Sunday 28 October – Today we leave Shanghai and fly 800 miles south to Guilin.
We have a driver who is picking up our luggage and taking it to the airport. We are travelling to the airport on the Maglev Train. This does not run on rails it hovers above them – magnetic levitation. It travels at 267 mph which beats our 125 inter city trains.
Britain actually ran the world’s first Maglev train to carry passengers the Birmingham airport Air Link shuttle that ran from 1984-95. It was popular and cheap to run, but unreliable and expensive to maintain as the one-off components were hard to find.
We are flying to Guilin with China Southern Airlines. The flight takes three hours. Chinese commercial flight have one of the worst records for leaving late or not arriving on time. Part of the the problem is that the military control the skies and they have priority over commercial traffic.
Coleman Adventures- North Coast 500 
The old manor house looks good and the trip on the river should prove interesting Did you have a good massage -perhaps it helped your sciatica I find the contrast between high technology eg Maglev train and basic things like the marriage market very unusual It is only 5 degrees outside so out comes the hot water bottle Caroline has just gone so I am all tucked up and ready for bed We put the clocks back yesterday so it was dark early-roll on Spring.Love to you all Mum x