The Getaway

Galapagos Goodbye

2008-06-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

With less than a month to go, and funds running low, our thoughts keep turning to home, London, friends and family, and all those things we left behind in search of action, adventure and cultures so different to our own.

Psychologically, we're almost home already, as we surf the net for job information and think about wedding plans. Cutting our trip short by two weeks, we have changed our itinerary to include a place which, at the outset, was No.1 on the list of 23 places we wanted to see before we die.

Unfortunately it was also the first to be crossed off the list, as we erroneously thought we needed thousands of pounds to get there. To end our year with a final flourish, in perhaps the ultimate of all eco-destinations, we are going to the place where the world´s scientific understanding of nature really all started. We are going to The Galapagos Islands.

Darwin´s famous "Enchanted Isles", 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, are also known as the "Islas del Fuego" (Fire Islands) due to their volcanic nature, and are a sublime evolutionary wonder. Formed by underwater eruptions, the older islands have gradually moved south eastwards to make way for new ones when the time comes for the cones to blow. Onto these barren deserts of lava rock, fragile eco-systems developed over time, giving each island its own unique flora and fauna as - incredibly, given the islands´ isolation - certain species arrived from the mainland and/or other islands in the chain.

When Darwin arrived on Isla Isabella in 1835, he wasn´t the first human visitor and he wouldn´t be the last. The islands were soon to be ravaged by the combined efforts of pirates and whaling crews who used the Galapagos as a useful base for the once fertile (now all but destroyed) Sperm Whale breeding grounds.

Amongst the damage done by those early intruders was the decimation of the Giant Tortoise population; once sailors realized they could store live tortoises upside down in the ships holds, without water, for up to a year, they became an important source of fresh meat and thus an essential victual for any ship passing through. The creatures populations were soon dramatically reduced. Other disasters included forest fires and the introduction of pigs, goats, rats and other invasive species.

The Galapagos islands is seen as a barometer for environmental changes in the wider world, and it is apt that our trip will end here. Throughout our travels, nothing has struck me more than the wonders of nature and how fast they are disappearing. From the flooding of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China to the melting snows of the Himalayas, the sights we have been lucky enough to see with our own eyes may well not be here by the time any future offspring are old enough to travel here themselves. Despite the incredible year we´ve had, there is something deeply depressing about scooting round the Earth´s natural wonders before it´s too late.

For me, nowhere are these rapid changes more devastating that under the waves. Out of sight, out of mind, the marine life and coral gardens we have witnessed this year are quite literally being driven to extinction before our very eyes. In Asia, reefs are bombed with dynamite and polluted with cyanide to provide the Far East with billions of sushi dinners. On one pristine coral reef in Borneo, there was no virtually no marine life; at Jakarta airport, we saw a shop full of shark fins of all shapes and sizes for shark fin soup.

Here in the Galapagos Islands those very sharks may well have been illegally fished from UNESCO protected waters. Like all the marine parks we´ve dived this year, the ocean here is victim to poaching on a grand scale. Abundant schools of Hammerhead sharks, for which the Galapagos are famous, are becoming less and less common - almost completely due to illegal shark finning. This has a knock on effect on the whole eco-system: without larger predatory fish to drive the smaller ones to the surface, the famous sea birds such as the Blue Footed Booby, Galapagos Penguins and red chested Frigate Birds are unable to fish for food. Land and sea are in perfect harmony.

Before coming here, I felt quite guilty for being a tourist - just another one of the many pressures on this natural environment. However, I soon realized that controlled, responsible eco-tourism is perhaps the only way these islands will generate enough money to protect themselves from serious commercial exploitation. That´s not to say that tourism is good for the Galapagos: guides are mandatory on some islands, shoes are checked for foreign soil being passed between the islands and bags are searched for fruit and seeds of invasive species. But controlled tourism certainly does less damage than illegal fishermen camping unchecked on a beach.

The Charles Darwin Research Institute tries to stem the tide by removing parasitic plants, goats, dogs and other foreign species which are already here, and to breed and reintroduce some of the ones which have almost been lost. Sadly, Lonesome George, the last of Pinza Island´s Giant Tortoises, steadfastly refuses to mate with genetically similar females; meanwhile the goats stand on the backs of his cousins to eat the last of their natural habitat.

But amongst all the doom and gloom, the Galapagos islands remains enchanted and enchanting, and are one of the most magical destinations of our year away. When Darwin´s finches come right up to you and start pecking your toes with their over-sized beaks, you realise how the greatest naturalist of all time was able to study these creatures so closely and notice their evolutionary differences during his surprisingly short stay of four weeks. Of all our activities here - from bike riding to horse riding to volcano climbing - it was, of course, the scuba diving which provided the really magic moments.

Through currents so strong they can rip your mask from your face, occasional bad visibility and mammoth Pacific surge, came big schools of White Tip Reef Sharks; Galapagos Sharks looking pretty damn tough; Green Turtles pootling about with their bulky frames; huge Eagle and Manta Rays and a spectacular school of of Mobula Rays, 40 odd strong, flying through the sea like something out of star wars. Hanging to a bare rock at 20m below, looking above at a wriggling Hammerhead Shark making its way against the tide, fills me with a huge sense of privilege that we´ve seen so many incredible things.

But I also love London. The itchy feet have been well and truly scratched, and it's time to return home. Thanks Planet Earth. You were great.

Raw Hide!!

2008-06-24T10:28:00.001-07:00

Of all the countries we´ve visited on this trip, none is as much maligned, especially by those who have never visited, as Colombia. Government websites advise against travel, news stories focus on kidnappings and guerilla warfare and National Geographic Channel is still fond of the odd documentary about the exploits of the Medellin and Cali Cocaine Cartels of the 1980s and 90s (I should know - I worked on one less than two years ago).

That´s not to say that Colombia doesn´t play a little on its famous bad boys - the National Police Museum in Bogota is well worth a visit for its exhibition on the escape and capture of Pablo Escobar and includes such items as Pablo´s personal pager (he was the first to have one in South America - very high tec for the 1980s), his police radio for spying in on the opposition, the jacket he was shot in and even the bloodstained tile from the rooftop he was killed on.

Medellin is still a gangland city, only these days the violence is orchestrated by paramilitary groups connected to the government rather than Pablo.

As a tourist wandering through the city centre´s Botero (Colombia´s most famous artist) sculpture park, you would honestly never know these problems even existed; as a rationalist, you could easily compare them to gang problems in Philadelphia or LA, and yet that hardly stops people from visiting the USA. The reality is that Colombia is safer than ever, and as we passed through Bogota (like London in Autumn - freezing cold, a bit grey, fabulous night life and culture); Medellin (like turning up in Bradford and expecting there to be something to do) and Cali (smart, sophisticated and extremely cool) we felt that nowhere we´d seen was as moody as some of the areas of London we´ve lived in over the last few years.

Southern Colombia - in years gone by a virtual no-go area for all but the bravest traveller - has also largely opened up to tourists. It´s now safe to travel by bus (very stylish with lots of leg room) all the way from Cali to the Ecuadorian border, but the most rewarding parts of the south still require a bit more effort and long bumpy bus journeys. San Augustin - a charming little colonial town - is tucked away from the main tourist trail, but soon became my favourite place in Colombia for both scenery and culture. Here in the foothills of the Andes, Pre-Columbian civilisations left behind the only evidence of their existence in the form of dozens of carved enigmatic statues and tombs, before being invaded by the Incas at the end of the 15th century. It was also here that many of the beautiful Gold artefacts in Bogota´s Museo d´Oro were originally found.

The best way to visit these wonderful monuments, scattered as they are across kilometres of hillside, is on horseback. Seeing as the last time we´d got on horses Jonny had nearly been thrown off a cliff, he was understandably a bit nervous about the prospect but, hat´s off to him, he duly got back on the horse.

The horses provided by our guide Humberto were absolutely fantastic and even seemed to enjoy cantering up steep hillsides. Before we knew it we were galloping between the various archeological sites, only dismounting our noble steeds to gawp at some pretty explicit evidence of child sacrifice and marvel at the implicit cleverness of the imagery and craftsmanship. On top of that, the tour was conducted completely in Spanish, and we ended up translating for those who spoke less than we did - a real sign of how much our Spanish has improved in such a short space of time.

At one of the sites, a girl was reading the Mayan Calendar for people, and mine, "Red Rhythmnic Earth" apparently meant that I was often in the right place at the right time. She looked up my birth date, and the sign that corresponded to 2008 was indeed slap bang on Colombia on her printed world map. You can´t beat a bit of mysticism when you´re travelling, and I certainly felt like I was in the right place at the right time.

Glorious Mud!

2008-06-04T14:41:00.001-07:00

As hangover cures go, I´ve always sworn by the Full English and a Bloody Mary. But after two days in Cartegena - mainly spent out on the tiles - I was in need of something approaching a miracle cure.

Cartegena is the jewel of all colonial cities. Its perfectly preserved squares and fountains, high walls and blooming balconies offer respite from the boiling heat of the day; museums and galleries document with great glee the various Spanish successes against British pirates (most famously Francis Drake) ; and a plethora of smart shops and expensive restaurants cater for Cartegena´s beautiful people. Unfortunately the tourist dollar they are seeking here is from cruise ships and wealthy South Americans, rendering much of what is good about Cartegena well out of our price range, and peppering the streets with ´living statues´and persistent hawkers, but all things considered its a lively and interesting place to spend time.

On our second night in Cartegena we found ourselves wandering around town, looking for something both fun and affordable. Seeing as we completely failed to find the party on the 20th floor of the five star hotel where all the models and pop stars were hanging out (as a fellow backpacker joyfully informed us in a loud Finchley accent the next morning: "I´m from London, yeah, and I´ve seen some wicked parties, but this was the best party I´ve ever been to in my whole life.") we headed for Via Arsenal where the clubs and bars are concentrated, only to end up in a club resembling a school disco, or as a friend more accurately put it, a ´torture-chamber´, before deciding to do what Cartegenans do best: Rum and Salsa! We spent a long night in a series of salsa joints, getting down with the locals and drinking bad mojitos until the small hours.

At 9am the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and were duly bundled onto a tour bus to Volcan Baru. Residual alcohol levels still being fairly high, I managed the one and a half hour ride out of the city in good spirits, although Jonny - squeezed between the Spanish speaking tour guides at the front - looked a bit the worse for wear. This particular volcano is renowned for its health reviving properties and, as the local myth goes, had once spouted fire and lava but was charmed by a local witchdoctor and now conveniently splurges a ready supply of soft mud in a crater about the size of a large jacuzzi. Could this be the miracle hangover cure I was looking for? Although I´d seen pictures of friends covered from head to foot in volcano mud, nothing had quite prepared me for this

We donned our oldest swimming gear and descended the stairs to the suprisingly cool mud bath which contained 30 or so Colombians, including 3 toothless male masseurs waiting to give you a good rub down. I wasn´t sure which I was more afraid of - the mud or the men - but it soon became clear that we would all have to surrender ourselves completely to this surreal experience. The bouyant mud holds you up, so rather that sinking into the crater you float on the top. Whatever position you end up in it is notoriously difficult to move, not because the mud offers that much resistance, but more for fear you´ll lose your balance and end up head first and stuck in the mud.

At this point, looking around at various people wallowing in grey matter, the last thing you expect is to see someone you recognise. So when one of the girls from our tour bus said to Jonny (fresh from his mud massage) "you seem familiar" and he said the same back, I nearly fell off my virtual `mud chair´. Not only had these two met before, but it had been on another trip in Bolivia - a full seven years previously! Obviously South America has a magnetism that keeps people coming back: who knows who we´ll meet next time, or where.

After Cartegena, we mooched up the coast to the beach resort of Taganga, stepping stone to the jungle and beaches of Parque Natural Tayrona. Taganga is a little party town as well, with giant speakers on every street corner pumping out the local rhythmns to anyone passing, and the ubiquitous Israeli travellers host Psy-trance parties that only ever start at midnight, meaning over 25s like myself can´t stand the pace and decide to go to bed early (pah! who wants to listen to trance anyway?) . But Parque Tayrona - less than an hour away - couldn´t be more different.

Strict door searching policies mean that there are absolutely no drugs or hard liquor allowed in the park - quite an achievement for Colombia. Tayrona, the park workers told us, is where Colombians come to get away from it all, and what better place for Colombia´s party loving citizens to dry out than the most beautiful stretch of coastline in the Caribbean? Over years of travel, we have seen some series beaches, but even Costa Rica or Thailand´s finest would struggle to live up to the beauty of Tayrona. Huge rocks jut out into the sea, forming perfect bays between the sands, and natural rock breakers between them form huge swimming pools, making swimming here much safer than many of the beaches in, for example, Panama or Goa. If you´re willing to sleep in a hammock or a tent, this is the place to chill out, dry out and toast yourself to a happy shade of marron. As hangover cures go, volcanoes and beaches sure beat the Bloody Mary!

A Bug´s Life

2008-05-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

Panama is one of those truly condensed countries. Much as Great Britain punches above its weight in the artistic and cultural stakes, so Panama does for the natural world. In an area roughly the size of Scotland live 125 uniquely Panamanian animals, 226 different types of reptile including some extremely venemous snakes, and more bird types (approx 940) than anywhere else in Central America.

To try and get closer to this outrageously abundant wildlife, we headed for the National Park La Armistad, near the border with Costa Rica, to a recently opened backpacker eco-lodge called "Lost and Found". Andrew, the young Canadian owner, and his Panamanian wife, Steph, have sunk all their hard earned cash into an extraordinary concrete structure clinging to the side of a hill in the Cloudforest, with views across the valley that reach all the way to the Pacific.

At night, we were visited by various creatures we´d never heard of: the `kinkajou´ (Jonny´s favourite) a racoon like animal with a prehensile tail, the `cacomissel´ and the`olingo´ to name but a few.

But it was the insects that I found truly amazing. Not normally being a lover of things with six legs, I was enthralled by the size and beauty of the bugs that landed from the night sky. Out of various fireflies and giant grasshoppers, the winner of this entomological beauty contest was, hands down, the Gold Jewel Beetle. Described by Andrew as the most expensive bug in the rainforest (they sell on ebay for $160) this completely golden beetle - gold legs, antlers, wings, body, everything - landed on the dinner table to the awe of everyone present.

After a couple of days of Spanish practise and animal spotting, we said goodbye and good luck to Andrew and Steph and travelled in the direction of Isla de Coiba on the Pacific Coast.

Coiba is Part IV in our world tour of former prisons; Robben Island (Capetown), Port Blair (Andaman Islands), Oxford Castle (England - now a very nice Malmaison!) ... all we need now are Alcatraz and St Helena (where Napoleon was imprisoned) and we´ll have a complete set. We had been inspired to come to Panama in the first place by pictures and articles of Coiba´s pristine wilderness in the British Press. As the largest island off Central America, its surrounding waters form part of the same submarine mountain chain as the Galapagos Islands, and are teeming with marine life of all descriptions. On the way to and from the island, we saw Humpback Whales breaching at 30m distance, dolphins and, unbelievably, dozens of Manta Rays jumping out of the water 10 feet into the air.

Diving here is quite unlike Caribbean or Asian waters. Visibility was poor, and the rocky sea bed wasn´t exactly pretty, but with dozens of White Tip Sharks and odd unusual find such as the ´guitar fish´ (like a cross between a Shark and a Stingray) it was still fun. But the real beauty of Coiba is arriving on the beach to hundreds of butterflies and, despite being confined by dense jungle to a small promontory where the Ranger´s station is situated, within ten minutes seeing a snake, an Iguana, a flock of vultures and several of Coiba´s unique rodents (like giant squirrels), not to mention ´Tito´ the huge crocodile who had famously robbed a Park Ranger of one of his legs.

Coiba feels like the Garden of Eden (or, as we like to think of it, an episode of "Lost"). It is remarkably unscathed by man, and gave us an insight into how the pirates and conquistadors must have seen the Americas before the wholesale destruction of the indigenous tribespeople and their environment. Although the authorities have so far resisted attempts to place a tourist infrastructure on Coiba (although we stayed for one night at the Ranger´s Station in basic huts) and it has now been declared a UNESCO world heritage site , without the dangerous prisoners and fear of Sharks to keep the Punters away, who knows how long it will remain the untamed beauty spot it is today.

Arriba! Arriba!

2008-05-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

Ever since being robbed at gunpoint in Antigua, Guatemala, I´ve been wary of Central American cities. Even the most picturesque colonial town can change dramatically when the sun goes down, and taking local advice as to which areas are best avoided is at the very least sensible, and in some places mandatory. So, as we sped towards our guest house in Panama City´s Casca Vieja (Old Quarter), it didn´t exactly inspire me with confidence to hear the taxi driver spelling out just how dangerous the area was and how, if we had any sense, we should be staying down town in the Intercontinental.

We arrived at Luna´s Castle, a huge old colonial mansion that was recently converted into a backpacker doss-house. It´s well and truly part of the Lonely Planet ´hostel mafia´, described as "far and away the best backpacker joint in Panama City" in the latest LP guide book, which was published a good six months before it even opened. The author of that singularly useless tome must be breathing a sigh of relief that all those free Cuba Libre´s haven´t completely ruined any future journalistic career and that Luna´s Castle is in fact now open and, indeed, vying for the top spot amongst backpackers looking to meet greet and party in Casca Vieja. Here we met globe-trotters from all over, but mainly America, and got up to date on what was hot to do in Panama. It´s one of the world´s great outdoor destinations, and we stocked up on recommendations for everything from surfing (probably not) to hiking and tree-top canopy tours (can´t wait!).

Casca Vieja also thankfully turned out to be everything we were looking for to kick off the Latin American denouement to our travels. A well policed district in the centre of the old town has been the focus of an extraordinary urban regeneration project, where virtually every building has been restored from scratch, or is in the process of being rescued. In amongst the restored buildings are older ones with families still living in them, which helps to retain the soul of the old town. What was once a violent slum is now home to museums and galleries, not to mention the President of Panama, and boasts wonderful views across the bay to the financial district, where the modern city skyline rivals that of Hong Kong or Miami. The streets buzz with the sound of salsa music, and at night its easy to stumble across live music and cheap drinks in the atmospheric bars and clubs. The ´joi de vivre´ of Latin America is alive and kicking here in the richest of all Central American cities.

A trip to Panama would not be complete without a visit to the Panama Canal, where the world´s ships traverse the isthmus between the two great oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific. The focus of a visit here is the giant lock at Miraflores... not that interesting if you´ve ever seen a lock before, but what is really fascinating is a trip around the museum to understand the history of this great feat of engineering. What began as a French project lured thousands of Caribbean workers, mainly from Jamaica and Barbados, who were the backbone of the building work. Most died of Malaria and Yellow Fever in Panama´s unforgiving jungle environment, but after an overhaul of working conditions and a discovery by Dr Carlos Finlay that Yellow Fever was carried by mosquitoes, the project was finally finished.

Looking up the canal at the mile upon mile of water, all dredged and redirected to form the lakes within the canal zone, is a real testiment to man´s determination to conquer the natural world, as Panama´s jungles and cloud forests, particularly in the Darien gap between Central and South America, are probably the most dense and dangerous on the planet. Although there are plans to widen the canal, the water shed around the canal is a hugely important part of keeping it full of water, and is home to a myriad of bird, animal and insect species endemic to the area; what initially destroyed so much, now ensures the protection of all the surrounding wildlife.

Blue Planet

2008-04-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

Indonesia has had an unfair share of bad luck recently. What with two separate bomb attacks on tourists in Bali in 2002 and 2005 , a number of internal conflicts, and the 2004 Tsunami, which affected large areas of Sumatra and Java, many people have stayed away in the belief that it's not safe to travel here. All this has made life very difficult for those in the tourist industry, but makes a visit to Indonesia even more delightful for those of us willing to brave their beautiful beaches. (Bomb risk? Try living on the Northern Line…).

The fact that geo-politics have hit Indonesia hard is actually not so surprising. The first thing you realise when planning a trip here is that the place is absolutely huge. The world’s largest archipelago, it comprises 17,508 tropical islands – big and small – which stretch across two different time zones, from the border with Malaysian Borneo right down to East Timor, just a stone’s throw (well, in Aussie terms anyway) from Australia. Governing such a vast and disjointed place would be difficult enough, but add to that 500 languages and a widespread inter-mingling of Islam and Christianity - both often fused with ancient animist beliefs -and you have a potentially incendiary mix.

We were heading for the mainly Catholic island of Sulawesi, historically known as Celebes, which lies just south of Borneo. Sulawesi’s bizarre shape results from being at the point where the land masses of Asia and Australasia divide. The demarcation is known as The Wallace Line, after Alfred Wallace, the British naturalist who pointed out the remarkable difference in fauna between Celebes and Borneo (despite their close proximity) to Charles Darwin, who subsequently included it in his theory of evolution.

Sulawesi’s geographical position also places it right in the heart of the ‘Coral Triangle’, the area of greatest biodiversity of marine life to be found anywhere on the planet. Scuba diving in the Celebes Sea off North Sulawesi is generally accepted as being some of the best out there, and we therefore made a bee-line for this amazing underwater world.

We divided our time between Bunaken Marine Park and the Lembeh Straits – two quite different areas, with different attractions. On our first few dives at Bunaken, albeit amid some very strong currents, we spotted a green turtle as big as my parent’s dining table; large eagle rays flying gracefully through the water; orang-utan crabs – named for their hairy orange legs - and numerous bright neon nudibranches (sea slugs) hanging out on the coral.

At Lembeh, we were gifted with sights of more weird and wonderful critters: tiny pygmy sea-horses (no bigger than a little finger nail); all kinds of very poisonous scorpion fish, the spectacularly ugly frog fish and an extremely rare electric clam, which rather frighteningly crackled with bright blue sparks underwater. Thanks to our brilliant dive guide, we even witnessed the mating ritual of the beautiful and very shy mandarin fish: a truly magical ten minutes spent just inches away from a live ‘Blue Planet’ spectacle. As we watched, I could almost hear David Attenborough’s familiar dulcet tones giving the running commentary. This is what seeing the world is all about.

But it didn’t stop there. Then came a trek through Sulawesi’s amazing tribal interior of Tana Toraja: a heady mix of ancient funeral rites, gory animal sacrifice and three days spent balancing on the edge of slippery clay rice terraces as seasonal rains seemed determined to make our trek more challenging. At night we stayed in the Torajan’s extraordinary traditional family homes, sleeping on hard floors, teaching the village kids English with our scrabble set and eating food cooked in bamboo shoots. With sore muscles and on the point of exhaustion, we arrived back at Makassar airport with no idea where we should go next, and no onward ticket out of Sulawesi. When a flight to Denpasar, Bali, became available, we could think of nothing better than a bit of beach time.

Kuta Beach, Bali is Australia’s answer to the Costa del Sol, only much cooler and with surf shops, cute boutiques and not to mention gorgeous surfer types everywhere. In fact, further up the beach in Seminyak you could liken it more to Ibiza than the Costa; here, cool bars and clubs attract international DJs, and people party until the wee hours (things don’t even get going until 2am). That said, Kuta isn’t exactly classy. If you want the traditional Balinese honeymoon brochure holiday you’re better off somewhere else on the island, but we were very happy to get a beer and backpacker fix there (although we did escape for two days to do our Padi Rescue Diver course at the spectacular Liberty Wreck), and by spending a few days on the lesser known Gili Islands, where despite torrential rain and the first ever police raid on the island’s famously liberal party scene, we enjoyed a drunken few days in the company of travellers from the UK and Sweden.

Ang - cor! - what?

2008-03-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

Just after finishing university, I went on my first big trip away from home, and found myself in

Laos not long after its borders had opened to tourists. It was 1998; the same year

Laos

’ neighbour,

Cambodia

, finally defeated the last remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas who had been hiding out in the hills and was at last declared to be at peace. That summer, as I made a slow-boat journey down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, checking in with communist party officials at official posts along the way, we heard of the odd intrepid traveller going across the border into Cambodia - not exactly the safest tourist destination at the time - into what really did seem to be a ‘Heart of Darkness’.

How things change. Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, has become the world epicentre for charities and NGOs, with aid workers trying to sort out the very real mess that emerged from the country’s decades of strife. As a result, Phnom Penh has been catering for the international development crowd for over a decade, and now boasts a plethora of smart organic food café’s, fair trade coffee shops, bars, restaurants and funky clothing boutiques.

As far as locations go, Pnhom Penh is a great place to be if you’re a charity worker. For anyone with a sense of altruism and a penchant for spring rolls, this relaxed and attractive city seems to have an organisation for pretty much every issue that you could think of. From large areas of unexploded ordinance and the associated need for prosthetic limbs, to child prostitution and sex-trafficking; Cambodia's problems are widespread and well publicised. But despite its sad history, and deeply traumatized population, Cambodia is one of the most welcoming and friendly places in the world. Like many places in South East Asia, including Thailand and Laos, the Cambodian people have a natural warmth to strangers that makes the country a joy to visit.

We had decided to come to Cambodia after a small NGO, ‘KID’ (Khmer Institute of Democracy), had said they’d wanted help making short films to teach local villagers about the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, an international effort to bring the perpetrators of the 1970's genocide to justice. As it was a legal affairs organisation, Jonny and I had offered them a month of our time, Jonny to give a hand with the legal side and I to help them with their film projects. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the time and resources simply weren’t available for me to make a film for them, as the films are in the Khmer language and they couldn’t afford a translator. So instead, Jonny and I spent a day giving much-needed advice, but were sorry that KID couldn't make more of our offer to help. I guess some problems are just insurmountable.

Voluntary work having fallen through, we headed to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. The world famous temple complex is heavily influenced by Hinduism, and it seemed strange to be looking at bas-relief carvings from the Ramayana (an important Hindu religious epic) when we’d so recently said goodbye to India. There are several different sites to explore, each dating from the reign of a different Angkor King, and the carvings and temples are beautifully preserved and of exceptional quality. I was in full 'geek' mode: years of making popular history programs have instilled in me a great love for archaeological sites like this, and I eagerly read every word in our guidebook.

The place is so extensive, you could get lost at Angkor for days on end, so to make everything more accessible the authorities at Angkor have built a tarmac road running right through the park and in close proximity to some of the most amazing ruins, such as Ta Phrom. Tuk-tuks and motorbikes zoom past, pumping exhaust fumes into the air (which can’t be good for the ancient stone), and sadly destroying the tranquil atmosphere that you might to find at an ancient site in the middle of the jungle.

In search of a more ‘Indiana Jones’ experience, a couple of days (and another bout of food poisoning – damn that ice-cream!) later, we headed off to Beng Mallea, another temple site two hours drive away. Beng Mallea has undergone little or no restoration since it was ‘discovered’ but has thankfully now been cleared of land mines, a major problem for archaeological work in this area. Here in the forest, in an ‘otherworldly’ atmosphere with very few visitors, you climb through ancient doorways on the verge of collapse, and over enormous piles of stones and rubble whilst trying to picture what the ‘second library’ really did once look like. I loved it – and although we hadn’t been long in Cambodia and were due to head off to Indonesia for the diving season, I was so glad we came.

(P) andamonium

2008-02-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

Tamil Nadu and the Andamans.

The heat and the stress of travelling in India had, I had to admit, been getting to me. If travelling is all about mood, I couldn’t seem to shake my bad one. The challenge of India seemed to me to be less about punishing journeys to get to special places, as in Nepal and China, than about how
much irritation or hassle you can take before you run out of
‘zen’ and lose your temper. We needed a break. Somewhere beautiful, away from it all… perhaps not even in India?

Cue the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a place I hadn’t even heard of before the 2004 Tsunami nearly wiped them off the map. Closer to Thailand and Burma than to India, we thought maybe here would be a slice of South East Asian cool.

Of course, being administered by the most frustrating country on the planet meant that getting to the islands in the first place was by no means a relaxing experience.

What the guide books don’t tell you is that once off the plane, you have to stand in a 3-4 hour queue (2 hours if you’re lucky) which isn’t really a queue; more of a mass free for all, where tourists and locals throw themselves at the counter, desperate to get at least one body part in front of the person ahead. Once at the front, you push your application form through the small hole in the toughened-glass (necessary protection for the excruciatingly slow ticket staff) and hope for the best. Amid the mass of bodies, fights break out about every twenty minutes, at which point the police come and wave their batons around to break it up.

From a couple of other tourists, we somehow managed to bag the last two tickets for the boat departing the following day, leaving Sarah and Guy, and their parents who had come to visit them for the week, to their own adventures on a private fishing vessel with no life jackets, navigation lights, insurance or indeed common sense (the fisherman that is). Stuck as we were in the queue, we enviously watched them go: surely anything was better than fighting it out with the locals!

The absolute misery of the transport system was matched only by the peace and natural beauty of the islands. If you knew the Andaman Islands before the charter flights began, then you might be in for a minor shock: rebuilding work undertaken on Havelock Island (the main tourist destination) since the Tsunami has led to considerable development. But for first-timers like us, it’s still a world away from the beach bars and bucket drinks of South East Asia.

There is just one road, built especially for the prime minister who visited two years ago (it runs out at the point where he decided to turn back), along which everyone rides their bicycles and mopeds between the various restaurants, guest houses and dive shops of the eastern side of the island. On the other side of Havelock (a hefty $10 rickshaw ride away) is the spectacular, if un-inspiringly named, Beach 7. Here, giant primary forest reaches right down to a huge bay of perfect white sand, where the crystal clear turquoise water is the safest spot for swimming outside of Goa. Only when you get in the sea can you fully appreciate the beauty of it all, and so we swam and swam, just to keep looking, until our energy ran out and our fingers were shrivelled like prunes.

Sadly, it looks as though Beach No 7 might be ear-marked for development, as Indian Army survey ships were out in force when we were there and, as history shows, where detailed maps are made, ‘civilisation’ soon follows. One can only hope it’s the kind of ‘exclusive’ eco-tourist resort which, while being elitist, will at least preserve the natural environment there.

The scuba diving was also very good – although the coral didn’t quite match the other Andaman sites we’d dived around Ko Bida Nok in Thailand. One newly discovered site – Jackson’s Bar - didn’t disappoint, though, and we saw huge schools of barracuda, a white tip reef shark and an array of octopus, spotted rays, giant moray eels and other sea life. The following week, a few days on the quiet backpacker hangout of Neil Island promised a glimpse of the Andaman’s mascot, rare sea mammals called Dugongs (often known as Manatees), which are commonly seen by snorkellers.

Alas, for us, the Dugong was to prove elusive, but on the boat on the way home, I reflected that the Andaman Islands had been a lovely place to wind down after the stresses of mainland India, although given the nightmarish ferry terminal, not the perfect destination if you have limited time or aren’t travelling in South India anyway. For me, Thailand (if you pick the right spot) is still up there as my number one Asian beach destination. It certainly takes some beating… so roll on Cambodia and Indonesia!

Yoga Tourism

2008-02-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

Kerala has long been a favourite travel destination for stressed out television producers and Islington’s ‘yummy mummies’, thanks to an interesting and beautiful geography; cool (some might say cold!) high tea stations to the east and a coastline situated across 850 kilometres of idyllic backwaters, not to mention the many yoga practitioners who base themselves there, .

Kerala has certainly worked hard at promoting itself. It is different to many places in India, with a history of communism, liberal attitudes and higher literacy rates, even amongst women, than anywhere else in India. So it was a pleasant surprise that our guesthouse owner in Fort Cochin was a bustlingly efficient woman in her late thirties who ran a very tight ship, with no apparent help from a husband or brother - it was good to see women take control of their business and livelihoods. This is a serious achievement as sexism in India is rife: for every woman seen in public there are about 30 or more men, so just by sheer force of numbers men dominate. Young Indian guys tend to hang around in groups, where many can’t help but leer at Western girls or take pictures without asking: intimidating if you’re on your own, and exasperating if you’re the boyfriend or partner. A couple of people have told us of their frustration at the general lack of respect towards their girlfriends; for a nation who gave the world the Kama Sutra, India is full of very sexually frustrated young men. Luckily for me, I've avoided much of the hassle that some women experience: the most frustrating thing I’ve found is being totally ignored by the man at the railway counter simply because you’re a woman.

For visitors, the done thing in Kerala is to take a houseboat made of bamboo along the backwaters, kick back and watch as life drifts slowly by, waited on by your captain and cook. The place where you get the boat, Alleppey, is described as the ‘Venice of India’ by various hyperbolic brochures and guide books, but Venice needn’t worry: it is a dusty, congested town with few restaurants or places to eat and a small number of expensive hotels along the beach. Only when you get out to the backwaters do you realise what the fuss is about.

The backwaters were peaceful and as lovely as their reputation hails them to be. We had great company in the shape of Jamie and Laura who we met in Goa, and the food was home cooking at its best. Somehow, though, as backpackers we couldn’t help feeling that we were just a few years too late for Kerala. Although the people are generally friendly, activities and accommodation are expensive, it gets very crowded with two week holiday makers at peak season and the touts are just as knowing as any in the North.

Down the coast, at Varkala, yoga tourism is in full force, as was another reason why people come to Kerala: Ayurvedic medicine. There are a number of hospitals in Varkala and we soon began to notice large amounts of terminally ill looking people wandering along the cliff top path. After our friends checked into a hotel that could have been described more accurately as a hospice, we realised that this was the last chance saloon for a lot of visitors. After a few sessions of yoga, an ayurvedic massage and an interesting meditation lecture, I was ready to move on.

"Goa Jonny Goa"

2008-01-18T04:33:00.000-08:00

As we crossed the unofficial border into Southern India, the language, food and culture changed into something more relaxed, hotter and altogether smellier. Our first glimpse of Bombay had been from the back of an old Ambassador Taxi – like something out of a 1940s movie – at five o clock in the morning on the way from the airport. After a sleepless night spent waiting for a delayed plane, our senses were awakened by the occasional waft of Bombay's truly awful stench. Our taxi driver was also struggling to stay awake – only his bizarre solution was to hang out of the ancient car with the door fully open, driving with one hand on the wheel and his head and body hovering above the tarmac at 60 miles per hour.

Bombay was fun, but before heading to meet all our friends in Goa, we thought we’d check out some of what the Lonely Planet describes as:

‘superlative beaches of which the Maldives would be jealous’ in Maharastra. Although we knew this would be an area devoid of Western tourists, I hadn’t imagined just how different beach life here could be. As we wandered along the seafront in the quiet fishing town of Murud, the enormous but oil stained beach was almost completely deserted, apart from a few horse ‘chariots’ taking Indian tourists for beach rides.

We stopped for some tiffin (late afternoon snacks) at a food stand, and I turned to see a woman in a burka hurriedly putting her veil back on before I could catch a glimpse of her face, when all I wanted to do was put a bikini on and go and play in the surf. Not exactly the done thing in Maharastra.

The next day we endured a long, tough bus ride to go a few miles down the coast to Ganpatipule, a famous pilgrimage centre whose beach was also described as ‘stunning’ by our Guide Book. Arriving at dusk on the beach, not for the first time I thought, ‘who writes these things?’ The beach, once upon a time, had been beautiful, but it was now covered as far as the breakwaters with litter, cowshit and dozens of mangy aggressive dogs following us as we searched for somewhere to stay. When we turned around to find, literally, 100 or so people sitting closely together on the beach, staring at us as though we had landed from another planet, we both thought the same thing: ‘Go to Goa!’

Arriving in the land of bikini-friendly sand, sea and fun in the sun was a real relief. We had a brilliant time on Palolem beach, spending Christmas Day eating Lobster and Tiger Prawns and giving each other presents of lilos, sarongs, and various beach toys. Although Goa’s trance music ‘glory days’ have long since passed, Palolem still sees plenty of young travellers looking to spend the winter dancing on the beach. Jonny had been hoping to get the chance to DJ on this trip and had endured various technical nightmares, including losing all his music to a broken hard drive, along the way.

But at last Jonny had all his equipment in working order to land a gig for Christmas Eve at the Dancing Shiva club, where you dance in the open air, among the palm trees with moon and stars overhead.

Right: "Put your hands up for Bournemouth"

Needless to say the night absolutely rocked, with about four hundred people dancing until the small hours and another ‘dream fulfilled’ tick to go in the box.

A repeat performance was had on New Year’s Eve, only this time with twice as many people and a dozen of our mates from London there to enjoy the night as well. It was marred only when groups of young local boys (most of whom had been a real nuisance by groping western girls on the dance floor) started fighting up and down the beach, including at the Dancing Shiva, leading to New Year’s Eve being given an early(ish) shut-down at 4.30am. Despite this, a great time was had by all, although maybe Palolem won’t be the first choice ‘world party’ beach in future, unless the Indian lads learn to behave themselves.

Palaces, pretenders and puking: Part 2

2008-01-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

Trying to lose the bad taste the Jaipur boys had left us with, we made a bee line for Jodhpur, the famous Blue city, with its closely packed houses, narrow streets and wonderfully preserved fort looking over the city. Rajasthan’s history is its main attraction and we thoroughly enjoyed looking around the fort’s incredible collections of Moghul and Raj-era palanquins, elephant seats, weapons and beautiful miniature Rajasthani paintings.

Our last stop in Rajasthan was Udaipur, the White City, and touted as India’s most romantic place; home to the famous 18th century Lake Palace, which looks as though it floats on the surface of the water and whose biggest claim to fame was housing James Bond’s harem in the film Octopussy. The Lake Palace is now a top hotel, and although our travellers budget wouldn’t stretch to staying there, we had a beautiful room overlooking the lake from the other side of town.

The city surrounds India’s largest artificial lake,

recently refilled after a dry spell by the heavy monsoon rains of last summer, and is a wonderfully relaxed place to explore, occasionally stopping for a mango lassie or to wander into one of the many artisan’s shops or artist’s workshops. We rented bicycles and cycled around the outskirts, ending up at Sunset Point, where the view over Udaipur was gorgeous but was almost eclipsed by the ‘musical fountain’, complete with a DJ playing Britney Spears and simultaneously operating dozens of water spouts and coloured disco lights.

On our last day in Udaipur, we did a cookery course, which involved less cooking and more observing our teacher (a nutritionist from the local hospital) pouring copious amounts of oil and ghee into a vegetable curry, inexplicably served without the vegetables. When we asked if this was authentic home cooking, she replied, with no hint of irony, “No, this is a hotel curry. I wouldn’t eat this – its far too fattening.” On our way back to the hotel, I began to feel quite sick, which was very annoying, as we’d planned to go out for dinner at one of the lovely Havelis (colonial mansions) surrounding the lake. I struggled on and a few hours and a short nap later I thought I’d be ok. Jonny had booked somewhere and I didn’t know where, so I just got into a rickshaw and allowed myself to be led.

When we ended up at the dock by the lake, I still hadn’t guessed that Jonny had in fact booked us into the famous Lake Palace Hotel of Octopussy fame. When he finally told me, I was so excited I almost forgot how sick I’d been feeling, but half way down the causeway I stopped and projectile vomited over the wall and into the lake. This was the third time I’d thrown up either just before or just after eating an extremely expensive meal, and Jonny’s face was incredulous: not again! He asked if I wanted to pull out, but I wasn’t about to forgo my chance to see one of India’s most beautiful attractions.

When we got there, it was indeed absolutely stunning, with three different restaurants, an interior garden with twinkling lights, lily ponds and terraces overlooking the lake. Although Udaipur’s winter temperatures drop sharply at night, I chose to eat on the terrace as the menu looked good and it was an amazing view. Nobody else was up there – only mad dogs and Englishmen would choose to eat somewhere which needed a hot coal bucket to help warm their feet! But my choice paid off… 20 minutes after we started our meal, to my surprise and delight Jonny got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, producing a ring which he’d carried around for four and a half months, just waiting for the right moment.

So, despite me puking up, and Jonny’s crestfallen face as he thought the whole thing might have to be called off, it was a magical night for both of us.

Palaces, pretenders and puking: Part 1

2008-01-18T03:53:00.000-08:00

Rajasthan: a desert land of Maharajah’s palaces, elephants, camels and fortresses. Having returned from our brief sojourn to South Africa, and after making a surprisingly relaxed pit stop at the Taj Mahal (which was worth every penny of its $20 entrance fee), arriving in Rajasthan was an assault on the senses. Where else in the world could you see a neon painted elephant, a tattooed camel and a brightly costumed ‘wedding horse’ (of the kind every self respecting Raj groom rides to his big day), lolloping, lurching and cantering in amongst the mopeds, rickshaws and honking Tata buses, along the same main road?

Jaipur hadn’t been on our list of ‘must do’s’ – in fact we’d wanted to avoid the heat and hustle of Rajasthan’s main town and concentrate on the smaller places such as Bundi and Mount Abu. But what you want from India and what India actually gives you are sometimes very different. We went where the available trains could take us, and all roads led to Jaipur. In a fairly salubrious backpacker hostel later that night, we were somewhat surprised to meet some well dressed and charming middle class Indian guys, of a similar age to us, who offered to take us out. Why not? So we thought, and thus started a night of free drinks, dancing and driving around in smart cars – not your average backpacker night out in Jaipur. We had fun, and by the time we got back to our hostel we felt like we’d made some new friends. Although we’d planned to leave Jaipur the next morning, they persuaded us to stay by offering to take us for lunch the next day, would send a driver to meet us and see some sights, and in the evening we’d all go to a local festival – the ‘real deal’ and not at all touristy. Just what the independent traveller yearns for.

Strangely, when their driver picked us up the next morning, there was no sign of them. When we dropped by their rather unimpressive ‘office’ – they apparently worked in the gem stone import and export business (one of Jaipur’s biggest industries) – they were out on business, and, looking back, there wasn’t much sign of any work being done at the office. We had a tour round the city and were taken for a nice lunch by the driver, all of which didn’t cost us a penny. By five o clock we went back to see if the guys were there and to ask about the festival (the real reason we had stayed). Sure enough, all the guys were there and we sat down with them for some chai and chat.

All seemed innocent enough until the crunch came with a request for us to consider helping them with a tax ‘loophole’ which involved posting €50,000 worth of gemstones back to England and picking them up for them. They offered us a lot of money – it was tempting and vaguely plausible – and we said that it was an interesting offer, but obviously being a finance lawyer, Jonny would have to check out the legality of it all with a law firm back in London.

We left the office feeling extremely unsettled – gem stone scams are famous in Jaipur and we both knew deep down that this felt all wrong. Not long after we left the office, the driver arrived to take us to the festival, but this time he was with a taxi driver, who would apparently take us there and everyone would meet us later.

In the taxi we began to dissect the day’s events – after a great night the night before, nothing really seemed to hang together properly. When we arrived at the festival, half an hour later, it was no more than a tourist ‘Rajasthani Experience’ which wasn’t bad for what it was, but was so far removed from the local festival we’d led to expect we were kicking ourselves for not pulling the plug earlier.

Needless to say, the guys never turned up and we never saw them again. The strangest thing about it all was that we hadn’t given the guys a definitive answer to their undoubtedly dubious scam – and what had they gained? They’d given us a free night out, a free lunch, and a driver for the day. The only thing we could think was that ultimately they knew we were highly suspicious and would eventually work them out. In the end we hadn’t lost anything, except, unfortunately, our trust in a few more Indian people.

Taxis: the world’s most annoying travel experience.

2007-12-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

We arrived in the capital, New Delhi, by train, ending up in the backpacker district of Pahaganj. A bit like its Thai counterpart, Bangkok’s Koh San Road, but less friendly, with fewer bars to meet people in, and more chance of being groped by the market stall owners as you wander back to your hostel. I hated it. More than anything I hated the autorickshaw taxi drivers who refused to put their meters on, and rarely went anywhere for less than twice the usual price. Taxi drivers are normally the most irritating feature of city travel, wherever you go in the world; many times I have stood in a London street after dark screaming at an incompetent, lost, taxi driver, whose English is virtually nonexistent, asking me for two pounds over the normal fare. Delhi is no better. Taxi drivers there drove us so mad that Jonny began telling them he was a member of the Delhi Tourism Office and that they were running a campaign to find un-metered and illegal autorickshaws, terrifying the drivers by taking mug shots with his digital camera and saying they were on his list.

After one particularly fruitless journey of being driven around looking for a shopping mall and ending up in yet another handicraft emporium, we found ourselves lost and surrounded by dozens of rickshaw drivers baying at our heels (“yes sir”, “hundred rupees sir”, “where you going sir”, “good price good price…”). Away from the crowd another rickshaw pulled up at the side of the road and the driver, smartly dressed in a grey workers suit and large blue turban, asked us where we were going: “Paliker Bazaar” we said. “I’m going that way anyway”, he replied in excellent English, “no charge, just hop in”.

It turned out the driver, Sindram, was in his 50s, loved the British, and had a sister working in Wimbledon branch of Barclay’s Bank. Oh the joys of a small world moment. We poured our problems out to our new found friend: we had only a few hours left to try and find some clothes to wear for a wedding in Cape Town which we were due to fly to the following week. We were only in Delhi for two days, then off to the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan before returning to catch our flight. Sindrum shook his head, “Paliker Bazaar is where you go for electronics. Indians get their clothes made by a good tailor! If you want some nice material, I can show you where to go and then you get them made for very cheap! Very cheap tailors in India!” As we headed towards the first shop, Sindram explained his code for ‘too expensive’ would be ‘very good price’ and for a good price was ‘so-so’, so he could help us and stop the shop owners from ripping us off.

By the time dusk fell, we had been to three separate silk shops, culminating in a boutique sari house where I was like a kid in a sweetshop and bought a ream of the most beautiful material I’d seen to date. Sindram deposited us outside a number of excellent tailors in Connaught Place and after another hour we had been measured up, picked our styles and promised they’d be ready in time.

Job done – and how! The following week Jonny picked up an exceedingly natty lightweight raw silk suit and I a beautiful blue and orange dress with matching scarf. With Indian accessories to match, our rough and ready traveller look was left

behind as we arrived at Lucy and Neil’s extremely stylish wedding in the shadow of Table Mountain. We had had the best shopping experience in India – made possible by the best rickshaw driver in India. Needless to say, Sindram got an extremely good tip!

You have been Puja-ed!

2007-12-09T02:17:00.000-08:00

And so to the sights and smells of India, whose land border we crossed at Sunauli en route to Varanasi, India’s holiest city, where we would spend Divali – the festival of Light and India’s answer to Christmas. The border was the usual mix of food sellers, money changers and shady characters. This time, unusually, the scams came not from officials looking for ‘baksheesh’ (bribes) but from a bunch of aggressive, thoroughly nasty fake bus workers, who were extorting money out of tourists (including us) who had prepaid for their bus tickets on the Nepali side of the border. We stood our ground – having been in this situation a few times before – but after an almighty row, in which we threatened to call the police, and they threatened to throw us off the bus (100m from the armed guards at the border post), we gave a third man half the money they were asking for to make the problem (and the men) go away. A small victory we felt, although I did wonder if this was to be the start of a long round of the annoying scams and rip offs for which Indian travel is so infamous. Arriving at Varanasi bus station late at night, after a bone-rattlingly uncomfortable 12 hour journey, we braced ourselves for an onslaught of rickshaw drivers, who are notorious for taking you to any hotel other than the one you want to go to. Much to our surprise and delight, the few rickshaw wallahs at the station not only took us, no questions asked, straight to where we asked, but did so at a reasonable price and with a friendly smile. First impression of Varanasi – very good!

We had heard of the Shiva Ganga guesthouse through friends, who described it as the kind of place which makes Varanasi easy – a retreat from the madness of India’s number one craziest place. It’s basic, clean and cheap but with a garden and beautiful setting right on the edge of Shiva Ghat, where the steps lead down to the River Ganges some distance from the old town. More than anything, it was one of the friendliest places we’d stayed in months, with a collection of different people who reflected much of the spiritual tourism that attracts people to Varanasi.

We met up with our friends, Caroline (English) and Affe (Dutch) who had booked us a room for the night. Caroline was on her second journey of spiritual enlightenment, inexorably drawn to Buddhism and on her way to Bodhgaya for a huge gathering of pilgrims before heading to an Ashram in Tamil Nadu. Other guests included Tim, a wonderful and ever so slightly camp Canadian Yoga teacher with a charisma which draws people of all nationalities together; Laina and Al, who we felt we gelled with in our essentially cynical, but nonetheless open minded, shared sense of normality; and Roddi, a blissed out Iranian Hindu convert who told us in all sincerity that we’d be fine in Varanasi because ‘you’ve got the 12 here, and they’ll look out for you’, referring to the full compliment of Hindu gods which look over the city; and because ‘God runs through the centre of town’, referring to the river Ganges – also known as the Universal Mother, and which is worshipped as a Goddess fallen from heaven. Unfortunately, the 12 couldn’t help Roddi when he stepped in a cow pat from one of the thousands of cows which roam all over Varanasi, and landed flat on his back with his white tunic covered in shit.

For two rather unspiritual types like us, Varanasi was a strange balancing act. We tried hard to put our usual attitudes on hold and surrender to Varanasi’s fantastic atmosphere (“feel the energy, man!”) as something to be cherished and enjoyed; but also to pre-empt that sinking feeling as yet another special ‘karma cleansing’ moment – such as Puja (prayer) offerings to the Ganges, in the form of lit candles sent downriver - ended in a request for money or donations, preferably in Euros, US Dollars or Pound Sterling. Even a simple guided tour of the fascinating burning ghats, where Hindus are cremated to ensure their safe passage to heaven, ended in a demand for money to safe guard not only our karma but also that of our next of kin (preferably including parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins and those who have already passed on to the next world...). In India, becoming 'spiritually cleansed', is like doing the supermarket shopping for the whole family.

Despite this, the lights and excitement of Divali were an awesome spectacle. The ancient town was like a warzone, albeit lit up with fairy lights, and after a few days of bangers and rockets being fired everywhere, had a strangely smoky, dreamlike quality. On our last day in Varanasi, we happened across a fantastic carnival, which amazingly no other tourist seem to have discovered, and spent the afternoon in mutual amazement as we stood and gazed at the spectacle of Varanasi’s citizens in full party swing, and they in turn gazed at us simply for joining them.

'Tache 'Tastic

2007-11-02T03:57:00.001-07:00

The mammoth two weeks of Annapurna, although brilliant and beautiful, had become, by the end, something of a grind. After reaching 3000m at the wildly beautiful and isolated Tibetan settlement of Manang, our party - Jonny and I, our good mates Sarah and Guy, plus our wonderful trek guide Tez and two porters Prim and Buddhi - were only able to safely ascend a maximum of 350m or so each day. Starting early in the morning to avoid the cold afternoon wind, you finish your day’s trek by midday, leaving the entire afternoon and evening with little to do but read books, play cards and contemplate the daunting 4.30am start and ten hour trek of the penultimate day, which came three days later.

Thorong La Pass (5410 metres high) was a final, serious, challenge, unfortunately ending with me getting a severe bout of Giardiasis.

Annapurna has been dubbed the ‘Andrex Trail’ due to this common parasite hitting so many trekkers at altitude. It is carried in the water, which boils at such low temperatures up there that bugs can survive in your tea no matter how long you boil it for, and is a decidedly unpleasant experience when you still have 1800 metres to descend before nightfall and no toilet facilities except a few large rocks to hide behind.

And so, as Sarah and Guy powered on ahead
as usual, Jonny and I finished the last day of trekking from Muktinath to Jomsom on horseback (much to Jonny’s frustration when I refused, on principle, to get in a jeep). Despite my assurances that they would only be pack-mules and he would be ‘completely safe’ because he was on the end of a lead reign, it resulted in Jonny being given a charming but skittish pony which had been loose in the forest for two weeks. Led by a nine year old, it reared and bolted at a particularly scary tractor about three hours into the ride and nearly threw him off the side of a cliff. Luckily, Jonny quite literally held on for dear life, thankfully escaping any serious harm whilst simultaneously impressing the Tibetan horse dealer with his fantastic equestrian skills. I appeased my guilty conscious by screaming at the tractor driver who had stupidly honked his horn at the sweet little foal that belonged to my mare.

From Jomsom we flew to the sleepy post-trekking mecca of Pokhara, where we deservedly chilled out for a few days in a decidedly 1950s retro style hotel called the Bedrock (en suite complete with green tiled corner bath), which wouldn’t have been out of place in Las Vegas. Nepal’s reputation as a world famous trekking destination is fundamental to Nepal’s economy, but it poses a strange problem for Nepal’s tourist trade, for trekkers are an incredibly mixed bunch. Groups are variously composed of young travellers who’ve normally either made it over the Tibet border or are here to escape the chaos of India for a few weeks; older dreamers on ‘do it before you die’ holidays; the odd serious mountaineer; and, seemingly, lots of Austrians, Canadians and Swiss (haven’t they had their fill of mountain scenery?). As a result, Nepal’s main tourist areas, Thamel and Pokhara, seem to cater for everyone and no one in particular, and when you add in the odd itinerant tourist smack-head hanging around trying to score, it makes them both surprisingly ‘unhip’.

So much so, in fact, that Jonny and Guy decided this was the perfect place to try out the power of the ‘moustache’ when they went to have their bushy trekking beards shaved off at the local barbers. There are some serious ‘taches to be seen in South Asia, where matters of great importance are often referred to as ‘matters of the moustache’. Sarah and I were horrified - even more so when we learned they had made a pact not to shave them off until we left Pokhara.

Pokhara’s lack of cool was proven beyond
doubt by a trip to The Beehive, ‘the ‘buzziest place in town’, which had a live band playing so loudly it almost (but not quite) drowned out the droning of the British Army Ghurka recruitment officers, who had made the place their own. Looking around, Jonny and Guy were just two of about 40 bristling moustaches in the place. After a few days, Pokhara’s lakeside prettiness had worn quite thin, and as we were unable to organise our next move from there effectively (not to mention my desperation to get Jonny to a decent barber) we decided to head back to Kathmandu.

Head for the Hills

2007-10-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

As a child, I never associated Nepal with the Himalayas. I thought of Nepal as a small part of Northern India which I had gleaned from reading the information box on the menu at ‘Monty’s’, our local Nepalese restaurant. Mount Everest, on the other hand, was a single gigantic entity – God only knew where it might actually be - which the odd, exceedingly brave and/or stupid, person attempted to climb, and would then invariably show off their black, frostbitten fingers on Blue Peter if they managed to get to the summit.

Throughout my formative teenage years, Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, was completely synonymous with the 1960s Hippy Trail, notably through Janis Joplin’s line ‘You know you might think the road don’t end in Detroit…honey, the road don’t even end in Kathmandu…” . Even my parents, who had always pretended to be groovy hippy types in their youth, didn’t make it to Kathmandu. It was a legendary place (probably somewhere near the poppy fields of Afghanistan?), where you could surely smoke Nepalese Temple balls to your hearts content, get into meditation and ‘find yourself’, before dying prematurely in a bathtub, or wherever.

As a result, Nepal never really seemed real,
until a few years ago when my good
friend, Sanjini, was posted to Kathmandu with an NGO, and met and eventually married a Nepali, Ganesh. Through them, Nepal emerged as more than a myth; as a real bona fide mountain kingdom, where the people are very distinct from India, or nearby Tibet, and where the Hindu and Buddhist religions remain so strong that everywhere you go there are shrines and other reminders that here is a deeply spiritual place. The hippys came and went (and a few of them linger on in Kathmandu’s ‘Freak Street’) but of course the Nepali people remain.

Writing this, in the shadow of Nepal’s Manasulu, the eighth highest mountain in the world at just over 8000 metres, and Annapurna 2, another giant at over 7000m – (Everest trumping the lot at 8882m and rising), it feels like the peaks and valleys of Nepal have been left surprisingly untouched compared to other places. Although the environmental impact of tourism – mainly in the form of over a million water bottles left by thirsty trekkers as they walk one of the many trails around the Himalayan foothills – is palpable, the lodges are still basic, electricity a luxury (we’ve had two days without, out of 6 so far), and an extensive menu featuring anything but potato or lentil curry all but a distant memory.

All this on one of what is supposed to be a very over-developed 'apple-pie' trail called the Annapurna Circuit trek. Not only is the scenery here awesome, the levels of comfort are just enough to get us through 2 long weeks of daily trekking, particularly given the first two days of solid rain. If you like camping and hate seeing other Westerners, maybe the Annapurna is too easy. For us, struggling up the mountainside in the sunshine, trying to get over landslides, waterfalls and such like after days of heavy rain at the beginning of our journey, it feels just about as far off the beaten track as I like to get.

Chinese Medicine

2007-09-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

On the way back to civilisation, bad luck struck again, and Jonny developed the worst toothache imaginable. His cheek swelled up to the size of a large orange, and we had to head for the nearest city. Toothache is about the last thing you want to get when travelling in under-developed countries. Where the tropical medicine is often better than anything you’ll receive in the UK, dentistry is often of the ‘if in doubt, pull it out’ school.

China is famed for its traditional medicine, and we had had a few brushes with it up to this point. Jonny had had his ears de-waxed with the longest cotton bud I've ever seen in my life; I had twisted my ankle quite badly on the Great Wall of China, and had some fantastic sports massage by a lady in Pingyao who managed to stop the pain for a few hours; following on from that, I went for another one in Xi’an and was offered ‘cupping’ – a traditional remedy that works on the basis of drawing toxins out of the body. Thinking it would be something akin to acupuncture, I agreed, and to give him something to do, Jonny was offered a free treatment as well.

Randomly placing cups on Jonny’s back and around my bruised knee, he sucked up the skin with a vacuum pump. Apparently the more bruised you get, the more toxins are coming out. All I could see was skin starved of oxygen, and purple bruising developing. Cupping, in my humble opinion, is nothing but outdated quackery and hocus-pocus.

Trying to find a decent modern dentist in Kunming was always going to be difficult. The first dentist was asleep on his own chair when we walked in, and after a cursory examination wanted to pull out Jonny’s gold tooth without even doing an x-ray. Needless to say, we left very quickly. Then we spent four hours in the local hospital, which was all very modern and had full oral x-ray facilities, but nobody spoke English. Somehow, through sign language and drawing pictures, we managed to get an x-ray done, but still couldn’t get any strong painkillers. Only then were we pointed in the direction of the local Colgate sponsored, sparkling clean and full English speaking dental hospital! After finally receiving a proper examination, it seemed Jonny was going to need to be somewhere for a while to sort the problem out, and the last thing we wanted was to be stuck in Kunming for another week.

The frustrating thing was that even in the proper dental hospital, the only painkiller on offer was under-strength ibuprofen. I couldn’t understand how, even in the major hospital in the city, they couldn’t prescribe ibuprofen with codeine or another stronger painkiller. Later I found out that the Chinese have an uneasy relationship with Codeine, or any opiate, due to the history of Opium Wars with the British, and the vast numbers of opium addicts in the population throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Codeine Phosphate was only licensed for use in cancer patients last year, and for any serious terminal illness, pain relief is woefully under-prescribed. We also learned that with no national health system, victims of accidents in China are often left on the roadside, as if you take a poor man to hospital unfortunately the good Samaritan is liable to pay his medical bills. When in China, it’s definitely best to be either healthy or rich, and preferably both.

We flew straight to Hong Kong, where our friends Gary and Angel put us up, got Jonny a dentist who managed to sort the problem out without major surgery, gave us the Slaughter and May company junk for a morning, and generally spoiled us rotten. Despite the pain Jonny endured for a few days, there is no doubt that we are definitely the lucky ones.

Kham Again

2007-09-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

From Tiger Leaping Gorge, we headed further north into Tibetan Yunnan, where we approached the high altitude plateaux at an altogether more sensible pace. Before Tiger Leaping Gorge, we’d taken in the very beautiful but distinctly touristy town of Lijiang, whose great saviour was the amazing quality of its arts and crafts, but wanted to get further off the beaten track, if we could. We got to Zhongdian, recently re-christened Shangri-La to help bring in tourist trade after it was named as the subject of the 1930s British novel Lost Horizon (available in all good Yunnan bookshops).

Its 80% Tibetan here, with a few other minority groups, and really feels it: cold and crisp with the kind of amazing quality of light that you get at very high altitudes; Tibetan people of all ages dancing in a circle in the town square at dusk; being served deep fried yak cheese with sugar for breakfast (surprisingly tasty!).

Shangri La was our stopping off point to get to Deqin (Day-chin), which we’d heard was a largely unspoilt region. Its difficult to get to, being at least two days journey from the nearest airport or train station, and is only just opening up to tourism. We stayed at a little Tibetan trekking lodge – traditionally built in brick and wood and with space to keep animals below (newly converted to a shower block for backpackers) and with murals and paintings on all the walls.

Leaving our big packs behind and taking the barest essentials, we did a steep four hour trek uphill to a mountain pass. From there it was an hour downhill to a little village called Yebong. The facilities here are basic, to say the least. In fact, we’ve got quite used to decent backpacker hostels and clean, warm surroundings in almost all of the places we’ve stayed. Here it was rough and ready – four newly constructed hostels in a row on the side of the valley, with planks knocked together and thin mattresses for beds, one shower shack outside – solar powered shower though, not bad - and a ‘thunder-box’ on the path outside.

But to make up for the lack of creature comforts, Yebong is a valley truly deserving of the moniker ‘stunning’. There is no road, people get around on foot and mule and I guessed that this was how the Swiss Alps may have looked, in the days before carver skis and cable cars. Waking up in the morning and looking out over the valley, it was difficult to keep your balance: the feast for the eyes was too much to take in.

From Yebong you can trek to waterfalls and glaciers – all difficult climbs (for us) through thick mud and steep forest, but really worth it when you get there. We went in a group as it’s easy to get lost. The area is so new to tourism there aren’t any decent maps to be had; one man nearly didn’t find his way back and a search party was sent out to find him.

Getting back after the day’s trekking, we ate at the hostel. This wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds, as Jonny had to go into the kitchen (which was only lit by one dim light bulb) and order according to what he could see on the shelves. Spying a piece of meat, he flapped his arms in the universal sign of the chicken, and received a nod of the head. Great, he thought, chicken with vegetables. A short while later, much to the dismay of the group of Israeli’s who we’d been trekking with, a beautifully cooked piece of pork was served up. His excuse? In Tibet, pigs must fly! The flying pig was closely followed by a huge pot of casserole, containing an entire chicken, which had been duly chased around the yard and sacrificed for our dinner. Head, claws, everything was included!

It can't be long before this kind of life is a thing of the past for Deqin. It's certainly true that where backpackers go, a couple of years later the Chinese tour groups will follow. Deqin's saving grace at the moment is the lack of road but given that the Chinese government have built a train to Tibet's isolated capital, Lhasa, and are half way to finishing their highway to Everest base camp, unspoilt parts of Tibet are increasingly difficult to find.

A Dam Shame

2007-09-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

More trekking. This time at “Tiger Leaping Gorge”, the world’s deepest river gorge, spanning the mighty Yangtze in the Yunnan Province of South West China. Named after a tiger was seen leaping across the stepping-stones at the turn of the century, these days the gorge is far too wide for any tiger to jump (even if there were any left in this part of the world) as a result of four separate earthquakes, which have driven the gorge apart.

And what a joy it was. We followed the upper path that winds through the forest and around the cliff - only safely accessible when the weather is good due to the high risk of landslides, a problem which isn't helped by the serious deforestation in a country that consumes about 25 million trees every year simply to make chopsticks.

This was the path of the ancient tea traders carrying tea between India and China and the pack mules are still in evidence, although these days they carry not tea but tourists up the notoriously steep ’24 Bends’. The whole walk normally takes about two days (very fit hikers can do it in a day), but we weren’t about to rush. Our legs were still recovering from Emei Shan, for one thing, and to take in the spectacular scenery and make the most of the top quality hostels en route, it’s best to go slow.

Despite the high risk of earthquakes, the Chinese government is planning to dam the gorge in 2008, flooding the entire area and ruining this beautiful place, not to mention the homes and livelihoods of thousands of locals. Officials say it’s the only solution to China’s serious water shortage: providing for over a billion residents is no easy task, as witnessed by dry water taps in many of the toilets, restaurants and hostels we’ve visited over the past few weeks.

As we picked our way down a somewhat slippery path to the rapids on our third and last day, we could hear the boom of the initial blasting (we thought it was thunder for a while) echoing over and over between the enormous cliffs on either side. It was unbelievable to think that Tiger Leaping Gorge might not even exist by the end of next year.

Upstairs, Downstairs

2007-09-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”

Having fully recovered from our brush with Tibet, we decided to go ‘active’ for a while and headed for Emei Shan. One of China’s four holy mountains, the peak is 3047m high and is considered a necessary pilgrimage for many Chinese Buddhists. For some devout followers, climbing Emei Shan involves bowing with their heads to the ground after every 3 paces; for most visitors, however, taking a bus and cable car to the summit, and taking the bus back down again, is a more than adequate expression of faith.

The whole mountain is a giant staircase, with old craggy stone steps on the ‘long way round’ and newer concrete ones on the other, steeper, side. At intervals along the way are ancient monasteries, with names like ‘Magic Peak’ and ‘Elephant Bathing Pool’, where you can stay and rest overnight for a few dollars, and where large families of monkeys terrorize tourists with food or valuables. Starting at the steep side’s Wannian Temple we, along with hundreds of other people, began our trek upstairs. After the first hour of walking in the heat, Jonny, predictably, had turned into his ‘amazing melting man’ alter ego. I was reminded of the sign at Covent Garden station that says, ‘this emergency exit has 124 steps. Do not attempt unless in an emergency’; climbing this mountain would be no easy feat for these two Londoners. We took it, quite literally, one step at a time. A few hours and hundreds, if not thousands, of steps later we stopped for lunch, where we met an American guy, Jimmy, and another English couple, Pat and Nic, who walked at a similarly snail-like pace to us. We continued the climb together, which thankfully took our minds off the task.

It’s every pilgrim’s (and by this point, we definitely felt like pilgrims) wish to make it to the Golden Summit for sunrise on Emei Shan. Up there, magical things happen, like ‘Buddha’s Aureola’, a natural phenomenon where your own shadow becomes tinged by a rainbow, and when monks have been known to jump off the cliff believing they’ve been granted early nirvana. A bed would be good enough for us, mind you: we were determined to make it to the top before nightfall.

Nine hours after we began the trek, our five completely exhausted bodies somehow reached the top cable car station. Here you could get a lift to the last section of stairs and a hotel for the night and a further hour’s walk to get to the ‘Golden Summit’. Our relief soon turned to horror, as we realised we’d missed the last cable car of the day. As we pondered the prospect of a 3am rise and a two-hour morning walk to the summit, two Chinese ladies shouted down from the cable car station. Jonny somehow translated, “another cable car…going now!” Every last vestige of energy we had was spent running up the (yet more!) steps to the cable car station, carried only by a huge sense of elation that we would, after all, see the sunrise. At 4.30am, we woke up for the last hour of walking to the summit. It was pitch black, so foggy you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and raining.

We had no idea how to get there, but knew we had to look out for a giant golden statue comprising four elephants and three Buddhas. Ten minutes later, we stumbled across a strange, marble plateaux, with steps and a sign saying ‘best place for Golden Summit photograph’. Surely this couldn’t already be it? We had no idea – it was so foggy we couldn’t see anything at all. We decided to stay put. Even if we weren’t right at the top, we would be in a good place to see the sunrise. When the light came, we were standing at the bottom of the biggest golden statue I have ever seen. There were crowds of people lining the plateaux and three temples of Bronze, silver and gold. At 6am, the sun poked its head above the clouds to a resounding cheer. We’d done it.

Or had we? If we thought the climb up was hard, nothing could have prepared us for the walk down again. Deciding to take the long way round, as it was more picturesque, the first hour of walking down wasn’t too bad. And then my knees began to really hurt. By 5.30pm we still had 2 hours of walking to go, and only one and a half hours of daylight. Despite the very real pain, we all quickened our pace to an, ‘almost-run’, singing songs and eating large amounts of chocolate to keep us going. Twenty minutes before we reached the bottom, the heavens opened and proper, torrential rain soaked us from head to foot. We didn’t care though: at least we’d make it back for beers in the hostel.

Emei Shan. One to remember.

Too High

2007-08-08T23:32:00.000-07:00

Half way to Litung lies a small town, Kangding (pronounced Candy) with gushing rapids running right through the centre, neatly dividing it into two, and brightly coloured buddhas painted onto the mountainside above. Its here that China begins to really feel like Tibet – where green tea becomes ‘butter tea’ – a salty milky frothy drink which tastes like its fresh from the Yak - and where bright red cheeks give away the people’s true Tibetan mountain blood.

We stayed at the top of town, in a hostel where travellers congregate on their way into the highlands. Talk soon turned to the Litang horse festival, where we learned that there had been trouble earlier in the week. The festival is one of the few traditional meeting places for Tibetans from all over the Kahm region of Tibet (part of which is in China, and part in the Tibetan Autonomous Region); and for that reason the horse festival has been politicised by the Chinese ‘occupation’ as a rare chance for Tibetans to come together and voice their unhappiness. Consequently, the second day of the festival had been marked by political protest, soon descending into a stand off with the Chinese army; and then riots in which a Tibetan man was shot and killed by the military. Things had apparently calmed down, and the festival was still going, but it was to be the last ever horse festival of this kind that the Chinese would tolerate. We decided it was still worth the chance.

The next day we were up at the crack of dawn (she didn’t seem to mind - J) to begin what has to be one of the bumpiest, uncomfortable and yet stunning drives. Beautiful mountain countryside, ravines and waterfalls, dotted with grey brick Tibetan houses with multi-coloured windowsills. After a few hours, every bump in the road (and there were many) could be felt through the ancient bus seats, making the bus trip almost as much of an endurance test as climbing the mountain itself. We drove higher and higher, (the night before we’d been asked how high we’d been before; our response was, um, “is that a metaphorical question?”). We past a sign that said, scarily, 4600m . From a height of 2500 the previous night, we had climbed over two thousand metres in a matter of hours. I turned to Jonny, who was looking exceedingly pale. I feared the worst; travel sickness being one of the few minor ailments Jonny doesn’t suffer from.

Altitude sickness is a strange thing. If you’ve had it before it doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily get it again. And if you’re a super fit trekker accustomed to high altitude you can get it just as easily as someone who isn’t. Either way, at best its unpleasant, at worst it can be extremely serious. Jonny had suffered once before, in Peru; my only experience of altitude sickness had been a legendary New Years Day hangover in 1997, when I swore blind I had it (at 1400m), and passed out in the back of the car for the afternoon while the family went skiing.

An hour and a half later we were in Litung. Two hours later we found out there had been more arrests the previous day and two monks had been arrested for handing out political leaflets. Three hours later, we were both in a real state with extreme headaches and being violently sick. There was only one thing for it: we had to get down the mountain as soon as possible. Early next morning we found ourselves going back the way we came. Tibet and the horse festival had been screwed by China. And we had been screwed by Tibet.

Museum Peace

2007-08-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

"The Great Wall Climber"

We've spent the last week or two ticking so many tourist boxes en route to Sechuan, that I think we might be 'templed out' before we've even reached Nepal!! Mind you, the four hour trek along the Great Wall just outside Beijing was truly great (even if I did twist my ankle stupidly jumping out of a watch tower), and the Terracotta Warriors were definitely worth the queue, as were some spectacular cave temples called the Longmen Caves - a UNESCO world heritage sight that we hadn't realised even existed.

Thousands of Buddha's carved into a rockface, from 1" to 100' high, all with different expressions and meanings...not that we knew what the meanings were as most of the explanation, as ever, was in Chinese. We're getting used to putting our own spin on things!

The Chinese approach to museums is interesting, to say the least. The Forbidden City in Beijing suffers from the fact that almost all its interior treasures got taken to Taiwan, where they now sit in a reputedly amazing museum. Those few that were left are now behind window panes which haven’t been cleaned for years. I’m all for repatriation of the world’s treasures to their rightful places (Elgin Marbles anyone?) but to be honest, at least for the moment some of those might be better off where they are. In Pingyao, a perfectly preserved old town just outside Beijing, the tourists crowd in to see a slice of old China. It’s like a movie set – and all the more interesting because its still very much a working (if increasingly touristy) town. But when the very artefacts which they’ve come to see are, quite literally, left outside to rust in the rain, you have to wonder how long this gravy train can last.

"Pingyao - last vestiges of reality before tourism sets in..."

So now we have arrived in Chengdu, capital of Sechuan, where much to Jonny's annoyance, he's discovered he can't stand the aftertaste of the world famous Sechuan Pepper (its a bit like detergent to the wrong tongue), leaving me to deal with the spicy hot pot, and him to put up with the milder version... certainly not playing to type!

We've just got wind of an annual Horse festival in Litung, near the Tibet/China border which is about 300 km west of Chengdu. Its apparently an amazingly colourful experience and involves all kinds of horse racing, skill demonstration and general 'wow' horsemanship. It finishes in a few days time, so if we're going to catch it, we've got to get the early bus (8 hours, then another 8 hours and a climb to over 4000m so hopefully no altitude sickness!).

Beginning in Beijing

2007-08-08T03:43:00.000-07:00

We’d heard a lot about Beijing before we left London; mainly as the subject of much derision for its over-pollution, overpopulation, and over-demolition. But for us it was nothing if not a pleasant surprise.

True, the legendary traffic fumes choke the sunlight so you rarely see more than a haze over ”Old Peking” (you wake up coughing as if you’d smoked a packet of Benson and Hedges the night before) but despite this and the enormous scale of the place, which perhaps only dedicated urban dwellers can really enjoy, Beijing is one of the most relaxed capital cities I have ever been to.

Even the ubiquitous Tianannmen Square scammers aren’t very savvy in the grand scheme of things: we met a few travellers who had managed to scam them right back. Still, the vast majority of people treat westerners as somewhere between minor celebrities and the subject of much hilarity: we frequently turned around to find ourselves suddenly the subject of a group photograph - no questions asked!

Wandering through the Hutongs, its easy to see how the old style of Chinese living is disappearing very quickly in the name of ‘progress’, and with it much of the community feeling that living cheek-by-jowl demands. But that said, when traditional Hutongs lack basic sanitation, and whole families are living in rooms no larger than a double bedroom, perhaps progress really is the only way forward. Either way, the decision has been made. It ain’t pretty, but Beijing is now a thoroughly modern city.