Well i reluctantly left Nepal for China.  Travelling to beijing involved a long trip on three different planes, changing in Lhasa and Chengdu. So after crossing the spectacular Tibetan plateau i spent 20 minutes on the ground in Lhasa airport.  I was travelling with a girl call Marieke who I met in the checkin queue in Kathmandu.  ...

After another comfortable soft sleeper overnight train journey, we arrived early in morning in Beijing.  The railway station was just heaving with people, as it had been in Xi'an the night before.  China is not the place for anyone who has a fear of crowds.    Beijing feels like a capital city, with broad streets, often 6 lan...

A friend of mine works at the Australian Embassay, and he told us about the dawn ceremony for ANZAC day in the embassy. I've never really been terribly into ANZAC Day but I was interested by the opportunity to go to the embassy, see who was there, pow wow with the ambassador in case I should ever need friends in high places (possibly involving h...

We got up fairly early today to head to the summer palaces. We took the new subway line to Wudaocou to switch to a bus. We didn't have a bus number or anything, we just planned on finding one when we got there. It actually worked out pretty well. While we were walking from the subway station to a bus stop we found a "Mr. Pizza" and decided that ...

Little did we anticipate the weather situation looming over us as V and I prepared for our biking jaunt across Beijing to the Forbidden City. Before this, organising our next day trip to The Great Wall as well as confirming our flight tickets to Xi'an for a couple of days time. Back to the lovely old couple who rent probably the shoddiest bikes ...

Beijing....is huge and under construction and very humid. The roadways are packed with crazy drivers, the subway is old and hot, and buses/taxis move slowly....We have no idea how they will cope with the Olympics. We did stay in a very nice traditional courtyard home/guesthouse and enjoyed some great meals(we found a fresh all-u-can-eat salad/fr...

I started the morning freezing and not wanting to get out of my comfy bed. Gus and Max both looked at me like I was nuts for being up at 430 and they went back to bed. I forced myself to get ready and said a tearful goodbye to Gus and Max. I remember making fun of Thore for being so sad to say his farewell to them, but now I know completely how ...

Sept 29th: somehow i lost a whole day in traveling, i arrive in beijing, the biggest problem is that i didn't bring a pen and must attempt to communicate with the chinese who turn out not to be big shareres; that disaster solved i easily retrieve my baggage and begin looking for a sam who is described as blond and in an orange shirt, i find him,...

"Jeroooooeeen????" Door mijn slaapkamerraam hoor ik een bekende stem op straat mijn naam roepen. Het is tien uur, zo'n vier uur nadat Maai&co zijn geland. Na wat vliegtuigvertraging, Lisa's-baggage-in-London-achtergebleven - , en vind-met-enkel-een foto-van-het-naamkaartje-de-weg-naar-het-hotelletje-tussen-de-tienduizenden-krotten-in-een-hutongb...