It's been a bit of a change moving from Hainan all the way up to the NW. We spent four days on the train - and three nights, one with Gareth in Xi'an - but really it wasn't too much of an ordeal, just one long doze, watching the countryside get drier and drier and seeing spring kind of folding up and disappearing. But the flowers are coming out now and the blackbirds sing in the tops of the popular trees in the evening. We're still eating a little too much of the local nan breads.