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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 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 […]
{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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]