by Annie Mitchel

Created on: May 14, 2009   Last Updated: May 15, 2009

The rain was torrential when we finally arrived at Guilin train station after our 10hour journey. It was the first time I had been on a sleeper train and the experience was one I can highly recommend, apart from the ladies who talked at full volume late into the night and early in the morning. And now we had arrived in China proper, another first for me. The rain did little to dampen my spirits though it did add to the difficulty of keeping rucksacks and their contents - vaguely dry. Magically, an umbrella was offered as we searched for a bus to take us to the next destination.

'Langshuo, Langshuo?' our brolly provider wanted to know. 'You going Langshuo?' Everything took on a degree of urgency as he hurried us through the rain and poured us onto a waiting bus.

'Wasn't that lucky?' says I to loving daughter.

My daughter Catherine just smiled back at me. Poor kid - somehow she had ended up with me as a temporary gap companion.

The ticket tout boarded the bus with us and sat himself in close proximity; the better to keep his voice low as he tried to sell us overpriced tickets. This was the first time I had encountered the skillful art of the tout. It seemed that my 'firsts' were accumulating in rather rapid succession and if my partner and I along with my daughter and her boyfriend were to survive our 19 days backpacking together in China, I had better get street wise quickly.

It wasn't necessarily meant to turn out like this really. My daughter I should say is something of a professional gapper as she was now on year three of exploring exotic countries with a rucksack on her back. She is no slouch though and has very respectably interwoven a first degree in English and work for a travel company along with it all. Now a budding travel writer, she had already covered Australia where she worked on cattle ranches plus Thailand, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Africa, Cuba and New York. In addition to which, she had just completed a year's teaching contract in South Korea and was now heading to South America via New Zealand. Not bad for a 26 year old who is not only clever, beautiful and extremely witty but is also lucky enough to have a Mother who will fly across the world just to spend a short time in her company. Well, that's what I told her anyway.

On that basis, we decided to 'hook up' in Hong Kong. Booking us all into a small, 3 star hotel seemed quite an innocuous thing to do but I can assure you that going off the beaten track into

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