I was awoken early the next morning by an attendant speaking a funny language which turned out to be Chinese, and comprehensible after all, just that I wasn't used to doing listening comprehension exercises at that hour of the morning. There was, apparently, a phone call for me, and the caller turned out to be Wang Shi Yan, who'd managed to locate me from a cryptic email I'd sent the night before. I picked up the phone just in time to hear her ring off, I stumbled into clothes and called her back, only to strike the same problems with getting in touch with her as I'd had before. Eerily, I wandered past the basement dorm corridor's phone a good while later and heard it ringing... no-one was in sight, so I answered in Chinese and it turned out to be for me anyway. I arranged to meet Wang Shi Yan in front of the statue of Chairman Mao at Tiananmen gate - where else was so easily recognisable and communicated - at 1.30pm, which gave me plenty of time to do everything I needed to do in the morning. The first task was a rest... I promptly fell asleep and woke up with barely an hour to spare...

Hamish had been suffering from irrational cravings for bread without red bean surprises in the middle, and so had given me the task of locating baking powder and yeast from amongst Beijing's foreigner-oriented stores. These are not nouns that ESL students, even those who are shopkeepers, are likely to study, and the Chinese which the dictionary offered didn't turn out to be so accurate. I chanced upon one supermarket that had what looked like the genuine article, although was late to the Mao portrait as a result of the extended search. Wang Shi Yan was late herself, so I had time to stare at the outrageously dressed tourists. A PLA officer who was new to Beijing asked me to pose with him by virtue of my skin colour.

Wang Shi Yan arrived at last, dressed in the kind of casual outfit that instantly labels Beijingers as being far more interesting than those from elsewhere in China, the sort of clothes university students wear because they're too poor to buy designer rags but want to demonstrate an independent flair with that which they have. Woolly beanies and cardigans coupled with bright stockings and chunky shoes are typical examples of Beijing colour; an outward manifestation of a modern culture that is uncompromisingly Chinese and thus serene and tinged with an awareness of glory - and yet a culture that is neither stuffy nor traditional; it is the emerging determination of the Chinese presence on the world stage. Beijing, in this way, is incommunicably fun.

She was more engaging in conversation outside the bar atmosphere than she had been within its confines. We located a jiaozi restaurant and discussed diverse topics such as I was not used to broaching with other Chinese people. Rarely do I meet people in China who immediately strike me as being well-informed and comfortable with sharing opinions with foreigners; caution is far more common in a country where unusual gravity is laid upon that which is said. Wang Shi Yan was pleasant, mature in her opinions, relaxed and in good control of her destiny. I asked her about her work in the Cross bar and she sighed; 'one must at times put one's dignity in one's pocket', she quipped. It was a respectable answer.

Wang Shi Yan can also be credited with being the only Chinese person I have heard use the phrase dou shi ren, which equates to, 'we're all human', when referring to foreigners. I was complaining about the insistence with which Chinese people seemed to categorise other races in another class to themselves, and was surprised to hear her empathetic response.

I'd have loved to talk longer, but I had a pressing engagement with the South of China, and so had to move on. Wang Shi Yan saw me off to the station, which turned out to be the wrong one due to my misread ticket (which in turn was attributable to my overconfidence in understanding Chinese Characters) and happily led me to the correct Western station (the most impressive in Beijing) after arguing my case for a refund. We arranged to meet again for the May holiday, when she offered to accompany me to her home province of Ningxia, just on the Southern edge of Mongolia.

I was heading for a city nobody I'd spoken with had heard of, and which wasn't on any map I'd seen yet, and travelling through parts of the country that most people North of Beijing have never had the chance or inclination to visit. Yet from the train window in the overcast morning haze, China was a dark and rich terrain of terraced rice fields which seemed to me to outshine all the sandy paddocks of Dongbei, where I had spent most of the previous half year. Hubei and Hunan, the provinces north and south of one of central China's great lakes, have cradled much of Chinese history and are home to some of the lushest regions of the country. Wet and carpeted in short lime green shoots, there isn't a square metre of land that has been ignored; anything with a corner of soil on it is volunteered for production.

Look at any geographical map of China and you'll see a central band of green that sits amidst less arable territories to the North and the West. This is the region that most foreigners probably associate with the country, peasants in paddies with pointy hats. The cattle are grey, fat beasts with large, tapering horns, they wade through the muddy pools pulling up channels of dirt for planting. Under the grey cloud, the farms seemed to be feverishly organic.

I stepped out into a moist afternoon in Changsha after my longest train journey yet, the station wet and heady in aromatic chillied meat and steaming vegetables. All of the dishes were an angry red; I was hungry but unwilling to participate in any of them after sixteen hours of constant cigarette smoke and unpalatable train snacks. I managed to find Jishou on the destinations board, and purchased a ticket which I sadly noted would see me seated in a crowded carriage overnight, Jishou being yet another 10 hours away still. I was grubby, unshowered and ill slept, and with just a few hours to explore Changsha, Hunan's capital, before this unwelcome additional discomfort.

There was only time to check out one attraction, and without any hesitation I settled on Orange Island, an extended sand bar in the middle of the river upon which Changsha lies; an island from which Changsha derives its name, which means 'long sand'. The island was settled by Europeans who were living in Changsha and who wanted to distance themselves from the locals in a time of political unrest (and from a bloodthirsty Christian cult who were working their way up the province) and as a result is the location of Changsha's most striking hybrid architecture. One long road leads from the train station to the island, and I determined to walk it.

Changsha seemed like a different country, betraying the origins of Modern China as an empire of old. The accent of the passing locals was clipped and more consonant than the Northern dialects I'd been familiarised with, the look of the local Chinese was darker, shorter, their eyes seemed to stretch farther back around their cheek ridges. I was approached by a businessman eager to demonstrate his feeble English before backing off in embarrassment. A McDonald's provided soap to wash my face with, and the only meal I was in the mood to face.

At last, I wandered along the bridge which leads to Orange Island, and turned down the lengthy ramp which leads to its long avenue of homes and shops. It was a genuine surprise, a vibrant stretch of outdoor restaurants with simple rows of lights, lush bush, old broken colonial homes like barns with balconies overlooking the river. I passed a lamplit pool table, couples seated at plastic tables on the sidewalk close to the terrace over the river bank. I recalled the greeny grime of Malaysia, walked down the concrete embankment to the muddy sand and stood out at the water's edge, watching old barges pass underneath the bridge.

The night on the train passed slowly. I didn't much enjoy talking with the other passengers and wished I'd been lucky enough to book a bunk instead of sitting in a crowded lit room. I couldn't read or write for long, and it was impossible to sleep, with my shirt over my head to block out the light and cigarette smoke and my jersey folded into a pillow. I must have passed out at around 5.00am - when the Jishou boy sitting opposite me pushed me awake, there was at least an hour yet to come. I looked out over the lemon green fields precisely stepped into the valleys, the houses of the farms neatly arranged around them in polite rows.

Then, I was standing in Jishou, where Hamish had spent his last seven months. At Jishou station, it wasn't crowded, and I was only approached once for a taxi, and when I explained I was waiting for a friend, the driver accepted the excuse without argument.

So I called Hamish, and stood outside on the wet concrete, waiting for him to arrive.