One of the closing lines in my last post was “I’m leaving Beijing in half an hour for Datong, just 5 hours away.”. As a reader you’re afforded the blissful benefits of being effortlessly transported from the comfort of your armchair, from Russia to Mongolia and onwards to China with just a few gentle clicks of the mouse. As the author however, I thumped ’submit’ on that post and headed for the taxi rank outside my Beijing hostel, scrambling through my pockets for the 26 yuen train ticket (less than £2). Immediately it was apparent I wouldn’t make the departure time, I’d misjudged it by a whole half an hour and this is where the “Datong, just 5 hours away” started to become a fallacy. Continue reading ‘The Man in Carriage 17′
Monthly Archive for July, 2007
As birthdays go, this one could appear pretty regular; spent the day with the lads, grabbed a few beers and a bite to eat then hit the clubs and danced the night away without a care in the world for my aching 21 (+4) year old bones. It’s only when I divulge the detail, that you realise the magic of having your birthday on the road. The day I spent with the lads was at The Great Wall of China, earning a big and mighty “must-do” tick, we scaled it’s heights and marvelled at the monumental feat. I can’t help but wonder if some of these Chinese folk wish the wall still did it’s job, everywhere I go I am constantly stared at as the ‘long nose’ (the Chinese’s affectionate term for westerners) but maybe still, for the bright blue shoes I entertain myself with by wearing. Continue reading ‘A Beijing Birthday’
“Excuse me Sir, you are stay here?”, I turned slowly around, beads of sweat dripping feverishly from my brow. Somehow I’d wound up in the lobby of the imaginatively named, Beijing Hotel, a five star marbled metropolis catering for the rich and famous, and seemingly not the sick backpacker I currently portrayed. An hour earlier I had shunned the suggestion of Peking Duck to my Austrian friends – still with me since Mongolia – and admitted defeat to my impending sickness, under the watchful eye of Chairman Mao on Tiananmen Square and was attempting to find my way back to the hostel. Beijing Hotel was merely the stage to obtain some yuan to begin the long and shaky road home. Continue reading ‘Feeling Peaky in Peking’
“I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world. Life in plastic, it’s fantastic!”, I’ll never forget these ghastly lyrics. An hour previous, I was sitting in a ger in the Mongolian countryside just to the west of Ulaanbaatar, politely accepting the offer of a bowl of airag (fermented mares milk) from our generous host. Not wanting to cause offence, I acknowledged my 3 Austrian tour-mates, Phillip, Harry and George who observed me swiftly swallow the sharp, milky, fizzy contents of the chipped china bowl. Continue reading ‘A Mongolian Milky Way’
Dime dull d’of dold. Achooooooooo, excuse me. Sniff sniff. In England, there is no such thing as the common cold among the male population, we suffer instead from the affliction of ‘Man Flu’; a much more imposing, prolonged and debilitating scourge that requires a lot of love and attention. Unfortunately for me, my fellow hostelliers don’t seem very forthcoming with hugs, head strokes and generous offerings of tea, so I’m going it alone. Wish me luck, sniff sniff. Continue reading ‘Sniffles in the Gobi’
There are certain places in the world that make you stand up and consider whether you’ve taken a wrong turning off the trail. Ulaanbaatar granted that feeling the moment I stepped off the Trans-Siberian, stretched my aching limbs and filled my lungs with the obligatory pollution. I sidestepped potholes, drunks and stray dogs as I made my way to Idre’s Guesthouse, my dwelling of choice. Following the formalities I fell into a peaceful sleep, knowing that upon awakening I would be force fed the frenzied hotpot of urban Mongolia. Continue reading ‘Uncovered Passion’
Dumdum-De-DUM, dumdum-De-DUM, dumdum-De-DUM. It took me the whole 5 days from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar, to decide how I would portray the drum of the Trans-Mongolian train I alighted this morning. Say it with me, dumdum-De-DUM, softer, dumdum-De-DUM, emphasise the capitals dumdum, De-DUM, one-two, three-four, dumdum-De-DUM. Never has a journey left me so relaxed. To my right are a set of antelope horns, the hostel foyet is filled with lounge music and all I want to do is hug the keyboard, close my eyes and drift off to dreams of faraway places. Dumdum-De-DUM. Continue reading ‘Trans-Mongolian; it’s right down my street.’
