Slow Travel

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3

Handful of wet dong...
2007-07-22 06:27:00
Here's the latest Observer column about our multi-modal journey across the Chinese/Vietnamese border. There was some debate about whether my apparently weak and rather old 'wet dong' joke would make it in, I haven't obviously seen the printed version but the online one still has it! The full text is below or you can read the article on the Guardian website here.Crossing a border while airborne is barely noticeable, unless that satellite map on the in-flight TV is reminding you where and how terrifyingly fast and high you are, and the number of cramped hours to go. Traversing borders by land and sea is rarely simple, as you may recall from my experiences getting into Russia, China and Japan, though admittedly these difficulties were largely self-inflicted, due to visa ineptitude and incriminating narcotic photography.Getting into Vietnam was more straightforward. At the Chinese border town of Pingxiang we caught a tuk-tuk-style converted motorbike to the crossing point we thought...
More About: Dong

'Who are you calling slow?'
2007-07-16 07:49:00
The slow travel message is spreading...liveMINT the Wall Street Journal's partner publication in India has just published a feature article I wrote for them recently about our slow travelling experiences in Asia. You can read the full article on the liveMINT website by following this link.www.lowcarbontravel.com
More About: Calling , Slow

Hong Kong Phooey
2007-07-09 06:36:00
We caught a luxury bus for the 10 hour journey from Xiamen to Hong Kong . We’re not sure how we managed this as we thought we’d just bought normal tickets (we only paid for standard). Our vehicle had squidgy leather seats to cushion our arses and at lunchtime we pulled into a swanky hotel and got fed a full sit down Chinese banquet. Not exactly your typical Ginsters pasty/‘Welcome Break’ motorway services experience.At the border you have to fill in a ‘Health & Quarantine Declaration’ which asks; ‘Have you had close contact with poultry or with patients suffering from Avian Influenza in the last seven days?’ We certainly hoped not, but more worrying was the list of symptoms you then had to review; ‘Please mark the diseases or symptoms you have by ticking the boxes below:’ Choices included; Snivel? Fever? Venereal Disease? Psychosis? You can imagine the border police briefing. “Right we’ve got to keep an eye out for bird flu victims – look for runny noses, fe...

Shanghai, Xiamen and Gulan Yu
2007-07-08 06:30:00
Here's the lastest of my Observer columns, this one about Shanghai and Xiamen - China's wild west (although it's in the south east). As always you can see the column online on the Guardian website hereWe arrived in the heart of China's second city by ferry from Japan. Shanghai is one of the biggest engines of the speeding Chinese economic juggernaut. But it's clear in Shanghai that much of the burgeoning commercial success of the new China is based on counterfeit goods. Plus a mind-numbing array of what might be uncharitably described as 'plastic crap'.We walked past the historic colonial architecture of the riverside Bund, opposite the futuristic, whimsical buildings of Pudong, all brash, surreal, space-age globes, probes and spires. All the while street vendors proffered us entirely useless products: irritating 'stones' emitting screeching noises when thrown into the air; glowing red devil horns; stuffed mice on strings that scampered convincingly when tugged.We then suff...
More About: Amen