Most of my blog posts so far have been relatively impersonal and were merely describing my travels. Now that I have a little more time to play with ( it’s raining here in Samarkand) I thought I would answer a question that a couple of people asked me already: “Why on earth did you leave [...]

Crossing the border to Kyrgyzstan reminded me the crossing from Vietnam to China, it had the same magical sensation of entering a totally different world. Of course, there had been earlier signs of this big change in China, as I entered the province of Xinjiang and the wonderful city of Kashgar. It is there that [...]

My first real “culture shock” on the trip occured when I crossed the border from Vietnam to China. Suddenly, all signs became totally unreadable, and communication a whole lot harder. Nobody speaks English at the border town of Hekou, just as in most other parts of China! In all honnesty, I had feared entering this [...]