As a rule I like to travel with only a small bag, which is not such a good idea in Tibet in the middle of November sleeping at altitudes of over 4000m. Wearing everything that I owned was still not enough to prevent the cold from creeping in through every little gap in my defences. While the sun is shining you can get away with wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but the minute you enter the shade the temperature drops by so much that I am convinced if you put your toes in the shade and your face in the sun [View Full Entry]

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Before it’s opening in July last year the Qinghai to Tibet railway was expected to be the final nail in the coffin for Tibetan culture in China. Opening up this once inaccessible province to the thousands of Han Chinese who now walk the streets of Lhasa. Since the Chinese invasion in the 1950s Tibetan culture has been steadily pushed aside in the name of progress, but this progress has come at a huge cost to the Tibetan people. The Chinese see themselves as champions of this once backwards feudal state bringing electricity, infrastructure and all of the trappings of modern life [View Full Entry]

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Yunnan Province, tucked away in the south west corner of China, is bordered Laos, Burma, and Tibet giving it a unique "un Chinese" atmosphere. Nowhere else in China, for example, would you see shops full of pipes and bongs on every street corner. Not for smoking Weed, which strangely for China is also in abundance here, but for smoking cigarettes. Not a day goes past without seeing an old man squatting by the street inhaling bong fulls of cigarette smoke. The old men in question are probably in their mid thirties having prematurely aged from excessive nicotine consumption, but that is [View Full Entry]

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You sit down on a makeshift stool outside a roadside dumpling shop. The old man behind you lights up a cigarette as his bowl of noodles arrives. He slurps at them noisily moving each hand up to his mouth alternating between food and smoke. He is a picture postcard Chinese, wearing a blue Mao cap and matching button down shirt. A handful of wispy, white strands of hair hang off his chin and he is smoking his cigarette through a pipe. On his feet he wears the cloth shoes of a Kung Fu master, yet he walks with a cane. You [View Full Entry]

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I have been sitting on my arse in Seoul complaining about the ugliness of the city for more than two years, but I have finally become motivated enough to go and seek out somewhere more beautiful in Korea before I leave forever in a few days. Kyongju is the Old capital of Korea and is in the south of the country close to the East Sea. (that's the Sea of Japan for anyone not in Korea!) The city could not be more different from Seoul. The people are more relaxed and the pace of life is noticeably slower. It feels very [View Full Entry]

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We crossed the border in search of cheaper accommodation. We never realised it would be free. The bus to the border town of Silopi took about an hour, maybe more; the most intriguing thing about the journey was the queue of oil tankers waiting to get in to Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of them parked in a long line that stretched for a hundred miles along the road. Next to them were little tent communities of people sitting round camp fires or relaxing in hammocks suspended between the axles of their vehicles. This was one of the most incredible things that [View Full Entry]

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November 2004 - As beautiful as the north of Pakistan is, which is extremely by the way, there is not so much to do. Most of the day can be spent outside exploring the glaciers or walking down the river bed but as soon as the sun dips behind a mountain the temperature plummets past uncomfortable towards unbearable. Being outside ceases to be an option. Unfortunately for us in November the sun sets very early leaving a large portion of the late afternoon and evening cold and empty. It is in times like these that 'herbal' stimulation is needed to help [View Full Entry]

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November 2004 - Perhaps foolishly I thought that that the transport to Herat would only take one day, however, after thirteen hours cramped in to a toyota pickup truck with ten other people, the sun had begun, and finished, its descent to the west and we were still in the wilderness. We had been driving since 3AM the previous morning through rivers and over mountains. we had endured two punctures, replaced the petrol tank and had to get out and push no less than five times and , but at no point had we been on anything that could even loosely [View Full Entry]

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At 9 am I went to the press centre as instructed, only to be met by all manner of professionals that made me feel like the ultimate fraud. Here I was, a hanger on for a newspaper that isn't even in print and I was being introduced to people from the New York times, The LA Times, CNN, Reuters and others too numerous to mention. I didn't even have business card! When I agreed to this job I thought that we would be going to a temple in Seoul, but shortly after the bus left I found out that we were [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Erbil flustered but unscathed where we found ourselves in yet another police station, but this one had a large wall around it and many more soldiers milling around some of whom escorted us through the building and in to a small office surrounded by a well tended lawn and some rather nice looking trees. Inside our handcuffs were removed and we were given cigarette each and allowed to watch TV while two men sat behind a desk and spoke in soft whispers. After some time the nicer of the two men, the one who had given us the [View Full Entry]

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