I must have reached a point in my life where clearly there was an urgent need for some adrenalin rush because last week I bought a V8 engine’d gas guzzling MG that has your eyeballs pinned to the back of your skull when your right foot inadvertently applies too much pressure to the go-faster peddle and this week I find myself in a country that I have never been to before and that speaks a language that just as well be Martian!

The announcement that a new Disneyworld would be built in Shanghai in China shows once again how tourism can be created from nothing. The last Disneyworld was opened in Hong Kong on reclaimed land in 2005. From that “nothing,” developed a resort that has seen over 15 million people visit it. It all shows that you [...]

It was a two hour flight from Xian to the southern city of Guilin and the contrast between the former and the latter could not be more different. Before getting in to the interesting bits its perhaps worth remembering that the city’s Jiangbei Airport is a bit archaic so despite how desperate you may be to use the washrooms avoid the first few you come to as these are basic Chinese style and clearly have not been cleaned since Allcock & Brown flew the Atlantic!

Pronounced ‘She-ann’ this central north-western city located in the province of Shannxi is one of the four great ancient capitals of China. Not only has it been the capital city throughout 13 of Chinas major dynasties but it also marks the start point of the countries famous Silk Road. The city has been in existence for well over 3000 years and thankfully for us travellers a significant amount of this history remains for us to marvel at including an impressive fortified wall surrounded by a moat built some 600 hundred years ago during the Ming Dynasty although this was only to replace an earlier earth wall constructed by Emperor Liu Bang in 198BC.

One year on, Beijing is still buzzing from the Olympic Games; indeed it’s estimated that 85.4 million tourists visited the Chinese capital in the first half of this year alone – despite the downturn in the economic market and the outbreak of swine flu. CD Traveller spoke to Sarah Keenlyside – a former Time Out Beijing journalist and founder of Bespoke Beijing, a Beijing based travel service offering travellers up to date insider information about Beijing’s best sights and bites – to get the lowdown on what to see and do in one of the 21st century’s most exciting destinations

For those wishing to explore further a field from the main city of Beijing then the obvious choice has to be the Great Wall of China. Our journey out included a stop at the Cloisonné Factory where one can see some of the most brilliantly crafted enamel on copper work in the world. The factory is some what archaic like stepping back into the early 1900’s and sadly the workers are not the highest paid considering the stunning work they turn out. The process is complex but basically thin copper wire shapes or forms are painstakingly glued on to say a plain copper bowl to eventually for intricate patterns and designs.