About Turn! - Westward Bound

2009 09 17-18 – Days 83-84 – trains to Datong via Beijing

Just a few days earlier, leaving Beijing, I had thought that after Dandong I'd go further north and east to hike in a large national park, but my growing appreciation of the sheer size of China, and the realisation that it could be unwise to go hiking solo in an unknown mountainous area in autumn (off-season), forced me to make some more cuts to my possible destinations list and led to an overnight train to Beijing.

Stopping just long enough to buy a ticket and wait for the train, I was soon on a standing-room-only train to Datong, a short six hours to the east.
My standing status wasn't to last the full six hours though, thanks to the effervescent Shar Shar (aka Sarah) sat in front of me:

It came as no surprise that she normally worked in Beijing's infamous tourist trap The Silk Market, as she proceeded to assault me with her enthusiasm, transferring her everyday sales skills instead to social interaction. Surrounded as I was on all sides by other passengers, there was no escape from her verbal barrage, so it was of huge consolation that she was so smiley and good-humoured. It wasn't long before she forced her seat upon me. I tried to resist, but there's only so many times you can refuse someone's hospitality before you cause serious offence. I did manage to add in the clause that I would take it for only an hour and then she could have it back by which point she was actually quite pleased to sit down again. Although Shar Shar was a lovely person, friendly and fun, I wasn't too upset that she wasn't going all the way to Datong as her lack of interest in pausing for breath lead to one of the best demonstrations I've seen of what it takes to literally talk the hind legs off a donkey! Although she was a funny and engaging person, I was exhausted by the time she got off.

Much of the journey had been winding our way around under and through steep-sided mountains, but the last couple of hours were mostly over level terrain and I had a seat and conversation free calm to enjoy view.

As the sun set over the iconic yellow earth, it occurred to me that, throughout the entire six hour train journey, we'd never once escaped the smog! Could it really be that such poor visibility over such a large area was entirely man-made!?

I supposed it probably was, sadly, both possible and probable.

Leaving Beijing

2009 09 13 – Day 79 – Beijing

Having been in Beijing for four weeks and settled (despite my hostel hopping) into some kind of routine, with Chinese language and cooking classes, I found it surprisingly difficult to leave.  I think a big part of it was the daunting task of trying to elucidate a plan for my next month or two of travel in China – there's so much to see and do!
Where to start? This was difficult even though I'd cut the country in two in my overall plan.
In the end I got close enough to formulating a plan, though far from complete, with the first few destinations and resolved to get on the road again. However, in my 'settled' state, I wasn't yet confident enough with my basic language skills to buy my own train tickets and so resorted to the relatively expensive luxury of the hostel travel desk.
Having bought the tickets the day before departure,  and as the station was barely three minutes walk from the hostel, I was relaxed about collecting them and left it until just over an hour before departure. As the girl was handing over the tickets, she froze.
“These are for today.” she said.
“Yep” I casually confirmed.
She looked at me, looked at the tickets, looked at her watch and back at me.
“You have to go.” She said in deadly serious English.
“You're going to miss your train” said her face in international body language.
Suitably panicked and starting to feel a little sick at the thought of missing my train, I raced around gathering my stuff from the storage room and legged it over to the station. Just like my first Chinese rail departure, the station was vast and had security checks at the entrance, but it didn't take long to get inside, find my departure hall and soon enough I was wondering what all the fuss was about as I waited for half an hour or so to depart on time, as expected.

The Journey So Far – Central Asia

2009 08


The map shows the route as accurately as I know how – if I didn't know any better, then the route is just a straight line between A & B.
days on the road (total)= 14 (44)
distance covered (total)= 3,885 (11,270) km
(as the crow flies as close to my route as I know)
(measured using free map tools)

Memorable moments:
Arriving in the middle of the night
Lively local transport
Uzbek roads
Larger than life locals
Traveller's nightmare
Tough decisions caused by inflexible timetables

Top sights:
Desert ship graveyard
'istoria Samarkand
Trek to Big Almaty Lake

The Journey So Far - Europe

2009 07


The map shows the route as accurately as I know how – if I didn't know the precise route, then it's just a straight line between A & B.
days on the road = 30
distance covered = 7385 km
(as the crow flies as close to my route as I know)
(measured using free map tools)

memorable moments:
high in the rigging, racing against incoming rain,
an intense race,
followed by blissful calm,
an anchorage from another era,
a local guide for the afternoon.

super sights:
sunrise at sea,
The Hermitage,
St Isaac's,
St Basil's,
Moscow Metro.

Which Way Round?

2009 06 - pre-departure

Research into my priority destinations, and the preferable times of year to be in each, presented two possible routes - clockwise or anti-clockwise.

In the end, the potential difficulties of crossing from Nepal into China (Tibet) - travellers' online posts indicate that it is much easier to leave than to enter China at this border - persuaded me to take an anti-clockwise route.

Below are my speculative thoughts on where I'll be at what time of year in the year ahead.

The Rough Route

2009 06 - pre-departure



The red and blue routes are planned and the yellow and green routes speculative and deliberately wobbly...

You can click the image to view it bigger!