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lost in translation
Signs in bizarre English found on my travels have always been a guilty pleasure. China has provided a rich crop...Especially for vampiresThey will ban anything in China!Yes - take it out on the wall...
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chengdu - more
24 OctoberThere are several areas of old style back alleys, supposedly from the Ming era but I think heavily reconstructed, but no less charming for that – especially Jin Li, which has a host of bars,...
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the people's park
It’s late afternoon. The sun has finally penetrated the smog, though there;s still a smell of coal-smoke in the air. Warm and still. And very noisy. This is the People’s Park, in the heart of the...
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xi'an
Xi’an is way up in the middle of China, and was the original capital, from the time of the violent unification of the Six Kingdoms by the first emperor, Qin Shihuang, before 200BC, until it was moved...
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china pictures now posted
> I've now uploaded the best pictures from China to flickr --- click here to see them!
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guilin and yangshuo
Up early and fingers crossed. We are on our way to what’s billed as the best river cruise in the world. But the endless fog has continued and during our short stay in Guilin has greyed out all but...
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hong kong - and china conclusion
For more HK pics click hereMy days in China were coming towards their conclusion. Hong headed back to his home in Chongqing and I spent a day in Guangzhou (fogbound again) but was coming down with a...
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r&r
Now Ian has joined me for the distinctly more laid back phase of the trip. We are spending a few days in Jomtien, Pattaya’s slightly more decorous little sister a little further down the coast from...
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loi krathong
Our final night in Jomtien, and it’s Loi Krathong, the Thai festival of lights, held on the day of the twelfth full moon of the year. We went down to Jomtien beach to find it swarming with thousands...
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It’s seven years since I was in Cambodia’s capital and it still feels very poor compared with Thailand. Whether this is due to the after effects of the Khmer Rouge days – there is a distinct absence...
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phnom penh 2
We also visited some more pleasant sights in our few days here: the elegant, airy old art deco central market (pictured) and the the temple that gives the city its name, Wat Phnom, built on an...
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i'm an eco-tourist, get me out of here!
ée, on a five month Asian life-changing tour: the girls very friendly, lively and articulate (‘So you speak two languages?’ ‘No, four!’ ‘No, five!’). And a delightful Australian lady with a...
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south to the isthmus of kra and beyond
My Thailand destinations If Thailand is a sleeping flamingo, Khao Lak is the knee. This was our destination for the last leg of the trip, driving down from Bangkok, with a couple of stops on the way....
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david cameron copycat
I reckon that David Cameron must have been reading my blog. A few weeks after my visit to Chengdu, and he goes to all the same places including Du Fu's garden and the same hot pot restaurant. Not to...
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khao lak - and home
Such a good place to end our tour, just lazing about in the pools or long walks along the beach. Behind our hotel the jungle rises up, a great green wall of pristine forest, from which a continuous...
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A new trip to.the south west US
Time to restart my blog! We are in the southwestern U.S. on a tour of the national parks and having such a wide range of experiences that I'll forget it all if I don't write it down. I'm touring with...
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Day two: to Zion and Bryce Canyon
An early start and we headed for Zion National Park, via its doorstep little resort village, Springdale, where we were all persuaded to buy Tilley hats, "made with Canadian persnicketiness" and...
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Days three and four: to Capitol Reef
Battling to the car in Scott of the Antarctic conditions, we leave the plateau and drop down into relative calm, still cold but sunny, and investigate some further delights on Scenic Route 12. Best...
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