Modern China moves at a blistering pace. Its cities hum to the sound of jackhammers, mobile phones and ambition. Chengdu, in Sichuan, is widely regarded as an exception. Although the city is developing as quickly the Middle’s Kingdom’s other metropolises, its residents still take the time to stop and smell the jasmine, as it slowly sinks to the bottom of their flower tea. Chengdu has more teahouses and tea gardens than Shanghai, despite having a population half its size. Claire van den Heever takes us to a few. Read the rest of this entry »

This Is China (TIC) is a cultural guide to China, written, according to its subtitle, for “teachers,
backpackers and other lunatics.” The ebook was released yesterday – you can download it at lulu.com – and it should be available in print by August.

The author, Megan Eaves, is a self-described “avid traveler, writer, musician, explorer, teacher and free spirit.” She holds an M.A. in Intercultural Studies from Dublin City University and a B.A. in Intercultural Communication from the University of New Mexico. At the moment, she teaches English in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, and writes for various travel websites.

The book takes “This is China” as its premise. A statement of the obvious, perhaps, but people who live in or travel through China too often forget that it is the country’s differences, among other things, that drew them in. Adventures are rarely comfortable and TIC prepares its readers for the frustrations and difficulties of life in China – perhaps too well. Read the rest of this entry »

“Oh, Vietnam,” the bus station attendant said, as she glanced at my ticket. “Please wait a moment.”

She walked away, never to be seen again. Near me, other mini-bus passengers were boarding a bus going in the opposite direction, towards Siem Reap. As the crowd thinned, I noticed a pair of blond-haired, blue-eyed backpackers, towering above a tight circle of mini-bus drivers smoking cigarettes on the corner. Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Browning, the author of this article, watches the sun set over Doc Let Beach, in Vietnam, 3181 kilometres into his journey of over 4000 kilometres.

Sitting in gravel and dirt by the side of a lonely highway somewhere in rural Laos, trying unsuccessfully to fix a rusty, jammed brake cable, I began questioning the motivations which led me there. The midday sun blazed overhead, I had a tiny amount of water left and no idea where to spend the night. Over 300 kilometers separated me from my final destination. Read the rest of this entry »

Our train, a line of brown carriages and barred windows, approached the platform. It slowed – men ran at it, grabbed hold – and stopped. The carriage entrances, wide, divided by a single, much clutched pole, were a mess of brown skin and hard packed, wiry limbs. Men shouted. Forced between bodies, the individual shouts echoed and merged. Men pushed and came out, narrow, ragged, luggage swaying above their bent heads.

I wavered, but Claire, my girlfriend, moved, past one, two, then three carriages. All, she said, were impassably full. The shouts stopped, the echoes faded, and, behind us, new cries were assumed. Again, men pushed. I was caught in their momentum and, at the gap between carriage and platform, was forced to leap into a squash of bodies, a somehow penetrable space. Read the rest of this entry »