Two countries ago

This blog is now running two countries behind my actual location. I’m in Russia now, writing this in a yurt on Olkhon Island in the middle of Lake Baikal; who knows when and where I’ll post it. Before Olkhon we spent twenty-four hours in Irkutsk, and before that was Mongolia. Beijing already seems like it

The Melancholy Gurkha

I’ve left hot and rain-soaked Kathmandu for a cooler yet equally humid Beijing. Considering the fuss I had over how to get to China, it should have been no surprise that my actual entry into the country was far from plain sailing. I had two flights – one from Kathmandu to Kunming in China, then

Encounters with People and Animals

I realise I haven’t really written very much about the things you can see here – temples covered in elaborate carvings, ancient palaces, gold-topped Buddhist stupas and hills covered in forest, flowers and swarms of butterflies. But whenever I sit down to write, the encounters I have had with different people and animals are the