A Big Bang for my Head From Lhasa the Friendship HIghway leads South through Gyantse, Shigatse, Shegar, Tingri, past Base Camp, getting higher and higher and finally drops to the border with Nepal. Taking in the sites of Yamdrok-Tso, from the Kamba La pass (4700m) was one of the early highlights. For Tibetans it is one of the four holy lakes, yet sadly the water level has been dropping for some years now since the Chinese, in their infinite wisdom, decided to ...

This may sound like the latest euro party craze however here in Tibet its all about the burning juniper at sacred sites, monasterys, and temples which must always be circumambulated clockwise. The most devout pilgrims will spend days, even months, prostrating themselves outside the Potola Palace (former seat of the Dalai Lama) and the Jokhang Temple (Tibet's first and most holy) and walking around and around in circles. The Jokhang was our first stop on day 1 in ...

To the Rooftop of the World With much excitement and anticipation and maybe a tincy wincy doce of intrepidation I packed up my bag and said my goodbyes to Jo on Friday morning and head to Xian train station for the "Express" Train to Lhasa (36 hours!). After the political demonstrations last year and ongoing tensions between the Tibetan govenment in exile and the Chinese, travel to Tibet for Westerners has been somewhat complex for some while. For muc...

Warriors and Pandas From Beijing we took our first ovenight train 12 hours South to Xian. The train was pretty good certainly when compared to Amtrak and National Rail. Our 4 berth first class cabin was big enough to manoeuvre and the beds pretty comfy! We were sharing with a young guy from Xian who got straight on to his top bunk and was asleep seconds after we left Beijing and Grace who worked for the Bampo museum in Xian who had great English. Finally! We cha...

Few things take the title "great". The Great Escape, Alexander the Great, Great Britain - the Greatest, and of course, the Great Wall of China. We flew up from Hanoi on Saturday, dosing up heavily on lemsip and cold remedies on the plane just in case the Chinese officials decided on medical testing us for Swine Flu, we were scared they may find a tiny sniffle and not let us in. Customs cleared we headed into the smog of Beijing and a little jaunt to Tia...