My alarm pierces through my sleep at 8am. Those three buckets of beers regretted, I pack while watching Michelle bounce around the room and then head down for breakfast. I struggle to get up for breakfast at the best of times, so slightly hungover and with a Chinese breakfast waiting for me (a whole boiled egg, bland noodle soup, an even more bland dough bun and a crispy flat pastry) I decline and head down for the bus at 9am. Local tourists are huddled around Xara, taking photos at every angle.  Confused by what exactly it is; a lorry? A truck? A van? Our rabble break through the spectators, throw our packs into the lock up (which the locals are even more impressed with) and pile on board. They ask Jason whether they can get in to see what it looks like. He says no, because if he says yes to one he will have to say yes to all. The drive to Lijiashan takes 6 hours and we stop en route for lunch in a small restaurant which appears to open up just to serve us. The cave dwellings we are sleeping in aren't accessible in the truck so we park up at the foot hills and take taxis up to them. Our taxi driver reminds me of the bus driver from the tiger sanctuary to Madurai in India, he tears around these corners as if we were racing and eventually I just close my eyes. At one point we accelerate towards a cliff edge, break sharply and then do a three point turn and realise that due to how narrow and windy the dirt track was we had had to do a U-turn to make the sharp turn and incline farther up the hill. Bare (Adam, I mean it in the lacking leaves sense, not the way you say ‘many’) bushes line the roadside and as we approach a gap in them the driver slams on the breaks and tells us to walk through the gap along a dirt path. The path curves to the left, along a cliff edge and we see the cave dwellings for the first time. A series of beige archways aligned in rows on six levels. The highest dwelling lies eight stories high. Our caves for the night are the first on the left hand side. We walk through a doorway with traditional Chinese bunting on the frame, warding off the bad luck, climbing over the threshold and arrive in a small courtyard with archways facing toward it. As its Bec’s birthday, Bec and Hamish get their own cave. For the rest of the group its boys in one cave, girls in another. So, when I imagined cave dwelling, I'm thinking Karl Pilkington in his cave in Petra with the Bedouins, sleeping on and under blankets in hollow, bare caves. Oh, how wrong I was. The cave is a perfect tunnel, plastered and painted white. There's a an enormous rock raised bed lining the entire right wall with mattresses on top with an array of thick blankets covered in cartoon characters, all the girls will sleep on the one long bed. On the left is a rickety IKEA style wardrobe, built in desk set and a gigantic poster of a kitten infront of a rainbow. A long drop toilet is across the square from the cave behind a wall. There's no door so we decide to use a bucket in the middle of the walk way to show that the toilet is busy. There's plug sockets with extension leads in each corner of the cave too…and a wireless router above the doorway! (Note: the wifi in the caves ends up being one the best wifi places in my time in China, the toilets are also the worst).

Pretty swiftly were all playing cards (minus Linda) and drinking beers (including Linda), Bec's plays the birthday card and makes everyone drink shots of rice wine. A few hours later, beers in hand, which cost us £2 each for a large bottle, £1 for soft drinks, Annlee and I head off to look at the surrounding area, take a peek into the other nearby caves and enjoy the views. We weren't able to watch the sunrise unfortunately because dinner was served. I certainly prefer English-Chinese food to Chinese-Chinese food. There was a traditional chicken dish, rice, vegetables, a pork dish and some watery soup. Jason reckons China has ‘the best food’. No Jason, just no. It kind of all went down hill after dinner really, more beers, more rice wine, cards, embarrassing stories divulged, more beer. At one point Duncan tried to go to sleep. Helen, drunkenly, decides that she wants him to stay up with her (They're very obviously a couple but act like they aren't because they didn't want to seem unprofessional). Duncan had gone to bed around midnight, quite sensibly,because he's driving us early in the morning. 12:30, however, Helen has bounded into his cave to get him. With blood shot eyes, Duncan gingerly walks back with Helen to the table and sits there in silence, starring at the table.  We quickly sent him to bed 15 minutes later and Helen soon followed suit- clearly bored with just our company! Never one to miss out on a party, I stayed up till the end with Hamish and Bec's until 3am, where I then stumbled into my cave bed.