gillandsally.blogspot.com
A Passage to London: June 2008
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Tuesday, 24 June 2008. As an antidote to the chaos and filth of the capital we spent one night in this Unesco heritage, traffic-free town that is a perfectly preserved miniature version of what Kathmandu used to be like 100 years ago. Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square is littered with ancient monuments, palaces, temples and gorgeous quaint architecture, which we had practically all to ourselves, being the rainy off-season. They were so sweet and I felt gutted we will have to break our promise, and hope it doesn'...
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A Passage to London: July 2008
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008. Yangshuo’s towering karsts are the archetypal landscape of dreams of China, and recognisable as the ethereal backdrop of many a flying kung fu scene. As our train approached we started to see these monolithic pods surreally reaching for the sky. It is a truly unique sight. We had a apparently fictional map but it did demark a road running along the Oolong (dragon) River which we followed, apart from the occasional detour up dirt tracks to signposted “viewpoints”, alth...We had th...
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A Passage to London: August 2008
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008. An ancient walled city with a pulsating modern heart, Xian is most famous as the home of the Terracotta Warriors. The subterranean army silently guarded the tomb of China’s first Emperor Qin Shi Huang since 210 BC until they were discovered by a farmer digging a well in 1974. We saw the biggest/oldest? Bell/drum. erm, perhaps I've spent so long in China now I'm getting my superlatives confused. Well anyway, whatever we saw was very big and old, and the shows were admirabl...Peopl...
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A Passage to London: March 2008
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Saturday, 29 March 2008. Monday 17th March – Agonda. Tuesday 18th March – Agonda. After a miserable night being violently sick (I suspect from a dodgy prawn), I convalesced all day with probably one of the best sea views one could hope for from any sick bed. Wednesday 19th March – Palolem. Thursday 20th march – Palolem. Friday 21st march – Anjuna. In fact, where are all the people? Saturday 22nd March – Anjuna. Sunday 23rd March – Arambol. Monday 24th March – Arambol. Tuesday 25th March – Arambol. We arr...
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A Passage to London: Mongolia
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008. Excited and loaded up with non-perishable food and vodka the unnamed team set out in a battered Soviet-style van over the bumpy roads (if you could call them that), into the great unknown. I mean, what else does one do in these situations? After this had been passed around, and Sterling lifted the mood further by serenading the night on his guitar with the “stuck in a river blues”, we resolved to roll up our jeans and wade to a nearby spit (mainly because everybo...In high-s...
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A Passage to London: Siberia
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Saturday, 13 September 2008. Arriving in Russia after almost three years away from Europe was quite the culture shock. Instead of a sea of curious Asian faces we were suddenly confronted with indifferent Slavic features. It actually felt refreshing to be ignored. The air too struck us as crisp and cold, with a clear blue sky complementing the autumn-coloured landscape. After a glorious lakeside stroll we sampled the delicious omul and local beer. Interestingly, beer is actually cheaper than water in ...
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A Passage to London: Trans-Siberian Express
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Monday, 15 September 2008. Filled with excitement and loaded down with supplies for our longest train journey yet (72hrs) we board the Trans-Siberian to Moscow. Our cabin mates are two friendly, middle-aged Irkutskian ladies named Alla and Nina. In an embarrassing faux pas, I completely forgot the local etiquette of eating a morsel of food in between shots of vodka, and set about fashioning a small sandwich. Gill laughed at me when we realised the error. How English, they must have thought! Gestures towa...
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A Passage to London: Trans-Mongolian Express
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008. Our cabin-mates for the 24hr “Ekspress” train from Ulaanbaatar to Irkutsk were Lara and Laura from Hong Kong, who were possibly the most well-prepared travellers we'd met in terms of home comforts (Sterling was the most well-prepared in an outward bound, boy-scout way), and most importantly introduced us to the spork. The two of them toasted each other a couple of times (men don’t generally drink with women) and then he was on his way. We arrived at Irkutsk station that afte...
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A Passage to London: May 2008
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Monday, 19 May 2008. Our guesthouse peeps over the Ganges from Meer Ghat, less than 100 metres from the main Dasaswamedh ghat upstream, where worshippers come from all over India to bathe in the morning and pray in the evening, with the burning Manikarnika ghat about the same distance downstream, where the dead are cremated. . Later, although sore over the injustice, we joked about the bizarre scenario and it seemed to be soon forgotten. By bedtime however, I realised I was actually rather shaken by ...
