for western tourists. Many people speak English well. We've been cycling into the countryside and taken a boat trip down the river to see scenery and small villages.

We're nearly at the end of our China trip now. This weekend we're flying to Singapore, dodging Guangdong and Hong Kong on the advice of the WHO and the Foreign Office, only stopping off at the airport to change planes.

We're too tired to write much at the moment, but here are some more photos and we'll update you on our activities soon. You can probably guess where we've been from the pictures!

Just to add - The pandas were absolutely brilliant. We saw lots. Some 2 year olds and some 3 year olds and some fully grown ones. The 2 year olds were lying on their backs chompfing bamboo and one of them was having a snooze up a tree. The 3 year olds came running back across their play area to get their porridge for breakfast. Best of all I got to have my photo taken with a young panda called Pearl and got to stroke her fur. Hopefully we can upload the pictures soon.

It's been a while since our last post due to difficulty finding Internet cafes, and problems with Blogger being down. We've travelled to quite a few places since then, including:

• Xi'an, where we saw the Terracotta Warriors. Not as good as the hype, but not bad. We cycled around the city wall, which was great, and we liked the Muslim Quarter too. It felt like a completely different town in the middle of a big city.
• Chengdu, in the Sichuan region. Of course, the highlight here was the panda breeding research base. I'm sure Fiona will write (rave) more about this later. Needless to say, it was the best bit of the trip so far for Fi, and she's almost ready to come home now. :-)The spicy food has been pretty good too.
• Leshan, with the Grand Buddha -- a very impressive 80 metre high statue carved into a cliff face. There are lots of other small temples around.

We're currently staying in a Buddhist monastery at the base of Mount Emei. This is a sacred mountain which we'll be going to the top of tomorrow, and then staying at another monastery half way up. Lots of walking up steep stairways on the mountain involved. That should be hard work.

It will possibly be several more days until we write anything again, since we'll be boating down the Yangtze and I imagine internet connections will be hard to come by. Still having a great time, but slightly worried about what the mosquitoes will do to us tonight.

We're now in Beijing having travelled south to Bangkok and then flown to Beijing via Singapore. We visited Jim Thompson's house in Bangkok which had some good examples of Thai teak houses, with a few western influences. He also had a collection of ancient Thai art, including a 7th century buddha. We decided that Bangkok wasn't so great when we couldn't cross the streets for all the traffic.

Beijing is much nicer in some respects, as the Chinese have thought a lot more about building subways and the underground system is fast and efficient. It takes a long time to walk anywhere though because the city is so big!

On Sunday we joined our Intrepid tour with 7 other travellers and a fun guide called Andi. We had our first decent meal since arriving in China as she knew the right places to go. Today went to the Great Wall at Sumatai. It was very impressive - we walked up a particularly steep part and managed 8 towers. The views into China and Mongolia were stunning. We've also been walking round the town and have seen Tiananmen Square and lots of beautiful parks, including the Summer Palace. Tomorrow we go a tour of the Forbidden City and some of the old streets of Beijing.

On WHO advice, we've changed our travel plans slightly so that we don't stop in Hong Kong, because of the SARS virus and just change planes to go on to Singapore.

We went for our trek into the mountains yesterday, and had an absolutely fabulous day -- one of the best yet?

Our day started with an hour long ride along a river bed and up into the hills outside Chiang Mai on elephant back. We saw a couple of hill tribes, including one Meo village where polygamy is allowed. After much deliberation I decided not to settle there. One wife is enough. We then went to a waterfall in the mountains, where I went swimming in the pool beneath it while Fiona watched from the banks. Who's the big girl now? :-) The day ended with bamboo rafting, where we all got thoroughly soaked thanks to the playful antics of our guides and a couple of young girls in our group.

More importantly, we've actually managed to upload a few pictures of Thailand to our website.