The faux leather anorak pulled awkwardly over his hands, legs bound with a blue scarf, he sat, painfully, the train swaying from side to side. I couldn't help looking, and he craned his head to look at me. I felt someone else's stare and looked up. Two men, one small and chubby, the other with a long thin shrewd looking stare, standing in the gap between the carriages, taking a deep toke on his cigarette, held between his ring and third finger. Glancing behind, I noticed that the dining car was filled with police, who seemed to move, coming closer. Prisoner, smokers and police looked keenly at me, the foreigner, the source of entertainment after midnight on the train from Chengdu. They all knew the situation and so did I - the toilet door wouldn't close. ... read more

Lhasa - yak butter eaten from a torn Sprite bottle, incense smouldering in brass pots, smoke suffusing the air with the smell of devotion, that thin air, hard to breathe. Girls, women, men and boys, all dressed proudly in patterned jackets, long skirts, satin coloured, some half on- half off. Babies nestled in thickly swaddled backpacks, mother's hair braided with jewellery adorning the jet black, father's hair just as ornate. The hair so carefully braided, is coming undone after a day's pilgrimage. Sun burnt, leather, lined faces, pink cheeks, rouge sometimes substituting that sun broken pinkness; old ladies swirling tasselled hand-held prayer wheels and muttering under their breath. Wild west buildings, women wearing cowboy hats. The city is nestled among big craggy mountains, some snow-topped, others sandy brown. I know I'm stating the obvious, but you ... read more

Empire of the Smog Our Japanese adventure was bookended by Shanghai. We had spent three nights here before heading off on the ferry and three when we returned. Shanghai is a huge city, a highrise horizon stretching for miles in each direction, endless spires lit with neon at night, fading into the chemical haze. Immediately the city felt different to Beijing, less formal, less organised, a sort of merchant border town with the sea. The streets teem with entrepreneurial vigour - a shoeshop by day becomes a makeshift cafeteria at night, extended families sharing the same shopfront re-cast as the day wears on. From the window of our rented apartment on the 19th floor we could see all the worlds of Shanghai, old mouldering blocks, home to generations of shopkeepers, clustered like the terminal moraine of ... read more

Tokyo is addictive, and even after an extra two days there, I had to be dragged away kicking and screaming, much to Alan's annoyance, he said that carrying our two-back packs was fine but I was just too heavy. Sulking in the Shinkansen was only temporary however, as we were blessed with a magnificent clear view of Mount Fuji. The height of the snow-topped mountain is exaggerated by the relative flatness of the surrounding land, and we both felt that we really were in picture-postcard Japan. Another perk of the journey was the Bento boxes we bought in Tokyo station - these amazing neat little compartmentalised boxes with their tantalising bite-sized portions of exotic mysterious foods are so pretty that you almost don't want to apply chop-sticks to them, but needless to say we did. It ... read more

Zipping down the tracks on the Shinkansen to Tokyo, playing with the reclining buttons on the seats, watching the locals eating from their Bento boxes, tired business men dozing and a chubby young Harajuku girl in her carefully accessorised outfit - bag, socks, necklace, top and massive earphones all with enormous strawberries on them. 'We've finally made it' Alan said, 'from the island of Ireland to the islands of Japan.' The land mass we've covered over the past seven weeks makes it feel as though we've been on the road for longer than we have - from drizzly Ireland, leaves falling off trees, to nearly two months later, drizzly Japan, leaves turning orange gold and red. We are chasing autumn, and in Japan, with it's abundant forests this was immediately more in evidence than urban China. ... read more