It all began rather well. No queuing, ushered to spacious seats at the bulkheads by kindly Asian air hostesses cooing at the baby. And a little bed for our 10-month old, fixed to the wall. It was a night flight to Shanghai, so we weren’t worried about her sleeping. No problem, we thought.

The three-month old baby less than a foot away had other ideas. As soon as ours was settled, the other one kicked off. And vice versa, for all 11 hours. None of us slept a wink. No chance to watch telly, dinner taken in turns, and then the terrible half hour trying to get our trays taken away so that the baby could sit on my knee.

Evelyn finally fell asleep at passport control and we staggered out into the bright morning heat of Shanghai to find a taxi. We found the wrong one, and took off on the fastest, scariest journey we’ve ever had.

In our carefree pre-child days we lived in Asia for a couple of years, and were never daunted by the bad driving, high speeds and chaotic lack of discipline on the roads. It all added to the sense of adventure. But after a year of cautious London life, with our precious baby strapped into her tank-like car seat, the trip to Shanghai’s centre was terrifying.

We held our arms across the exhausted baby, trying to imitate a seat belt, all the while trying desperately to remember the Mandarin words for “Slow down! You might be suicidal, but we’re not!”.

The driver smiled sympathetically at our attempts to speak as he veered across two lanes to overtake a lorry, swerving past with a good two inches to spare. Against all the odds, we made it, alive but pale, to our hotel.

Hotel rooms are perfect for babies, especially those on the move. Unlike our flat, where deep-set dirt and mortal danger lie at every tiny footstep, the room was spacious, clean, tidy and safe. Evelyn carefully surveyed the room, chose a nice-looking spot in the centre of the floor, and peed on the carpet. We’d arrived.

Although we might have arrived, our body clocks had stayed resolutely in England. Disappointingly, Evelyn didn’t see any of the massed crabs in tanks on the street, the hanging cooked ducks, the hustle and bustle of the French concession. The noodles, the hawkers, the landscaped gardens, even the fantastic children’s market with cheap copies of branded clothes and toys; all passed her by as she happily slept through the days.

We’d been excited to find out that the hotel offered a baby-sitting service, but with a wide-awake child, when evening came it was easier and cheaper to take her with us. And so instead she discovered Shanghai’s neon-lit night life. Noisy hot pot restaurants where bowls of bubbling stock emitted heady vapours of chilli and spices. Tiny, cosy bars where the cheap cocktails arrived with an approving grin. Better still, the waitresses and barmen discovered Evelyn. They’d scurry off to the kitchen and come back with a banana, then wheel her away to play while we enjoyed a liberating drink. The perfect solution to jet lag.

It took a good five days for us all to adjust to the eight-hour time difference. But the joys of travelling with a baby in China had only just begun. After a week in Shanghai we flew to Kunming, a small (by Chinese standards) city in the south west. Known as the city of eternal spring, it was grey and raining. Friends had planned a party, and contacted a local babysitting agency. “She’s coming at six and will stay for 12 hours,” explained Anna. “We got you the deluxe service.” Frightened, we asked about the cost for 12 hours’ worth of deluxe babysitter. It came to four pounds.

There is something a little scary about leaving your baby with someone you don’t know and can’t really communicate with. I left a long list of instructions which Anna translated. The reply came back sternly: “I do know how to look after babies!” Evelyn woke before we left, and the babysitter promptly did exactly the opposite of what I’d said, while shooing us out. Her confidence and total rejection of my suggestions oddly made me more relaxed, and out we went.

Feeling a little guilty that Evelyn had been living it up in night-time Shanghai even after she’d got over jet lag, we decided to book the babysitter every night. We’d never get the chance again at four pounds per evening. She began to arrive earlier and earlier, actively pushing us out of the door and taking over. But we got our nights out, and Evie got her sleep and a working knowledge of Chinese baby care.

We never discovered how their evenings together went. Occasionally the babysitter would try to tell us something, and one evening the word “water” kept coming up. We asked her to write it down so we could get a friend to translate. Enigmatically, the characters read: “Go out every day”. So we did.

As our baby food supplies began to run low, the days got more tricky. Evelyn has some allergies, and as we couldn’t read the labels in the shops, we couldn’t risk buying ready-made food. We took to ordering bowls of rice and mashing banana into them, or buying hot sweet potatos from street sellers.

The prevalent use of peanut oil meant we couldn’t order her anything more interesting than rice, although she did gain a fondness for Kunming’s specialty dish, across-the-bridge rice noodles. Luckily, the fun of playing with chopsticks distracted her from her rather unhealthy diet.

And then we ran out of nappies. The vast majority of Chinese babies don’t use them, as they are trained to pee on command by the time they are about four or five months old. The babies wear trousers with splits in the back, exposing their soft little bottoms, and are held over the nearest drain or plastic bag when the time is right.

Our baby is, frankly, not trained to do anything at all and is fairly unpredictable. The so-called nappies we bought were entirely useless, which meant we had to carry round several sets of spare clothes.

But for all the practical problems, China is a warm and welcoming place for a baby. Newborns tend to be kept at home, and the one-child policy means there are few babies out and about – especially blonde ones.

The attention Evelyn got was staggering. Hordes of people swarmed round her, she was given toys from shop displays, fruit, and grins from the oldest peasants to the youngest children. She got back on the plane clutching a fluffy panda, courtesy of the airport gift shop.

The journey home, despite the charms of the new panda, was depressingly similar to the one there. We won’t be going long haul again. Not until we’ve forgotten the horrors of flying with a baby, anyway.

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