Leaving Beijing we retraced our steps to Xian (once gain on the sleeper train which was mercifully devoid of snorers this time) to pick up the truck and allow the new arrivals time to visit the terracotta warriors. Not wishing to visit the warriors again (they are not great conversationalists) I spent a happy couple of days chilling (and eating McDonalds) after which we departed for Chengdu.

There is no doubt that this is a beautiful part of China and as you travel further south the terrain becomes more mountainous and more beautiful. This was the wet season, however, and the beautiful landscape was often muted by flat grey skies. Under such oppressive heavens this landscape can feel like a trap. One would think that having lived in Wales for 8 years I would be used to this, but after the wide open spaces and clear blue skies of Tibet this was a stark and claustrophobic change that at times became almost unbearable.

It is a fair way from Xian to Chengdu and so we had two nights rough camping. Camping in high humidity has, over the course of this trip, become one of my pet hates, and so I was not particularly looking forward to the camping on this leg of the journey. My fears were not unfounded. The next two nights were very hot and very sticky and made all the more interesting by the difficulty of locating campsites in a landscape that is wall-to-wall agriculture. So it was that after three days of driving through beautiful but oppressive landscape, some spectacular nightly thunder storms and at least one instance of chasing down runaway tents we arrived once again hot, dirty and smelly in Chengdu.

Bring on the air-con!