Well if last night was an excess in sleeping late today is the opposite, as we have to crawl out of bed around five am to go pick up Kay at the Capital Airport. Not only are morning flights a nuisance when you have to take them yourself, they're just as annoying when someone else does. It is a small price to pay for a full day's stay at the destination though, provided you arrive in a relatively relaxed state. Joanne and I jump into a taxi and speed off in the gloomy morning. Traffic is mercifully light. I manage to forget a glove in the backseat of the cab and before I can react it is long gone on new adventures. Kay's flight is on time and before too long we can meet up in ... read more

In our original plan Joanne was supposed to be off work starting today, yet she has to fix some things at the office in the morning. This gives me a good excuse to sleep in late. After sleeping through the night next to the open balcony door and the a/c on full blow it is now getting quite comfy in the room, the temperature has dropped to around 22 C. I briefly get up in the morning to watch the faint glowing disk of sunlight desperately trying to break through the smog. It's no use. Beijing is in a self-imposed twilight zone. And much like in the rest of the city, the air in my apartment is a bit dry. Every time I go to the sink to splash some water into my face I receive ... read more

After having finally spent the past weeks to sort out which flights to use it was now time to make my mind up on how to get to Kastrup airport. It may seem like the smallest of concerns yet this simple transfer has a tendency to become drawn out, due to the limited availability of connecting flights or other means of transportation. Basically it boiled down to two options; jumping on and off trains southward or going north to grab a connecting flight to Copenhagen from Stockholm (There is also a theoretical third option. My hometown Jönköping is blessed with an "international" airport, but opting for the flight to Copenhagen would mean arriving at 8 am for an onward flight in the late evening. Thanks, but no thanks). A connecting flight from Stockholm was my first ... read more

Transit time in Bangkok. Again, I have no particular agenda. It is nice to have lazy days like this, even though the time could have been spent more efficiently. At four thirty I head outside and am immediately floored by the heat, even at this hour. Yahoo reports 35 degress Celsius and I believe them. I take the MTR down to Siam and seek out my favourite photo shops to stock up on more camera accessories. I find some filters and cheap film, but those yummy telescopic lenses remain expensive so I steer clear of them. I buy some dinner with me and eat at my hotel room waiting for my midnight flight to come up. As I begin packing in the evening the neighbourhood suffers a total blackout, and not knowing how long it will ... read more

Last day in Thimphu already. How dull! We have agreed to leave for the tsechu at 7 am to stand a chance against the expected crowd. This being the last day of the tsechu also means the most people will be present. I wonder how it can be possible to squeeze in even a single person more than yesterday and shudder at the thought of finding a good spot. We quickly check out from the hotel and I load all my surplus bananas Jasu's friends gave me into the trunk of the car and we speed off towards the dzhong. The weather is looking up and the sun is shining on a blue sky. Over at the dzhong I realize I am still carrying the heavy metallic room key, how can you forget an item like ... read more