Greece is a homecoming. I'm not sure whether it's my secret affinity for all things Greek, my arrival in a country I had been to before, or the fact that for the first time since leaving China I can summon up the courage to order a coffee in the local language without holding a phrasebook behind my back. But with the sun shining and a view over the Mediterranean it is very hard to wipe a smile off your face. Which is equally difficult when you sail into Venice shortly after daybreak, pick up a cappuccino and brioche in a small cafe, wander through the alleys and across the squares (any attempt at reading a map being futile, which makes it all the more enjoyable), feast on beautiful food and end the day by watching Madame ... read more

Back on the more or less straight line between Beijing and Rome!... read more

Sarp is a busy border crossing: with the border between Turkey and Armenia closed because of the current political climate, all traffic travelling between the two countries and indeed between Europe and the Caucasus goes through Georgia. It's a fairly straight forward process, it just involves queuing for a couple of hours. Or rather fending your territory in the mob and try to stop every man and his dog from pushing in before you. As I had already discovered in the Baku train station, queueing culture has not yet arrived on the Caucasus. At the Turkish border post, they have tried to put some kind of order in the process by setting up a turnstile through which everyone has to file before getting to the immigration office. This, however, does not stop people from trying to ... read more

This is the first border that I did not have to cross on foot! Instead I was in the comfort of a train compartment (not a Chinese import this time, I think..), which I shared with a merry old Azeri. He offered me one of the many cans of beer he was carrying and made delightful conversation to me in Russian. The fact that I declined his beer and barely understood a word of what he said did not seem to matter to him too much. His daughter, fluent in English, gave up translating after a while and put him to bed. In the morning, the train stopped, the Azeri customs officials swept through the train, collected everyone's passports and then handed them back again. A short stretch down the track the Georgians did the same. ... read more

If it takes a beer to tie you over the wait trying to get into Turkmenistan, bring a keg when you're trying to get out. Granted, I did not fly out from Ashgabat airport like most tourists would. Instead I took an overnight train (clearly Chinese manufactured - strangely familiar!) to Turkmenbashi, the coastal city in the far west, to get a boat across the Caspian Sea to Baku. I knew that this would not be a straight forward affair: there is no timetable for the boats, they simply leave as soon as they are loaded with cargo. If there is no cargo they don't leave, and if the cargo is deemed to be of hazardous nature, they won't let you on board at all. Nonetheless, there is steady ferry traffic between the two cities, and ... read more