Time follows me around in Shanghai like a cloying beggar tugging at my sleeve. Down on the Bund the Rolex salesmen - dreambusters of the promenade - fall into step beside me, peddling their fake visions of corrupted time. As I gaze at the Huangpu, they seem to be screaming: "Stop staring at the river, looking for memories of Sampans, Japanese warships, paper flowers and paupers' coffins! That's the past - come on, time is money, buy this watch!"Then I slowly raise my eyes to Pudong's Oriental Pearl Tower and see a totem to China's economic destiny - a phallic reminder [View Full Entry]

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Hong Kong: Reasons to be Cheerful A ride on the Star Ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island The skyline from the water The cardboard cut out of Elvis in the breakfast room at the Anne Black Guest House Kowloon Walled City Park Short ferry trip to Macau Chungking Mansions (only to look at, never to stay in) Libraries, free facilities such as internet The civic relics of colonialism: The YMCA, Salvation Army and churches! (No doubt Boy Scouts are active too!) The Falun Gong demo outside Kowloon Station: freedom of speech The rule of law No spittin [View Full Entry]

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"You're in China, sir, where time and life have no meaning". Thus speaks the Eurasian warlord in the impossibly glamorous "Shanghai Express" (1932), as a cow halts the locomotive on its winding journey out of a Peking of hissing pistons, darting shadows, shouts and whistles. The film is shrouded in smoke: smoke from the train and, of course, smoke-as-sex from Marlene Dietrich as she announces "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily". This is smoking at its most glamorous and dangerous: everything imbued with meaning: the ceremony of lighting up, (whilst holding her ex [View Full Entry]

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As my train snaked through the suburbs of backstage Beijing - construction sites alternating with old tower blocks with stained air conditioning units - I already suspected that there was little I would understand about this huge contraption of a city. There was history in the air, for sure - seeping from the brickwork and the vanished temples and arches that hung in the ether. But it was a history whose dreams had long since turned to dust. The ancient walls, gardens and courtyards of imagination had long since been demolished by the communists in their rage to modernise the city. [View Full Entry]

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After the mystical experience of Lake Baikal, time speeded up again as we headed for the Mongolian border. Carriage 10 became a micro-world, the passengers all setting their own boundaries and establishing the roles, rituals and routines that were mutually noticed, yet never acknowledged. The smallest sound became audible - whether the drone of Jean-Paul humming a demented tune at the far end of the carriage or the snap of playing cards as my Swedish neighbours completed yet another hand of gin rummy. The two Chinese attendants were tolerant, though not indulgent. This trip may have been th [View Full Entry]

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On the Trans-Siberian Express you kill time - in more ways than one. This is a journey where time slows to a halt - drained from the environment and stripped of any linear dimension. For once we are in control of time, yet also free to decide what it means. Modern life, with its neurotic assumptions about schedules and arrivals - falls away, leaving a protected environment and the freedom, for six days, to choose how to structure time. In a sense it's a return to a lost childhood: drowsy afternoons lying reading on a bunk, waiting for the call to [View Full Entry]

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In Graham Greene’s “Travels with My Aunt”, Henry, a retired bank manager, sets off with his favourite ‘spinster’ aunt on a series of exotic travel adventures. Henry, rescued from suburbia, is challenged by Aunt Augusta’s eccentric ways, which include cannabis growing, ex-lovers in all corners of the world, and an undimmed spirit of adventure. This was the 1960s, so the book turns the world on its head, twisting traditional social roles. But the essence still applies today: romance is there if you look, things are not what they seem, age isn't necessarily a [View Full Entry]

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A 'riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma...'. The 'Iron Curtain', the 'Russian Bear', the 'Great Game'... vivid images but what does all this mean today? And what can you learn of the famous Russian soul armed only with a few words of the language and a Trans-Siberian railway ticket? My expectations were low as I picked my way across the mini-potholes littering the platform at Belorusskaya Station. I did, however, have my own Russian Bear to help me through the culture shock and language barrier: negotiating potholes both literal and metaphorical. Vyachaslav, an aeronautical engineer, [View Full Entry]

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