Hangzhou

The trip to Hangzhou was fascinating and gave me a glimpse to just how densely populated the Yangtse river basin is. Hangzhou and Shanghai are pretty much joined on. The countryside in between the cities would be more densely populated than suburbs of North American or Australian cities. Hangzhou’s been good. The West Lake was nice. Marco Polo said that this was the most beautiful city in the world. It might have been when he was here. I think the lake is nice but overly developed. I prefer Beijing’s Summer Palace even though the Summer Palace is meant to resemble the West Lake. I've really enjoyed Dawn’s company. I usually like travelling on my own but it’s been good fun, lots of interesting stories and laughter about things that would offend everyone else other than people with a British sense of humour.

The humidity has been like nothing I’ve experienced before. I heard it was 38 whilst we were on the train. I’m permanently sticky. In Shanghai I noticed a thermometer on a building which said 28 and that was at 8:30pm. It's madness. It's a real shock to the body when you leave an air conditioned room back to the heat and humidity. On the positive side, although you sweat bucket loads, the sweat doesn't become body odour. You can go days without changing your t-shirt and still not smell (or at least not smell as bad as if you’d do it in a place with no humidity). I met a Chinese guy in Vienna who told me that in Guilin it’s really hot but due to the humidity you could wear the same t shirt for days. I was sceptical about this but it's true.

I’ve got myself a tent. It’s 2.2kg which shouldn’t be too much of an extra strain. I also got a pair of binoculars and a really compact sleeping bag.