"....We landed in the country of the Lotus-Eaters, who live on a flowering food." Homer:The Odyssey. Tunisia was a gentle re-introduction to the African continent. It has good tourist infrastructure, an efficient public transport system and its people are friendly and helpful. After 6 months back in Britain earning some money, I'm traveling again. (See my last blog). I had packed an Arabic phrase book, but found that I didn't need to use it. Everyone I spoke to in the last 2 weeks spoke French. I flew out of Britain on the 7th of January [View Full Entry]

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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 2, scene 2. After just under 6 months back in the UK, I'm setting off on my travels again. In the last few months I've been working for a Debt Collection Agency, which has its main call centre in a village a few miles from Stratford-on-Avon. My last day in the job was on New Years Eve. I will fly on [View Full Entry]

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Listen to the yell of Léopold's ghost, Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Vachel Lindsay After 5 months back in Blighty working in a call centre for a Debt Collection agency, I decided to take a short trip to Brussels. I've handed in my notice at the company, as I'm going to return to Africa in January 2008. I took advantage of a special offer on Eurostar - a return journey with a nights accommodation. I had 3 days off work. I left my Dad's house in Kineton on the 10th of December, taking the train down to London. I [View Full Entry]

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This is the end... I'm now back in England. What have I learned from my journey in the last 32 months? I've learned a lot but I've also learned that the more I know, the more I realise how little I know about the world. At the end of the last blog 'Real Men walk the Wall' I left you in Beijing. On the 6th of July I caught the train to Shanghai, which was a 12 hour overnight journey. There were no soft sleeper places on the train, so I went by soft seat. In China the train tickets are [View Full Entry]

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"The heavens are high, the clouds are pale, We watch as the wild geese disappear southwards. If we fail to reach the Great Wall we are not true men. We who have marched more than 20,000 li." (Mao Zedong) Beijing (北 京 = Northern Capital) is the cultural and political capital of the most populous country in the world. It's also a major tourist attraction because of its Imperial Palaces and the nearby Great Wall. But Beijing wasn't always the capital of China. In fact it seems a very strange place to [View Full Entry]

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"Earth heaped high, like a mountain, supplies enormous resources. In human beings, morality cultivated to the highest level is the means to spiritual purity and stillness." (Attributed to the Yellow Emperor - Source Taoist Web Site) Shanxi, (山西) literally means Mountains' West ( 山=Shan,Mountain)(西=Xi, West). It shouldn't be confused with its neighbouring province of Shaanxi. I arrived in Shanxi from Shaanxi (see my previous blog [url=http://www.travelblog.org/Asia [View Full Entry]

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"Best is the emperor who is barely known. Next the ruler who is loved and honoured. Then the despot who is feared. And finally the tyrant reviled. Govern quietly And the people will realize They are responsible For their own well-being. (Lao Zi;the Dao De Jing ). Xi'an served as the ancient capital for 12 Chinese dynasties from 1000 BC to 1000 AD. Xi'an was already a major world city at the time when Homer wrote the poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. (I'm ignoring the debate about who actually wrote the poems here). Later during the Tang Dynasty (1 [View Full Entry]

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"You have your thoughts and I have mine. This is the fact and you can't change it even if you kill me." (Ba Jin, shouted out at the end of a televised public humiliation in the People's Stadium of Shanghai, during the "Cultural Revolution" on the 20th June 1968). Ba Jin who was one of the greatest of China's 20th century writers was born in Chengdu in 1904. Chengdu was the latest stop in my world trip(click here). The city is famous for its spicy food, the Giant Pandas, the Sichuan Ope [View Full Entry]

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Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex. It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the male has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction. The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an [View Full Entry]

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The province of Guangxi was my latest stop in my multi year world trip. (Check out my home page here for the over 90 entries of the places I've visited in the last 3 years). The Karst formations around Guilin and Yangshuo are stunningly beautiful. Its maybe "the most beautiful landscape under heaven". But along with with that comes the hustle. The area is a very popular tourist destination with both Chinese and foreign tourists. This means that I was sharing the experience with loads of tour groups and touts. I left the story [View Full Entry]

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