Trail of Ants

Russia (57 Photos)

"Nyet you flea. I squash you with my Cosmo boot, now get out of my face, take that train to Mongolia, the one they call the Trans-Mongolian you peasant scum." Now, my experience of Russia wasn't quite that harsh but I did hear 'nyet' - no - a few times too many for my liking, but the train journey onwards was the perfect way to evade the aloof Muscovites.

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Mongolia (37 Photos)

With Genghis Khan as their perpetual leader, in a land the size of Western Europe you feel small in every single way. But the spirit of the Mongols is fed to you in cultural ways and by the time you leave you're kin and kith have the weathered faces of nomads, and your spirit longs forever more for the galloping grasslands of the Gobi.

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North China (72 Photos)

With Mao resigned to the souvenir shops, Tienanmen Square circled by Olympic dreams and the once Forbidden City infiltrated by over 10 million visitors annually it's mysteries appeared to have been solved, but the legacies are bound to live on under a thousand clouds of conspiracies.

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South China (145 Photos)

A modest charm cloaks the hills of southern China, where rice paddy fields sink under the weight of innocence and bamboo creaks with cries of gweilo (ghost or foreigner). The Yunnan province is a picture postcard of all things China, and taking up your chopsticks there is a powerful experience.

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Tibet (194 Photos)

The Forbidden City, where monks shroud themselves in maroon innocence and torrid tales of persecution linger in the crags and frosty blushes of the nomads and their land. To travel here is a primitive pleasure, it's a time to listen but a time to really look. My views on Free Tibet are at present, a personal pleasure. But we all know, history was cruel.

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The Himalaya (34 Photos)

Nothing prepares you for the first sight of Mount Everest or her rocky relatives. The journey from Lhasa to Kathmandu via the world's most revered range was a reward for which no travel pursuit I've realised is worthy.

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Nepal (114 Photos)

Nepal is the playground of the Himalaya, in the turbulent backyards of Tibet and India. Rhino, rafts and reverence for all things Brahma in the birthplace of Buddha are all on the checklist. Meanwhile take note as politicians fumble the future of the caste and creed on the roof of the world.

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North India (88 Photos)

The cities are capable of blinding even the most focused of foreign visionaries. Decrepit. Rancid. Rude. Rotten. Tasteless. Are all words that trickle of the tongues of the hotels inhabitants. It's the most in your face learning curve I've experienced as a traveller. As Mao once said of India, 'Out of a rain of blows, friendship flows'. I concur.

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Sri Lanka (194 Photos)

A thousand and one descriptions are offered to the island of Sri Lanka. The island where holy peaks sprout among the tea and temples and the coastline wraps itself in splendid sands. Underneath it all, the island is still in grieving for that fateful Boxing Day, back on it's feet and standing with pride but in the cruelest of ways now facing a tougher test, that of Man, not Mother Nature.

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South India (114 Photos)

Glorious gopurams (temple gateways), blameless backwaters and gorgeous ghats. The journey around southern India was in complete contrast to it's northern brother, and was aided by the throbbing pipes of a Royal Enfield. Never has a country made me do so many u-turns in so many different ways. Bravo, bravo.

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Singapore (23 Photos)

Arriving in Singapore from India was like a fat man eating a salad, it just didn't seem right. Almost every MRT (tube) is a secret passage to a shopping mall, and every shopping mall is home to a divine food court. It's trendy where it's peaceful and respectful where it's riotous. The main grumble from us backpackers is cost, but after a couple of Tiger beers you've given in, and let the city seduce you.

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Indonesia (76 Photos)

Indonesia is as diverse as Europe; as remote as Oceania; as ambitious as North America; as profound as South America; as mystical as Antarctica; and as tribal as Africa. It rightly calls Asia home, doused in dusty colour, developing cities and sensational food. Home to the persecuted orangutan and smoking volcanoes while sublime underwater worlds surround troves of culture. Indo is a testing ground for Mother Nature in a microcosm of the millennium, its a place that I'll never tick as 'done', but I'll never tire of trying.

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