From South Korea we arrived to Shanghai. There Reto and Jo showed us around, accommodated, fed and entertained us. Great dumplings, fabulous sights from futuristic skyscrapers, wonderful old Shanghai, strong Chinese massage etc...Danke velmol Reto ond Jo!

From Shanghai we took a night train back to Beijing. As we were lazy tourists on our last visit we caught up with China’s most famous sights: Forbidden City (together with thousands of chinese tourist groups), Summer Palace, Beijing Duck and a ten kilometer scenic walk on the Great Wall.

A cheap but terrible over-night-hard-seat train ride brought us from Beijing to Xian. First day we used to recover from the train, on the second day we spent with some million tourists and the 7000 terra-cotta warriors. In the evening we enjoyed the colorful Muslim market in Xian.

Even without permission we managed to buy tickets for the train to Lhasa, Tibet. We put up a separate folder for the Tibet photos on the Overview Page. We finally left Tibet after ten days, promising to come back and took a night flight to Chengdu where we visited the Panda research station the next morning.

The same evening - again per plain - we reached the green and hilly karst landscape around Guilin.

From there we went on to Hong Kong for two days. Lots of shopping and good food.

We met Paul’s parents at the airport in Bangkok and flew together to Chiang Mai.

In two days we explored the amazing long neck girls, visited a elephant training camp and observed the  famous craftsmanship of the Chiang Mai people.

From Chiang Mai we had a direct flight to Koh Samui. Despite the rainy season we enjoyed a very relaxing week with good Thai food and many hours of reading and resting.

Last destination in Thailand was Bangkok with its famous temples and buddhas. We remained some more days in Bangkok while Paul’s parents left for Switzerland.