As soon as I found my compartment, I was greeted by two Brits: the fourth bed was empty, and soon became the drinks cabinet. Another passenger later quipped the bed was empty because there wasn’t room for any more personality. The two were Luke, a guy travelling to Dubai overland to meet his girlfriend, and…
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I had a free day in Ulan-Bator before I headed out to the Gobi for 2 days, so I decided to check out the ominously-named ‘black market’: Naran Tuul. It’s Ulan-Bator’s largest market, and while you can’t quite buy arms, kidneys, or order assassinations, it’s like the ‘original’ supermarket. Naran Tuul must be 2km by…
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Entering the Beijing train station, it wasn’t hard to find the right platform thanks to the crowd of non-Asians surrounding it. In contrast to the high-tech, high-speed streamlined Chinese trains, this one was far older. I’d guess it last got a refurbish in 1970. My entire carriage was mostly empty, I think only 3 of…
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After arriving in Kunming from Jianchuan at 2am, the driver mercifully let me and a few others stay on the bus till 6am – when it would be needed again. I had, then, 5 hours to kill before my train. I wandered around the city for a good two hours, stumbled into a fish market, found…
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After having farewelled the girls last night, I was up bright and early for a public bus to the Dali bus station, then to nearby (about 2 hours away) Jianchuan, where I caught a minibus to Shaxi, a tiny rural town nestled in a valley. Of course, not before breakfast. Baozi again with hot soymilk….
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Day 15: Yunnan, yuan, and youtiao This post is for days 13/14/15. It’s currently day 18, but I haven’t been able to post – I underestimated the Great Firewall of China: Facebook, Google, Youtube, even Google Maps are blocked. I didn’t prepare a VPN or even a proxy, so I wasted a few hours in…
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