Trail of Ants

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′