From Beijing I travelled in style to Qingdao. I’ve never been on a bullet train before and it was surprisingly exciting watching everything go past so quickly, whilst enjoying the comfortable seats with ample leg room. The top speed I noticed was 300km an hour. I’ll see in a week’s time if Japan can beat… Read More Qingdao and South Korea
I was both excited and a little worried about Beijing. Capital cities have a reputation for being different from everywhere else in the country and normally not for good reasons. They do have stellar sights though and none more on paper than Beijing. My first impression of Beijing was one of predictable frustration. The subway… Read More Beijing
Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province. It is also the home of pandas and that makes it one of the premier stops in China. In fact such is the draw that I pretty much saw more western people queuing up in the pouring rain at 8am in the morning at the Panda breeding centre… Read More Chengdu and Xi’an
The bus journey to Daocheng, was bumpy gloriousness. In most countries you tend to go around the mountains. In China you go right over the top. At one point we went over a pass at nearly 5000m. When we weren’t going over mountains, we were passing through tiny Tibetan settlements. It was a breathtaking ten… Read More Yading National Park
From Dali to Lijiang I took the bus and arrived in the early afternoon. The following morning I took an early morning bus to one of China’s most famous tourist spots – Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was the main reason that I came to south west China. 16km long and 3900m from the waters of… Read More Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lijiang, Shaxi and Shangri-la
Guilin to Kunming involved an overnight train. After I had gotten over the scrummage through the ticketing gates, the rest of the journey was just lovely. Eighteen hours couldn’t have gone quicker. The Chinese people, as always, were unbelievably welcoming and we talked about all number of subjects without having a clue what the… Read More Kunming and Dali
Yangshou was an overnight bus journey from Guangzhou with excellent seats, which reclined without fault and had ample leg room. Life has definitely got easier on that front. I arrived at one of the major tourist attractions in China in the pouring rain. It is perhaps only the second time that I’ve had to reach… Read More Yangshou, Longji and Guilin
I took the train from Hong Kong to mainland China. For a country, which gives off the impression of total control, you would assume that the border crossing would be long and arduous but that couldn’t have been any further from the truth. It was an absolute breeze. Arriving in Guangzhou, I took the subway… Read More Guangzhou
Kathmandu is the first place that I have travelled to abroad, which I have returned to. It’s also a special place for me, because it was the first place that I ever visited outside of Europe. I remember being slightly knocked sidewise by the sights and sounds and that rang true when I arrived for… Read More Kathmandu and Hong Kong
Pokhara was nice, if for reasons which I did not expect. Situated around a large lake, a substantial travellers area has developed with excellent food and shops selling everything a backpacker needs. It’s the sort of place that I normally dislike, however, It’s been many months since I’ve been in a place with such a… Read More Pokhara and Chitwan National Park
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