Articles from this Category
21 June 2012
Excellent Start Our hostel manager Sajjad put on an amazing breakfast of chickpea curry and naan (both bought) plus plums, peaches and mangoes. We washed that down with lime juice and then some chai. As we would have activities for the afternoon and the night, we decided to do nothing this morning. The heat was […]
20 June 2012
Above: Newspaper next day about the heatwave today. Flight to Lahore Our flight to Lahore departed at 1900. Our time at the airport didn’t drag on with time spent ticketing our domestic flight from Gilgit to Islamabad and then having a snack. The flight was an oldish 747-300 and we were placed in the nose […]
20 June 2012
Visit to Chaukhandi To avoid the heat at Chaukhandi, we decided to wake a little earlier at 0730 which required the use of an alarm since we had an internal windowless room. The hotel didn’t know anything about Chaukhandi but taxi driver (Asghar) which normally hangs outside the hotel knew about the place. It doesn’t […]
19 June 2012
Essentials and mausoleum Flying in from opposite directions, Marie and I had expected us to have different sleep patterns and wakeup times. I woke around 0800 (much later than expected) due to making up for last night’s sleep deprivation. I called her a few times and made a bit of noise in getting ready but […]
18 June 2012
Flying out from China The Airbus A380 departed at midnight on its 8h30 minute journey from Beijing to Dubai. It’s one ugly aeroplane but it is so comfortable … even though it was fully packed, the very wide economy seats didn’t feel cramped and it was super quiet. Strangely we had a full supper (described […]
17 June 2012
Above: Gentrified hutong area of Beijing known as Nanluoguxiang. Final exploration My last day in China today. I fly out at 2355 bound for Dubai and continuing to Karachi. I walked to a gentrified hutong area known as Nanluoguxiang. It was quite nice and shaded by willows as it was a 37degC day. Most shops […]
16 June 2012
At breakfast I met my fellow-countrymen. Funny that in China and when I travel, I’m normally unmistakably ethnically Chinese. But for other Malaysians on the road, I’m usually of Malayo-Polynesian extract … being Iban, Bidayuh or even Malay. As I’ve been in Beijing a couple of times, I had done most of the sights before […]
15 June 2012
Above: Traffic jam in the hutong of Beijing. I had an early wake up to take the 0740 train from Pingyao to Taiyuan only to find that the train had been delayed by 30 minutes. It was the first delay I’ve encountered. The 1h30 hard sleeper was warm. It was interesting listening to people talk […]
14 June 2012
I booked a day trip with the hostel last night for this morning. My back and hip doesn’t feel too good; an after-effect of an injury from earlier in the year. The excursion consisted of a shared minivan to a couple of sights rather far away from Pingyao (otherwise necessitating trains and taxis). First stop […]
13 June 2012
Wonder in almost everything I see … I slept till nearly 0800 today; a new record in sleeping in on this trip. Pingyao is the first place in China this trip that is on the backpacker trail so I managed to gets some sort of a fruit and muesli for breakfast. There are places in […]