First question: have you seen Avatar? If not, please go watch it and then come back to this post. In the interim, I will mention again how delightful my hotel is. I am staying within the Zhangjiajie National Park and its lovely. I was also most impressed with breakfast, although I did not manage to…

I am writing this at Guilin train station waiting for my train to Zhangjiajie (no idea how to pronounce this as my attempts are usually met with laughter by locals). Anyway, a leisurely morning of a lie in, a late breakfast (including spicy noodles, but this time in the air conditioning which seemed sensible) and…

The Longji Rice Terraces have been on my “I want to see this” list for some time, and today, I have finally done it! Earlier this week, I had been rather concerned that I would be seeing them through the haze of thunderstorm, but the weather Gods were smiling down on me. Anyway, let’s start…

Its 7pm on Monday and I am writing this at Kashi airport having just waved off my group and am now officially on my own – I feel a little bereft. Anyway, I am getting slightly ahead of myself. Today was my last day of the tour and “officially” the tour ends after breakfast. Lets…

I am writing this on Sunday, and for a change I am not writing it on a bus, but rather in my hotel room having an afternoon escape from the heat of the day. There was an attempt to purchase a mango smoothie on the way back, but either I failed to find the shop…

Well, here we are, I have now completed the Silk Road (whoop!). I am in Kashgar which is the most Westerrn city in China, closer to Tehran and Damascus than it is to Beijing and if only international border crossings (and time) allowed for it, from here I could cross the Torugart Pass to Bishkek…

Another day, another blogging session on the bus… We are on the road from Aksu to Markit so we are heading into the Taklamakan desert. So again, we start with scrubby bush and the odd huge solar farm. We have just had a police checkpoint/toilet/snack/shopping stop. It even had ostriches- we were not sure why?…

A slightly later start today, and we are off heading over the lower Tian Shan towards Aksu (again, I am writing this on a bus). The landscape is amazing – these mountains are even older than the Himalayas, and you can see how they were pushed up of the ground. This area was almost used…

It is now Tuesday, and I have safely arrived into the city of Kuqa. Firstly, I am very pleased to report that the temperature has dropped considerably to the low 30s with a breeze. I might need to start wearing a jacket! Kuqa has a population of around 84,000 (so tiny by Chinese standards) and…

Turpan is the second lowest point in the world at 154 meters below sea level – and as I alluded to in my last post, this means it is very, very hot. I am writing this at 12.30 on Monday where we have retreated inside into darkened (air conditioned) rooms in order to escape the…