Sanjie Liu

Day 42: Yangshuo. I can't explain why, but some things just fuse together perfectly - like chocolate & chillies for instance or strawberries & black pepper. On the face of it, it sounds like a disgusting combination, but experience it first hand and it you know it just works. Deliciously!

And that's how it felt witnessing 'Impressions Sanjie Liu', Yangshuo's hottest show. Bringing together the polish and production of a Lloyd/Webber show, the artistic majesty of the Royal Ballet and the magic and glitz of Walt Disney. An unusual combination that shouldn't really work, but in this production directed by Chinese movie maker Zhang Yimou, it did. Perfectly, movingly and entertainingly.

Billed as a 'Folk Musical'' the performance was acted out in the dead of night on the Li River (yes, that's right, they performed on the Li River), with the gargantuan proportions that we had come to expect of anything Chinese. For a start the backdrop was provided by illuminating 12 of the surrounding karst peaks. Thrown in to the mix were 600 local fisherman, a similar number of local school children, a choir, the town ballet troupe, 100 bamboo rafts, half a dozen cows, a score of cormorants and more light bulbs, candles and dry ice than you can shake a stick at.

In an experience reminiscent of the Balshoi, Karen and I had been fortunate enough to witness in Moscow so many weeks ago this was a tear jerking event. Conducted entirely in Mandarin we were unable to understand the narrative, but as with the ballet it really didn't matter. The power of the dance, the music and the production was all we needed to bring our senses alive.

Tucking in to a late supper of fresh river shrimps and beer fish we both enthused about the evening's entertainment. “I couldn't believe the co-ordination of all of those dancers”, Karen said cheerfully. “And the lights. Fantastic”.

The excellent food added to our high spirits. Since we arrived in China we hadn't had a bad meal. Sure, some dishes were better than others, and the food in each region of China varied extensively, but we had yet to order something that we didn't devour heartily. And the further south we appeared to travel in this huge country the more we seemed to enjoy it. A perfect evening all round.

Day 42: Total Mileage to Date: 10,899: Number of Time Zones Crossed: 9; Number of Countries Visited: 8; Number of Transport Modes Used: 23, Maximum Temperature Encountered: +15C, Minimum Temperature Encountered: -32C.