Ulaan Baatar, Friday 17 October
Snow. Coats. Hats. Steam. Heating. Soups. Stews. Mutton. Greatcoats. Fur hats. Boots with turned up toes. But stilletoes too! Yerts. Gers. Trucks. Dust in the desert. Tracks in the desert. No roadsigns. At all. Nothing, nil, nix. Just follow someone elses tyre marks and see where they go. Keep the Trans-Siberian Railway line to your left. Or your right. But do not lose sight of it. Read the rest of this entry »
Ah, China! Absolutely stunning scenery, history, food and people. We have dined on eel, glass eggs [somehow the white of the egg is cooked so that it is clear not cloudy....], sliced braised pig ears, tree bark fried with egg [Jack quipps "so they use every part of the dog"], hotpots, drunken chickens, blood sausage of duck, pork crackling pancakes… Our guide Tracy delights in taking us to hole in the wall places where you sit in the kitchen with the family and choose what to eat from the buckets on the floor, not a menu. Read the rest of this entry »
Just quickly, as it is late, and I am dog tired. Crossing the land border from Laos was surreal…. the Chinese officials incredibly pleasant and our guide Tracy [it is compulsory if driving in China to have an approved guide in the car at all times] very efficient and cheerful. We have driven through some stunning gorges and scenery, visited several small and large towns, eaten in tiny places where you are sitting in the kitchen with the cook, survived todays shocking roads, axle deep in mud with bogged busses and trucks blocking the road…. we took 5 hours to go about 45ks through the mountains. We are heading to Tiger Leaping Gorge and then the historic towns of Dali and Lijiang. We will put some snapshots on and write properly when there is a moment not used for travelling or sleeping or eating!!!!
The world made a promise after the enormity of the Holocaust was revealed at the end of WWII. We promised it would not happen again. But it did. We failed.
Visiting Phnom Penh is a charming but also chlling experience. Whilst soaking up the French influenced ambience, it is simply impossible to ignore the all too recent horrors of the Khmer Rouge. The Killing Fields and the S21 Tuol Sleng Torture Museum are compelling places to visit. The Killing Fields Memorial is an eight storey high stupa filled with skulls encased in glass. Mass graves dot the fields, disconcertingly close to ordinary local farms. Likewise, the old high school used as a torture centre by Pol Pot and his ghouls is slap bang in the middle of the suburbs, blocks of flats abutting. The neighours MUST have known what was happening, where as many as 20 000 people were tortured and killed as the Khmer rouge purged the nation of a generation of intellectuals, professionals, free thinkers - anyone they thought may be a threat to their regime.
But Cambodia is a lot more than just a gruesome horror show. Welcoming, friendly and fun, it is also home to zillions of NGOs, organisations trying to help Cambodia get things back in order. We visited two - a refuge for trafficked women run by HAGARÂ and Tonle, a guesthouse in Stueng Treng where local kids are trained in tourism. Both do wonderful work with not enough money and depend on overseas [mainly Swiss] donations.
Now we have crossed the Mekong River in Laos and head for the mountains.
From Singapore, to Malaysia, through Thailand and now to Cambodia. An unseemly rush. We are trying to make up the time lost through ships and ferries not being there when I imagined they would be. Why is everything so complicated? And why are things not so easy in real life as in my imagination?
Read the rest of this entry »
