Li with a French woman and her two kids on a bus.

Li and Kong were the only guests in their hotel, where service staff clutched carbine machine guns and pistols. Air-raid sirens woke them at night.

But returning to China would mean losing their nonrefundable connecting flights for the rest of their journey.

So they stuck it out.

"We've been in various situations and are fearless," Li says.

"There's always a way out."

The couple then headed to Jerusalem, as per their original plan, two days later.

They'd arrived in the country after visiting Amman, Jordan, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan because flights and accommodation were cheaper.

"We'd never imagined it could be so hot in the summer," Li recalls.

It was nearly 50 C.

"And fasting was too hard."

Food wasn't served between dawn and sunset.

Yet one day, they were able to get KFC hamburgers but weren't allowed to eat them in the restaurant.

So they sneaked to a shopping mall's corner and planted their faces into their sandwiches until they noticed a pair of feet stop in front of them.

It was a policeman.