Why You Should Visit Xinjiang
The adjective most commonly applied to Xinjiang* is “restive”. After a series of recent attacks attributed to the region’s Uyghur separatists, it was with some trepidation back in June that […]
Category Archives: China
Hong Kong: Pictures of Protest
When I took these pictures I thought there was a good chance that they would be irrelevant by now. After a temporary news blackout while I took a tour through […]
The Monastery Toilet
Tibet has China’s most draconian speed limits. Drivers have to register at regular checkpoints, where you’re told how long you have to take to get to the next checkpoint. It’s […]
Not Quite Kailash
This month I had originally planned to visit Mount Kailash in western Tibet. One of my (surprisingly few) travel dreams is to see the spectacular Saga Dawa festival that takes […]
Drums, Dragons & Beer: Dragon Boat Festival
Happy Dragon Boat Festival! A national holiday across China, Dragon Boat Festival (also known, somewhat unpronounceably, as ‘Tuen Ng Festival’ in Hong Kong) is a day devoted to racing boats, […]
Nice Buns! Cheung Chau Bun Festival
I stand corrected. After four years living on Cheung Chau and almost four years of telling people that it was kind-of-lame and best avoided, I’ve finally done the Cheung Chau […]
The Mysteries of Chinese New Year
In 2013 I spent Chinese New Year in Zhaoxing, a tiny village in Guizhou. The resultant food-and-firework-related trauma led me to put together a survival guide to the experience. Happily, […]
Five Great Tibetan Roads
Tibetan roads come in two flavours, plateau-straight and mountain-ripple. While plateau roads make for easy driving and quick progress, my heart belongs to the mountain roads that curve across the […]
“Ladder Fields”: Where to see China’s rice terraces?
In southern China, where there are hills, there are rice terraces. These “ladder fields”, as they’re called in Chinese (梯田, tītián) snake across hillsides from Fujian to Yunnan, cut into thousands […]
Golden Worm: A Film
“Look! They only have to work for a few months each year – the rest of the time they just relax and get fat…” Dorjee grumbled as we were overtaken […]
The Last Town in Sichuan
The town of Manigango sits astride a crossroad in north-west Sichuan. Turn right here, and an ancient dirt road will lead you into Sichuan’s extreme northwest, the birthplace of Tibetan […]
The Case of the Lost-and-Found Passport
{In which my guests and I leave Chengdu on the journey that will take us to Lhasa:} While driving through rush-hour Chengdu bears more than a passing resemblance to piloting a […]
Paperwork Pains
The post-trip dust of mystery receipts and cryptic notes-to-self (‘It [what?!] starts at 4,650m’ and ‘Watch out for… [illegible scrawl]‘) has finally settled. When I’m leading a journey, the adventure is […]
Leaving Lhasa
We made it! Despite the worryingly high chance of getting snowed in en route, we got all the way from Chengdu to Lhasa – 3,000 kilometres – with only two […]
Radio Silence Imminent
All is well in cloudy Chengdu, my guests having thus far braved Chinese domestic flights, temporary driving license applications, and weapons-grade hotpot. Tomorrow the actual hijinks begin… Unlike my adventures […]
Little Yak 