Lhasa Tour day 1 & 2 Could not sleep well at all with breathing problem, a hint of a headache and the noise from adjascent road. I had already been advised not to take a shower. Next morning a new guide picked me and walked to our base hotel (New Mandala Hotel). This definitely was a better hotel. The room was on the quite side and you got a breakfast in the morning. I was to await the tour mate who was sharing my room. As it turned out Mark Ayoub was a Californian 4th generation Syrian belonging to the Syrian Orthodox Church. At 20 years old he was 6' 8" tall basketball player and was easy to get on with. He had been to Bali etc. and is going to Kerala after Bhutan, Delhi, Mumbai ... read more

Beijing City Tour. The tour plan was good, it covered the top four attractions of the capital with two informative shopping stops. There was an Australian couple, two Greek girls living in London, a couple of lads from Costa Rica who were in Beijing for the Marathon, a Dutch girl who was doing some landscaping design in Xining and myself in the party. Only later I came to know that some of them had paid nearly twice as much as I did for the tour. I had miscalculated the time, had to rush out even without a shave as the guide was waiting in the reception. First port of call was the Forbidden City. As the name implies it was forbidden for all except the Emperor’s immediate court and high officials. It was a "city" as ... read more

Terracotta Warriors and other We left Xian around 0900hrs. It was a long drive to the small town where Terracotta Warriors were being excavated. On the way we stopped at the Huaquing Palace commonly known as Hot Springs. The Palace was built by later dynasties. The palace was the summer retreat of the Emperor and his favourite concubines. There were a lot of small lakes (full of fish) around palace rooms. There were also many baths in different shapes and one wondered if they were influenced by the Romans with their techniques in water canals and endearment to bathing. The whole complex with small and beautiful walk ways around the gardens and palace buildings were built on the side of a high mountain atop which was another palace building (now with a ropeway to it). In ... read more

Day2 Beijing City and Day 3 Hiking on the Great Wall As we had tedious day ahead (hiking on the Great Wall) we tried to keep the city tour to the minimum. Tessa, Ryan and Alex came in the morning and picked me up from the Hotel. We travelled by underground most of the time afterwards. Like most "undergrounds" it was easy to navigate once you got the hang of the different gates that exited to different streets or you had an help to help you with. As Tessa had not been to the Temple of Heaven and I did not mind another trip there we went there first. Next to the Lama temple which had some gorgeous buildings rivalling even the ones I had seen earlier. This was an active temple and worshippers were burning ... read more

This was the longest stretch we had driven in one day. Some 600 miles were covered in 9 hours including 2 stops one for lunch and one for fuel. The roads for most part was good but also included some single lane roads. This is never a problem as the trucks using these were also going at a fair speed. We started from Vegas , a bit late, around 1200hrs and reached Mini and Mathachans house in El Dorado Hills before 2100hrs. The change in scenery also was spectacular as go past the rockies the whole area become more lush and green. As we approach even though it was dusk we could see the rolling hills covered in vegitation and vineyards. As with the others we had seen the house again was big. It was well ... read more