Crossing into South East Asia at long last. Western food is back on the menu!
Not so long ago in a place not very far from here (Laos) I found myself stood outside the Vietnamese immigration hall trying to ascertain how in the hell I managed to get a puncture in the 500 metres it took me to ride through no man’s land. Some things, I decided just didn’t make […]
Guangxi. Leaving China behind and trying to exit through the wrong border
Greetings from Hanoi, Vietnam. Yes I really did finally make it out of China with my sanity intact. I do believe that is the longest I have ever gone without speaking more than two words of English. I cannot begin to describe my feelings when I eventually arrived in the centre of Hanoi to be […]
I can’t afford a Hospital! Don’t worry, our leader pays for you
I slept like a baby to be honest but I woke up rather early, half four to be exact which isn’t unusual given that I’m usually asleep by eight or nine. The first sign that something was wrong was my excessive gas and then the small rumblings in my guts. This was always a bad […]
Guizhou province. Every day seems a real struggle now. Difficult days in China
I’ve just come back from a walk to the town centre of the place I’m currently tucked up in – a town called Debao, just across the border from Vietnam. I’m so close I can almost smell the dogs being roasted from my hotel. With the actual border crossing still more than 200 km’s further […]
The road through China from Mianyang. Lost in Luzhou
The road from Mianyang With me not wanting to get caught up in the melee that was Chengdu, I decided I would take a different route which would unfortunately take me south east through the polluted lowlands of the region. The downside of this was that there was almost nowhere where people were not present […]
A quick update from China
I honestly don’t know where to start as I sit down to write this. So many things have happened since I left Mianyang almost two and a half weeks ago that it’s difficult for me to remember through my hazy memory the bizarre incidents, (of which there were many), random encounters and strange contradictions I […]
China – an introduction
I’m currently holed up in another sprawling and traffic congested Chinese city, Mianyang to be exact, after one hell of a ride from Lanzhou. My legs are thoroughly worn out from the endless mountains, my head is still spinning from the complete and utter madness that is this country and my eyes are just beginning […]
Sichuan, China. Epic scenery and curious but friendly locals
I left bright and early as I knew I had a huge day ahead of me. After about 10km’s, and having stopped for a whopping great big bowl of porridge, banana and a huge splattering of honey, I began. I cycled through these quaint little villages with lots of traditional architecture gracing many of the […]
Gansu province, China. Freezing nights and lost in translation with locals
Leaving Lanzhou Having somehow found my through the midday traffic of Lanzhou, getting lost numerous times beneath the flyovers and twelve lane roads in the process, I faced exactly what I had been led to believe – an endless uphill slog that went on for the rest of the day but which culminated in a […]
Reunited with my bicycle and searching for a police permit with a man called Brian
8th November I arrived safe and well in the city of Lanzhou having survived my 42 hour train journey. In the end everything went well on the train apart from a woman whom joined the train after 6 hours and slept opposite me. She had the most annoying habits like eating little bits of […]