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“Steppe” Into Mongolia
Oh, I’m hilarious… The Mongolia steppe (pronounced ‘step’) is the grassland plains that dominate the scenery. Slightly surreal, my train departed Beijing and passed by pieces of the Great Wall and Gobi desert before completing the 32 odd hour ride …
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Hiking the Great Wall
Perhaps the highlight of Beijing was the 10.5 km Great Wall hike from Jinsaling to Simitai. This was probably the most expensive thing I’ve done as no public transport goes there and I had to hire a car, plus entrance …
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Beijing Post-Olympics
With hard sleepers sold out, I opted for the hard seat from Xi’an overnight to Beijing. Wanted to try the comfort of traveling this way to maybe save some cash. The train is the one that runs back and forth …
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Drunk Russian High Jump
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Terracotta Warriors
Overnight train to Xi’an where an acquaintance, Frank, was waiting with my name on a piece of paper. He’s a very cool guy and ran a large tourism operation during the Olympics composed of college students. Really exceptional host and …
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Chengdu Panda Reserve
Starting to run out of time…. So from Lijiang it was 24 lovely hours on a sleeper bus to Chengdu. Actually not that bad, of course surrounded by cute girls hocking spit into bags, little girls throwing up in the …
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Lijiang, China
I had to spend a night in Lijiang, my birthday evening, and tried to find a decent place to have a couple of drinks. I found the nightlife contained to a picturesque strip straddling a small canal. The only venues …