The End of the Road

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

After 380 days on the road, we’re now back in the UK and slowly readjusting to life in the real world. We’ve been lucky enough to visit so many incredible places that it’s almost impossible to answer the inevitable questions about which were our favourites. This is our attempt to list just a few of them.

Our favourite countries

  1. New Zealand – big mountains, golden beaches and epic scenery at every turn in the road – there’s no doubt in our minds that it really is the most beautiful country on earth!
  2. Japan – phenomenal powder skiing, fascinating culture and the joy of bullet train travel.
  3. Colombia – tropical beaches, the Indiana Jones feeling at the ‘Lost City’ and friendly locals who spend as much time exploring their own country as the tourists do.

Our favourite short hikes

  1. Mueller Hut, Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand
  2. The Great Wall of China, Jinshanling to Simatai, China
  3. Wadi Muthlin (the ‘secret’ gateway to Petra), Jordan

Our favourite multiday hikes

  1. Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City), Colombia
  2. The ‘W’, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
  3. Kepler Track, New Zealand
Our favourite cities
  1. Auckland, New Zealand
  2. Beijing, China
  3. Kyoto, Japan

Our favourite culinary experiences

  1. Any meal cooked in Eric, our beloved campervan, in New Zealand
  2. The incredible snacks paraded before passengers on any Indian Railways journey (after an 8 hour delay nothing lifts the spirits more than the cry of ‘samosa samosa’!)
  3. Falafel, hummous and fu’ul (bean and garlic puree) at the King’s favourite restaurant in Amman, Jordan

Our favourite journeys

  1. The road to Milford Sound, New Zealand
  2. Travelling by bullet train through Hokkaido’s winter wonderland, Japan
  3. Flying Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to Auckland. The only airline where you are treated to the finest Kiwi wines and woken with a simulated sunrise as you come in to land.

Our favourite activities

  1. Skiing at Niseko, Japan
  2. Surfing at Mount Manganui, New Zealand
  3. Hot air ballooning over the Nile, Egypt

Our favourite spots for relaxing

  1. The white sand beaches of Savai’i, Samoa
  2. The green rice paddy fields of Hampi, India
  3. The rugged hills of San Agustin, Colombia

Our most eye opening experiences

  1. The DMZ between North & South Korea
  2. Atomic Bomb Museum, Hiroshima, Japan
  3. The security wall between Israel and Palestine

Thanks so much for reading the blog and sharing our adventures. We’re looking forward to catching up with you all soon!

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Walking like an Egyptian

Posted on May 4, 2012 by

As we touched down in Cairo, we had an overriding feeling of weariness at the prospect of Egypt. It always takes us a few days to adjust to a new country and after so many incredible sights and with our return home so imminent, our concern was that this last week might turn out to be a little disappointing. Fortunately we had one of the trip’s big hitters still to come: the Pyramids of Giza. Truly vast in scale and imposing in appearance, it’s almost impossible to imagine them being built in modern times – let alone 4000 years ago. Normally it’s one of the busiest tourist sites in the world, but thanks to the revolution it was all but deserted during our visit (aside from the army of touts – but more about them later…)

We’d been dreading the overnight journey to Luxor, but for £10 ended up with huge business class seats and one of the best night’s sleeps we’ve had on public transport all trip. We were somewhat thrown by the fact that there was not one bit of English signage in the station – only the second time in the whole trip that we’ve been genuinely flummoxed (the first was trying to explain vegetarianism in rural Korea!) – in the end we had to just jump on board what we thought was the right train and hope for the best.

Luxor is about 600km south of Cairo on the bank of the Nile and nowhere is the lack of tourists being felt more keenly. Since the revolution, visitor numbers to Egypt have dropped off a cliff and in Luxor we saw vast numbers of Nile boats moored up and rusting. Plush hotels sat half abandoned in prime positions and the ubiquitous touts were growing ever more desperate.

The premier site in Luxor is the stunning Temple of Karnak– a mass of pillars and hieroglyphs guarded by an army of sphinxes. Renovation versus restoration has been debated at every archaeological site that we’ve visited and here they had definitely gone for the heavy duty rebuild with some liberal doses of concrete. The end result does seem a bit Disneyland (we were a bit disappointed not to be getting on a ‘Mummy Returns’ style rollercoaster after walking around the ruins), but it does give an impression of the scale of the place in a way that crumbling ruins just can’t achieve.

The following day we headed out on bikes to explore the famous Valley of the Kings on the Nile’s west bank. For the first time on the trip our equipment let us down, and at the furthest point away from civilisation, I realised I had a puncture. With the baking sun reaching its zenith and faced with the prospect of pushing our bikes back for 15 kilometres, things were looking grim. Fortunately a young Egyptian boy came to our aid with a welcome bike pump that gave the wheel enough juice to see us back to safety. He even refused to take any money for his troubles, which was a pleasant antidote to the constant demand for ‘baksheesh’ that we have heard from everyone else. Punctures aside, the hieroglyphs in the tombs were pretty amazing (sadly no photos allowed) with incredibly vivid colours. However, the designs seemed so familiar that it was difficult to appreciate just how old they were. As far as I remember, gory slave torture wasn’t on our primary school curriculum though, but it seems that some of the Pharaohs were pretty keen on it!

That should have been it forLuxor, but over dinner we met an Australian who announced that he had negotiated a massive discount on a hot air balloon flight for the following morning and that we were welcome to join him. When were we ever going to get a chance to balloon over the Nile for only £20 per person? We decided to go for it and set our alarm for 4am (not entirely necessary as every hostel we’ve stayed at has been next to a mosque so the call to prayer has become our early morning wakeup call). The whole experience was beautifully serene and gave a whole different perspective of the temples and a better appreciation of their scale. Drifting with the wind over fields and villages certainly was a lovely way to sightsee.

A few hours later, we boarded our train to Aswan and settled in for a four hour executive class travel experience. Up until that point we’d encountered no evidence of the problems affecting Egypt (aside from the somewhat sinister effigies hanging from lampposts in Tahrir Square), but as the train stopped and started and finally stopped all together at a dusty station in the middle of nowhere, we knew something wasn’t right. We finally received word that ‘revolution’ was ahead and that burning barricades had been laid across the tracks. At this point we had the choice to stick around and see what happened – or beat a hasty retreat to Luxor. In the best traditions of Britons abroad (and with Monty Python’s Holy Grail firmly planted in my head), we bravely turned our tails and fled…

Our last stop in Egypt and the last of our trip was the incredible Western Desert.  The whipping wind and sand has carved the calcium mountains into weird and wonderful shapes, leaving the desert littered with unusual white obelisks.

The highlight of the safari was still to come though. We spent the evening sitting around a campfire as our Bedouin guides entertained us with traditional songs and the stars erupted overhead. Whilst other tour groups we’d seen were sleeping in tents, we were invited to grab a mattress and a couple of camel hair blankets and pick a spot to sleep out under the stars. Waking up at 5am with the dawn light creeping over the horizon was an experience that neither of us will forget in a hurry.

And with that, our trip comes to an end. We’ve just spent our final day in Cairo visiting the Museum of Egypt which was stuffed with more mummies and statues than you could ever hope to see in a lifetime. Sadly, there were no cameras allowed in – but to be honest, most of the best stuff was nicked by the British 200 years ago and can be seen for free in the British Museum. Our impression of Egypt improved steadily during our trip. The problem is that the touts you meet can be amongst the most unpleasant people on earth and really colour your impression of a country. When we did get a chance to meet and talk to ‘real’ Egyptians they were almost always courteous and friendly, but the drop in tourist numbers has made those people who rely on visitors ever more desperate.

Next stop: Heathrow. We hear the weather is lovely at the moment in London so those blue skies should make our golden tans look all the more impressive. Look out for our final highlights blog next week…

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Oh little town of Bethlehem…

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

Despite looking into the Holy Land and seeing nothing but desert, we decided to abandon our original plan of risking kidnap in Egypt’s bandit ridden Sinai region and follow in Moses’ footsteps to Israel. Jerusalem might seem like a strange destination for an atheist and a Christmas-only-Christian, but we’d heard what a beautiful city it was and thought there must be at least a few non-religious things to do. It turns out we were wrong! With devout Christians, Jews and Muslims all shoehorned into a compact city centre, there’s a church, mosque or synagogue on every corner with each faith in competition to claim the city as its own.

With so much to see, it made sense to tackle the city religion by religion. First up: Christianity. The heart of the Christian quarter is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Jesus’ crucifixion. There’s nothing left of the cross now because early pilgrims were thought to have each taken a sneaky bite as they bent down to kiss it – and this is certainly not the only example of religious madness in the city… On street corners, sufferers of Jerusalem syndrome (a diagnosed medical condition where pilgrims become convinced that they are one of the prophets) were busy preaching and enterprising stall holders rent out huge wooden crosses so that groups of Koreans can follow in Jesus’ last footsteps on the Via Dolorosa (path of suffering).

Next stop: Judaism and the incredible Western Wall. It’s hard to keep track of which religion each site in Jerusalem belongs to… should I be wearing a head scarf? Should Alex be wearing a kippa? The ‘wailing wall’ is a perfect example: it’s the outer wall of Judaism’s most holy site, which was built on a former Christian site, which is now a mosque. The wailing part certainly rings true – men and women worship in separate sections because the women make such a kerfuffle that they distract the men from their prayers!

Last of all, we paid a visit to the Temple Mount and its beautiful blue tiled mosque. The distinctive gold dome is visible from nearly every corner of the old city so we were looking forward to getting a closer look and duly queued up to go through the extensive security checks that are just about everywhere in Israel. Unfortunately it was far from being a welcoming experience, with guards all over the place shouting at women lest they get too close to where the men were worshipping. Of all the religious sites that we’ve been to across the world, it was a shame to be in such beautiful surroundings yet feel hostility and see women being treated as second class citizens.

With Christmas on our minds, we headed to Bethlehem to see where the shepherds watched their flocks (now a tiny patch of olive trees surrounded by 60s apartment blocks) and see where the little lord Jesus lay down his sweet head. We spent an hour in a queue being shushed by tour guides so that their groups could hear what was being bellowed through a loudhailer in order to see where Jesus was supposedly born (Bible fans will know that it wasn’t even a stable, but actually a cave). There was zero evidence of any Christian spirit as hoards of elderly Italian pilgrims used their enormous bosoms to barge us out of the way and took advantage of every opportunity to stamp on our toes as they manically surged forward to kneel before the spot where the manger supposedly lay.

We’re pretty certain that when Mary and Joseph plodded into Bethlehem on their little donkey, they didn’t have to pass through a security checkpoint in the huge wall that now marks the divide between Israel and Palestine. Despite having heard so much about the tension in the news over the years, it was still shocking to see such an oppressive structure up close and stretching for miles into the distance. Having heard stories from both sides of the ‘apartheid wall’, it’s difficult to imagine that a lasting agreement will be brokered any time soon.

Saturated by so many religious sites and stories of tension throughout the ages, we headed to secular Tel Aviv. Known as the ‘White City’ because of its whitewashed modern architecture, it was a welcome contrast to ancient Jerusalem. It was also where we found what rates as one of the best snacks of the trip and a possible incentive for a future holiday to Iraq – what a truly amazing creation sabich is! Imagine pita stuffed with roasted aubergine, potato, hummus, boiled egg, salad, fresh herbs and spicy mango chutney – culinary heaven!

Before making our final border crossing, we had time to visit the crusader towns of Akko and Jaffa for a day of Mediterranean views and ancient fortresses. Apart from the odd mosque, we could have been in Southern Italy – a nice reminder that we are nearly home!

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Alex and Tash and the Last Crusade

Posted on April 24, 2012 by

With the smell of India still lingering on our clothes, we boarded our flight to Muscat in Oman – originally a week long section of our trip that had been sadly truncated to 24 hours once we took a look at the prices! Oman is one of the few countries where a Pound is worth less than the local currency and prices were consequently stratospheric. It was a shame, as the experience was nothing but a pleasure. Lovely people, beautiful scenery and one of the best banana milkshakes I have ever tasted! It was also something of a homecoming for me, having spent my early years living there, toasting digestive biscuits on the barbeque and stealing fishfingers from the local shop… (Editor’s note: These early years of crime might be family legend, but are news to me – shouldn’t someone have warned me I was marrying a criminal?!)

We arrived in Amman with an already hugely inflated opinion of the Middle East and it didn’t disappoint. We visited the Roman city of Jerash on our first day – a sprawling complex of temples and buildings of which only 10% has been excavated but is already incredibly impressive. Unfortunately our visit coincided with a school trip by approximately 2000 excitable Jordanian kids. As they raced around the site screaming at the top of their lungs, we were both left bemoaning the lack of worksheets to keep the little buggers quiet…

The next set of pictures comes with a health warning as they feature my pasty torso! A highlight of any trip to Jordan is a visit to the Dead Sea. We were initially skeptical when we arrived at a packed beach that seemed to contain as many cigarette butts as it did grains of sand. Undaunted, we headed into the water (much to the amusement of the locals) and I settled down to catch up with the important issues of the day with that week’s Economist. The buoyancy is very strange – like being a cork, or maybe a weightless astronaut. Very weird, but a lot of fun.

We also headed up Mt Nebo to take what we thought would be our only look at ‘The Promised Land’ of Israel. The murky cloud and huge expanse of arid desert left us wondering whether Moses might have been similarly underwhelmed. He did die apparently after gazing upon it. We wondered if it might have been of disappointment…

On leaving the capital, we headed down the King’s Highway towards Petra, journeying through dramatic gorges and stopping off at the Crusader castles at Karak and Shobak. These incredibly atmospheric castles were built by the invading Christians as they came to seize back the Holy Land. It couldn’t have looked more different to home, and it was strange to think of those Crusaders from England who traveled out here 1000 years ago and whose attempts to keep hold of the land were ultimately futile.

You should really have the theme tune to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade playing as you read the next section – they filmed most of the desert scenes at Petra and the famous Treasury is the final resting place of the Holy Grail in the film. Even with its newly designated ’7 Wonders of the Modern World’ status, we were more than a little surprised to find the entry fee had doubled to £50 since our guidebook was written. The approach to the site is through a narrow canyon, which winds its way through the red rock before finally emerging at the Treasury. The ruins are as every bit as impressive as the pictures suggest – but unlike Indiana Jones, we were surrounded on all sides by tour groups and had to constantly press ourselves against the walls of the canyon as horses and carts carrying obese Americans thundered past.

We quickly realised that there are two Petras. One is the main drag that the tour groups visit, where you are constantly being hassled to ride a camel or buy a souvenir. The other is a vast expanse of desert dotted with hidden temples to explore and mountains to climb. Our ‘secret Petra’ surpassed our expectations (and was more than worth the £50!) with the highlight being able to persuade an amiable tourist policeman to (quite literally) look the other way as we scrambled down a blocked off wadi (river bed) which turned out to be the highlight of the whole Jordan trip.

At this point we were anticipating a day trip to the Wadi Rum desert before heading across the border to start our Egyptian adventure. Unfortunately, real world events intervened. The kidnapping of several groups of tourists has left the Sinai peninsular an ‘essential travel only’ zone according to the Foreign Office and we decided that it would be foolish to risk a trip into such an unstable area. Instead, having gazed upon the promised land, we decided to go one step further and visit it. But first we followed in the footsteps of Lawrence of Arabia at Wadi Rum – spending a night in a Bedouin camp and doing our bit for the health of the local tribesmen by liberally dispensing heavy duty painkillers to assist with the chronic toothache that bedeviled most of them. A sandstorm ruined our night of star gazing but having thoroughly enjoyed our time in Jordan we headed to the Israeli border and our next stop: Jerusalem…

Many of you have commented on the quality of photography in the blog. Whilst most of it has been down to me, Tash has occasionally taken the odd shot. One of them was of a discarded shirt on a beach in Goa and we were very excited to see that The Guardian had picked it for the Saturday magazine. Tash hasn’t let it go to her head, merely asking for herself to be referred to as a ‘published photographer’ at very possible opportunity. If you didn’t see it, you can check it out here. (Editor’s note: For those with eagle eyes who spotted the erroneous apostrophe, I’d like to point out that this is entirely down to the Guardian!)

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India gets a second chance

Posted on April 15, 2012 by

To end our South-East Asian adventure, we journeyed to Pattaya to take advantage of Alex’s sister’s hospitality and spent a gluttonous weekend touring the local eateries, enjoying a belated birthday celebration at the Hilton and catching up with the side of the family who have decamped to Thailand. Having heard rumblings of Kingfisher’s poor financial state, we merrily joked on the way to the airport that it would be a miracle if they were still solvent by our departure time. As it turns out, they weren’t. With no sign of any Kingfisher flights on the departure board or any representatives at the airport, we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. To make matters worse and for reasons that we still fail to understand, we discovered at the last minute that we had managed to confuse two cities that both begin with the letter ‘C’ but in no way sound alike. When we were eventually transferred to another airline 9 hours later, it was to Calcutta that we were headed (the wrong “C”!) and as a result of our oversight, we ended up spending our first wedding anniversary in a grim mosquito-infested hotel near Calcutta airport – not exactly romantic!

When we finally made it to Kerala, we were determined to get our second Indian adventure off to a good start and checked into a beautiful colonial hotel (a wedding present we’d been saving – thanks Philip and Laura!). The local tourist board humbly declares Kerala to be ‘God’s Own Country’ and it certainly is beautiful – winding waterways (the ‘Venice of India’ apparently), lots of colonial architecture and plenty of greenery – perfect after dusty Cambodia.

Of all the things we’d disliked about our previous Indian trip, the constant posing for photographs was luckily a minor annoyance. Walking around Mysore Palace took twice as long as necessary as we stood grinning with strangers and shook hands with our new ‘friends’. A group of 15 men who all wanted an individual portrait with us in the beating sun was, however, a test of our patience!

Unfortunately no photographs are allowed in the palace, a real shame because it’s incredible – beautiful Victorian stained glass windows and intricate ivory panelling – but the outside is pretty impressive too, especially when lit up like a Christmas tree with 97,000 lightbulbs for the evening illuminations.

Spending time in Hampi, our next destination, is wonderfully relaxing so it’s unsurprising that most people (ourselves included) find themselves lingering longer than planned. Finally, we’d found somewhere in India that we really liked! The scenery was stunning with boulder strewn hills and bright green rice paddies surrounded by palm trees – and even better as the sun went down, turning the rocks red in the evening light.

Refusing to learn a lesson from our sweaty time at Angkor Wat, we rented bikes and cycled around the ruins that the area is famous for. The huge temples and intricate engravings were impressive, but best of all was that away from the ‘big sights’ there was plenty to explore – although a gang of small children would inevitably appear demanding school pens the moment we thought we’d found an undiscovered corner of the site!

Most backpackers we’ve met seem to have spent a good chunk of their travels lazing on the beach. We decided to finally stop being the exception and, after a lot of careful research (and eliminating most resorts in Goa at the mention of the word ‘party’), we headed to Agonda, which is still just about off the backpacker circuit despite its lovely beach. Armed with a stack of good books, we happily wiled away the hours lazing on the verandah of our beach hut and on more adventurous days, explored the coast by scooter (don’t worry parents, we were very careful!).

Mumbai, one of the few Indian cities that we can tolerate, was a fitting conclusion to our second Indian adventure. All in all, the country did manage to redeem itself the second time around. But despite the interesting places, the lovely weather and the incredible food (who could tire of samosas?!), we just couldn’t overlook the many problems that the country faces or overcome our frustrations with the endless bureaucracy. When the taxi driver on the way to the airport asked us when we would be coming back, we politely said ‘maybe one day soon’. But I think we would have both liked to answer ‘hopefully not for a very very long time’!

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A southeast Asian sojourn

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

It was with heavy hearts that we crossed the border from China into Laos, having enjoyed a fantastic month there. We knew things were about to change the moment we passed through immigration, as the bullet straight road that had taken us from Jinghong in China gave way to a winding track that meant our speed halved and we knew we were very much now on ‘Laos time’. We arrived in Luang Prabang, the old Royal Capital, and were relieved to find our hotel set around a green leafy courtyard where we could make the most of the warm weather (at last!)

Luang Prabang is a pretty city ensconced on the banks of the Mekong river with monasteries at every corner and nearly as many monks as tourists. Very much on the tourist trail, it was apparent from the prices in the restaurants that most people who came here had no qualms about emptying their wallets. Fortunately we discovered a vegetarian all-you-can-eat food stand at the market that was rammed night after night, but which served enormous portions of tasty food for less than a dollar. Even this avowed meat eater couldn’t deny where the better value lay. It was also our first opportunity to sample the delights of Beer Lao – a vastly superior beer that actually tastes of something (owing to the head brewer being trained in Czechoslovakia as part of a Communist era exchange programme).

Over the next few days we enjoyed visits out to some stunning waterfalls and national park areas, before moving down to Vang Vieng – the party capital of Laos, known for it’s tubing (floating down the river in a rubber inner tube), happy pizzas (use your imagination) and general air of debauchery. We were expecting the worst but the end result was actually not so bad… after 7 tourist deaths in 2011, the authorities had cracked down on things in a big way. There were still drunk 19 year olds wandering around and strips of bars showing nothing but Family Guy and Friends, but it was clear that the scene had moved on and those that were left were desperately trying to rekindle past glories. It says something that when we awoke at 3:30 am to the sound of music, it was from the neighbouring temple and accompanied by monks chanting!

With ever fewer days left in our trip, we took advantage of some cheap Air Asia flights to hop down to Cambodia and avoid a potentially horrendous 25 hour coach journey. We arrived in Phnom Penh and were immediately struck by the difference between these two neighbouring countries. There was a palpable shift up in gear and the whole city was buzzing. This was a good thing, as our next two days were taken up with some pretty grim sights as we visited the museum of genocide and the infamous killing fields. It’s a real shock to come face to face with instances of such unimaginable horror that occurred almost within our lifetime and which both the perpetrators and survivors of are walking around the streets with you.

Fortunately Cambodia is not all about genocide, and we enjoyed some really nice cycling out in the countryside around Battambang as we made our way up towards our final stop – the famous temple complex at Angkor Wat.

It certainly didn’t disappoint – our 5am departure to catch the sunrise was rewarded with a clear morning and an extremely tranquil picnic breakfast as the sun rose over the famous towers. Having decided to use pedal power rather than one of the ubiquitous tuk tuks, we spent the whole day cycling from temple to temple, each with it’s own unique characteristics and story.

Though we only felt that we scratched the surface, 12 hours of solid riding in the burning heat was enough to finish us off and we beat an honourable retreat back to our hotel and pool, before an early morning bus to the Thai border.

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Tigers and Dragons

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

Arriving in Yangshuo and seeing some greenery after weeks spent in big cities was a delight. Unfortunately the weather didn’t deliver the blue skies we’d hoped for, but after the frigid winds of Beijing and the North, anything above ten degrees felt positively balmy. The murky skies were both a blessing and a curse – we had the countryside around the town and its beautiful karst mountains pretty much to ourselves, but also got the full attention of the boat touts whose constant cries of “bamboo?” haunted our stay. We found that cycling was the best way of getting out to enjoy the countryside – the advantage being that we were able to out-peddle to the touts!

After a wonderfully relaxing few days (despite the persistently grey weather and the rarity of finding a scenic view that wasn’t marred by electricity pylons or neon lights), Laura headed back to Bangkok and we headed up into the mountains. Rather than do battle with a complicated series of local bus connections to take us to the Dragon’s Backbone rice terraces, we were able to join a tour group that was heading there for a day trip. The Chinese seem happiest when they are part of a group, and if there’s one thing we learnt while being in China, it’s that rebelling against herd mentality never pays off. Unfortunately we offended the tour guide by refusing to visit an overly priced minority village (which looked more like a zoo) and, as a result, he refused to let us travel any further with the group and promptly abandoned us on the side of the road twenty kilometres away from our final destination! After two hours of shivering by the roadside, we did eventually manage to flag down a local bus and finally make it up the mountain. Our timing wasn’t brilliant though – by visiting in winter, we didn’t get rich fields of green but instead the terraces were full of muddy brown stalks and were cloaked in mist for most of our stay. Even if it had it been clear, I’m not convinced that we would have been able to spot the dragon shape that the locals claim the rice terraces resemble.

After an epic 40 hour overland journey west, we were finally able to escape winter and arrived in Dali, where the blossom trees signalled that Spring had officially sprung. For the first time in months, we ditched the thermal underwear and Michelin-man winter coats and headed out on a lakeside bike ride.

Our final stop in China was Tiger Leaping Gorge to hike the two day trail that clings to the cliffs high above the Yangtze River. It was tough going, but thankfully our aching bodies were amply rewarded with gorgeous views (bad pun fully intended) and reasonably priced beer when we reached the top. Despite being designated an area of natural beauty, it was filled with the usual signs of China’s “great leap forward” – a brand new road through the middle, power lines, irrigation pipes, rubbish dumps and sewage outlets – progress, indeed. Unfortunately the promised tiger didn’t put in an appearance, and as Alex wasn’t willing to take up the challenge, we’ll never know whether it’s possible to leap from one side of the gorge to the other…

Onwards and southwards, next stop: Laos…

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