When I started the Little Yak blog in August 2012, I really didn’t know what I wanted to say – it took me until January 2013 to work up to writing the first post. And here we are; one year, one house move, two weddings, 29,000 kilometres and 70 posts later…

Last year was a fun one for me. I did some great trips and met some wonderful, fascinating people and enjoyed writing about both. Thank you to everyone who has been reading Little Yak for taking the time to visit this particular corner of the internet. I’ve really appreciated your comments, advice and support – please keep it coming!

Hopefully, I’ll have even more to write about in the coming Year of the Horse – I will be writing a guidebook to Myanmar (or Burma, as you like) over the next couple of months, and there are two trips to Tibet’s Mount Kailash (one of my all-time bucket list trips) in the works with  On the Road in China. Exciting, exciting stuff…

One of the unexpected directions that Little Yak took me in was to write about Chinese food and cooking, which – unsurprisingly for a perennially hungry person – I love. I plan to continue writing about food, but it’s starting to feel a bit tangential to what I’m doing with Little Yak, and so [drumroll please!] I will be starting a new food-related website in early February! More information on that to follow just as soon as I bash the site into shape.

And so while Little Yak’s strapline may need to change to “Slow Journeys across Asia” instead of through China, and while readers in search of how to make a killer mapo tofu will have a new website to visit, I’ll still be out there, travelling slowly…

Finally, a selection of photographs that were left on 2013’s cutting room floor – enjoy! xx

Freezing at Lake Qinghai, Qinghai

Wedding-crashing in Zhaoxing

Getting air, Yilhun La-tso, Sichuan

“Police Mirror”, Tashkurgan, Xinjiang

Scandalising the imam, Dongguan Mosque, Xining. The imam later said “And they call themselves monks!”

Mutton for breakfast, Shufu, Xinjiang

Fellow travellers, somewhere near the source of the Yangtze, Qinghai

With the happiest person in Cherchen, Xinjiang

Evan and Luoja, Xiahe

Paparazzi at Shanwei Middle School, Guangdong

Me monkey, Guangdong