The Little Yak 2015 Calendar
What? It’s only November and my 2015 calendars are almost ready??! Yes, gentle reader, in a rare instance of advance planning, I have managed to pick out twelve of my […]
Category Archives: Practicalities
Five things I’ve learned about travel photography
My camera and I travelled almost 30,000 kilometres (or 18,750 miles, but that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive) across China last year. We returned with over 10,000 photographs documenting all […]
How to Order Chinese Food like a Pro
Ordering Chinese food can be a nerve-wracking experience, particularly if you don’t speak or read Chinese. Get it wrong, and your fears of being served platefuls of unmentionable animal parts […]
Travel with care.
Why do we travel? I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Perhaps – as the writer Bruce Chatwin believed – we’re all nomads at heart. Perhaps we secretly yearn […]
Travelling Light Redux
Earlier this summer I attempted to travel light on a six-week trip to Northwest China. On the day I left Hong Kong, my backpack weighed 9kg (20lb), and my camera […]
Good Good Study, Day Day Up!
Studying Chinese requires that you make a few decisions upfront. Do you learn Mandarin or another dialect? Learn the characters or stick with pinyin? Traditional or simplified characters? Go to […]
The Science of Travelling Light
Eurgh – packing lists. I generally shun them as indicative of control-freakery, but given that my own packing is reduced to putting everything in a big pile, adding some things […]
The Art of Travelling Light
Luggage is a fact of life. Whether you’re going to a friend’s house for the weekend or on a six-month long expedition across the steppes of Central Asia, you’ll need […]
Tibet Travel Permits – An Introduction
Travelling to Tibet is a dream for many people. The legend of a high-up, far-away and closed-off kingdom ruled by monks that developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries […]
Tibetan Travel Update – Good News!
Those of you who follow the Byzantine rules and regulations that govern travel inside the Tibetan Autonomous Region will know that since May last year it has been more difficult […]
