Slow Boat to China:

Having spent the past 15 years travelling and working in almost 100 countries around the world, Ed Booth found that China has, without doubt, come out on top for its varied and exciting tourism possibilities... If you are seeking adventure, beautiful scenery, culinary delights, centuries of complex history, magnificent sunsets and excellent customer service, then China is the destination for you.

It is the fourth largest country in the world and home to a population of over 1.4 billion people (nearly a quarter of the world's population). This huge country borders Mongolia and Russia to the north, India and Nepal and large chunks of South East Asia to the south. It is a developing global powerhouse, churning out the world's wants, striving to become the world's next super-power.

I first experienced China in 1997, just after the UK's hand-over of Hong Kong, when I decided to explore the country for a month. On July 1, 1997 after a very wet hand-over ceremony, I caught the first ever 27-hour train journey from Hong Kong's Kowloon station to Beijing Central.

Ten years ago there were only certain hotels catering for tourists and I ended up staying in the Jinghua Hotel. It was slightly rough around the edges but clean and, like most Chinese hotels, provided impeccable first class customer service.

In every room there was a toothbrush, toothpaste, his and hers bathrobes, slippers and somebody on hand at all times to attend to your every need. This has become the standard for the majority of hotels I have stayed at in China over the years.

The language of the majority there is Mandarin, while in the south, including Hong Kong, Cantonese is widely spoken.

Both languages are written similarly but are pronounced totally differently. It is always best to travel with a good guidebook showing Chinese characters with English underneath, allowing you to point to the words you need to say.

Another useful form of communication widely used in China are hand signs. The most popular is the Chinese system of finger counting ie. one to ten.

This has been always very useful for me, and one that you would find in any good guidebook. However, don't panic - English is often spoken and the locals will want to practice their English

in conversation with you.

I was very surprised to hear, on the Beijing public transport system, English translations after the Mandarin, even if it wasn't always all that clear!

My hotel was not alone in offering day tours. On one excursion, I took a tour 70km to the Great Wall of China where I spent three hours mesmerised by its sheer size and beauty.

Public transport is plentiful and I found it east to take a taxi into Tiananmen Square (made infamous by the massacre of students in 1989). Another day was spent wandering around the incredible Forbidden City, home to generations of emperors. If you have time, the Summer Palace, just on the outskirts of Beijing is a great place for peace and quiet. A must for all food lovers is the famous Peking duck restaurant Tinanjin.

A 20-hour train journey southwest from Beijing brought me to the historic city of Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province and once the capital of 13 dynasties. About an hour's drive from Xian, the 8000 strong Terracotta Army was buried with the Emperor Qin Shi Huang to help him rule again when he arrived in the afterlife. In 1974 a local farmer was looking for water on his farm when he stumbled across this magnificent buried treasure. Like the pyramids are to Egypt, so the terracotta warriors are to China - are a must-see destination.

My next journey on the clean, punctual and well-equipped Chinese rail network was 30 hours to the east of Xian to the very European city of Shanghai. On arrival, I checked in at what was once the Astor hotel and immediately felt at home.

Later, I walked up The Bund with its elegant British architecture, including the Peace Hotel where, supposedly, Noel Coward wrote his famous comedy play 'Private Lives'. Passing the original Hong Kong and Shanghai banking headquarters, I was reminded of Liverpool's waterfront, from where many ships started their epic journeys half way around the world to Shanghai in the nineteenth century.

While I was taking in the buildings of a past empire, a modern-day army of Chinese tourists were looking out across the Huangpu River at the construction of the new Shanghai.

After spending three interesting nights in Shanghai I boarded a boat to take me up the Yangzi River west to Wuhan. My three days and three nights on the boat took me through gorges, past paddy fields and cities and gave me the chance to mix with the local people, as I was the only westerner on the boat.

There was not a great deal to do at Wuhan but, to me, the whole city was a tourist attraction.

During those three days I would get up early in the morning and watch the locals in the park taking Tai-Chi. In the afternoon, I would walk around the city and sit on the riverfront watching people take their pet birds for a 'walk' in their cages. Here you can sample many delicacies including snake, dog and what looked like sparrow, from the many food hawkers.

Another seemingly epic train journey was required to get me to my final destination of Guilin. From here, the beautiful little town of Yangshuo is an hour-and-a-half

on the bus.

This picturesque place is set among legendary limestone pinnacles. One of the interesting boat tours is cormorant fishing. A local fisherman will take you out on the river on his traditional wooden boat, where his captive cormorants do the fishing for him.

If this type of excursion isn't for you, Yangshuo, with its western-style cafes, may not seem like the real China, but is the perfect place to relax and get those last-minute souvenirs after an exhilarating journey through this wonderfully interesting country.