Our itinerary

 Organising this trip has been a full-time job over the past month.  The visa requirements for China prevent us from just turning up and wandering about.  They want our precise itinerary from London and back to London, and every address where we plan to stay in China. So here’s the plan, with all international journeys and accommodation booked.
24th July London to Cologne- stay overnight in Cologne
25th July Cologne to Lubeck – stay 3 nights in a yacht
29th July Ferry to Helsinki
​30th July Three days in Helsinki (a flat above a sex shop!)
3rd August Ferry to St Petersburg
4th August Three days in St Petersburg
7th August Train to Moscow and train to Beijing via Mongolia
13th August 4 nights in Beijing 
17th August We've booked a very cheap room in Zhengzhou although we have been invited to stay with a friend's family.  If we use their address for the visa we have to ask them to provide a whole lot of documentation which we did not want to trouble them with.  I'll write about our Chinese friends in a separate blog post.
27th August Train to Chengdu and a week there (just a provisional booking for the visa)
​4th September Lost Garden Guest House, Kunming 
18th September Fly from Kunming to Perth, Western Australia
12th October Fly home to London
My next blog will be about Chinese friends who are helping us prepare for the trip