The train to Guangzhou only took 12 hours, I shared my compartment with three women and a 4 year old boy – so managed to practice my Chinese and play games…

I’ve reassessed Guangzhou – after traveling, I really enjoyed my second visit mainly cos there are no tourists and you just move around like the locals, its a bit like Chengdu, only much bigger… quite modern without being shanghai and very accessible… not a bad alternative to Hong Kong which is horribly expensive (900 Yuan a night at the YMCA in Kowloon) and 20y for a local beer.

I spent the day wandering around the water front markets, ‘the biggest in china’… huge old timber buildings packed to the rafters with every food and consumable product imaginable… rolls of copy tags for copy bags and clothing, YSL, Boss, Levi, Northface… thousands of buttons in all shapes and sizes… around the corner to the sacks of dried shrimps and fish and abalone and seaweed… then every size of beans and pulses… huge piles of spices in a kaleidoscope of colour…

Then a taxi to the Contemporary Art Gallery… a visual treat with a fabulous book shop (many in english)