The village of Batad has no road access whatsoever, meaning that an approach on foot is the only option. We took a jeepney from Banaue to Batad Saddle, on the ridge overlooking the village. The 15km journey took 1.25 hours, with the final stretch up the hill from Batad Junction to Batad Saddle possibly the worst piece of "road" I've ever been on in public transport. It was bad enough for the human passengers but the chickens, trussed up and stuffed under the benches, must have been highly unamused. From the Saddle, we followed a path down into the valley, first stepped, then rough stone, and finally a dirt track. We could see a few rice terraces on the way down but the main ones only came into view once we were approaching the cluster of ... read more

LA Woman had been struggling with a heavy cold and stomach upset pretty much since we arrived in the Philippines, but Baguio did not seem to be a town suitable for a recovery period so we decided to plough on to Sagada. The ride out of Baguio was in the sunshine, and the swathes of houses clustered on the hillsides made it look significantly more appealing than when we'd arrived. The entire journey was on twisting mountain roads with many parts completely unsurfaced so comfort was at a premium, but we did pass a place called Loo, a roadwork sign warning of "Good men" working ahead, and a large board by the roadside helpfully displaying the 10 commandments. Fortunately we found our best accommodation so far in Sagada - a bright airy room with a great ... read more

One aspect of Filipino transport that makes life difficult for travellers is the general lack of centralised bus stations. Having plenty of bus companies is a good thing, but not when they all depart from different places in the same town. Fortunately both the potential lines for our next destination shared a bus station, so we chugged along to it on a trike - LA Woman in the sidecar with my rucksack, her rucksack balanced precariously on the sidecar's roof, and me balanced even more precariously side-saddle behind the driver. The bus was one of the more comfortable I've had on my travels with Arctic aircon bringing a smile to my lips. Though the road was supposedly a national highway, it was more like Saltburn high street in terms of width and number of lanes. Most ... read more

A 1 hour ferry ride took us from Hong Kong to Macau. At first glance, the place seemed similar to Hong Kong but with some Las Vegas ingredients supplied by the casinos - the cheesiness of the Sands, the tackiness of the Lisboa, the awesomeness of the under-construction Grand Lisboa, and the plain but still opulent Wynn. Subsequent ramblings revealed elements of the mainland (not an enormous amount of English spoken, people staring at us, and more smoking than Hong Kong) as well as Portugal (cuisine, especially baccalau i.e. salt cod, architecture, narrow streets with thousands of mopeds, and street signs written in Portuguese and Chinese). Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule from British ownership attracted much attention in 1997, but the similar return of Macau by the Portuguese 2 years later barely registered on most ... read more

Our trip to Xi'an was a slog, though I won't arouse any sympathy when I say we went soft-sleeper. The first leg of the journey was overnight from Dunhuang to Lanzhou. We had the pleasant surprise of a compartment to ourselves and also tried out the dining car, where we were the only occupants not ignoring the "No Smoking" signs and were lucky that another passenger helped us to decipher the handwritten hanzi menu. At Lanzhou, LA Woman was hoping to find a Poste Restante package from home but unfortunately it seemed to have gone astray in the Chinese postal system. Since it was already nearly a week later than expected, there didn't seem much point in hanging around so we boarded a train to Xi'an. Though I hadn't realised it when buying the tickets, we ... read more