When I’m trying to choose where to travel to next, I don’t often pick somewhere that I’ve already been. There are so many places to explore, my list keeps getting longer and longer, so with such little time and money, going back to a destination seems like a waste. Why not spend that time and…
“Oh crap crap crap crap crap….” was going through my head as I lost my footing and swung into the water pouring over the cliff face. I was dangling 20 metres above the river, with water relentlessly pounding down on my head from above. “Must…get…out…of…water……..need…to…breathe!” And that is why it was the scariest day…
I’ve put off writing about Tibet for a long time, mostly because I quite simply did not know where to begin. It was an intense time; the anticipation building from my first arrival in Chengdu a full week before our departure, and then two weeks of dealing with the emotional highs and lows that come…
Sometimes you make a plan. You consider every detail carefully, you dedicate time to researching and investigating all your options, contacting the right people and arranging everything just so. Everything is going to come together and work out just the way you want it to, and then….you can see where I’m going with this, right?…
Wondering what I’ve been up to lately? Check out my new business! Yading Nature Reserve is a mountainous paradise that you’ve probably never even heard of, but it was one of the biggest highlights of my recent trip in China. Impressive mountains covered in snow and glaciers tower over forested slopes, grassy meadows, blue glacial…
Yading Nature Reserve is a stunningly beautiful, little-visited area in China’s Sichuan province. Accessible from Daocheng, the average elevation of the whole area is more than 4000 metres! The reserve contains the three Tibetan holy mountains of Chenresig at 6032 metres, and Chana Dorje and Jampelyang, which are both 5958 metres high. Come to Yading Nature Reserve…
“When are we going?” I asked the bus driver, pointing at the 3:15 displayed on my phone, “You said two o’clock!” The driver just smiled and held up his hands, fingers splayed. I wondered what it meant. Ten? Ten what? Minutes? Ten o’clock? When we have ten passengers? Or was he just motioning to me…
“Twice a day?” I confirmed, not believing what I was hearing, “Every day?” Anu smiled. “Yes. Every day.” We were referring to dal bhat, the traditional dish of Nepal, which people there do indeed eat twice each day, every day. And they LOVE it. When you walk through the streets of Kathmandu (or any Nepali…
Once in a while I see something that makes my heart melt a little bit. That’s what happened yesterday while I was sitting and people watching at Baita Gongyuan, a large stupa that has the most enormous prayer wheel I’ve ever seen! There are constantly people here, circling the stupa, turning the many…
“Xuanguan!” the bus ticket-collecter exclaimed to me when I said I was headed to Luobiao. “Yes!” I exclaimed excitedly, “Xuanguan!” I paid my 22 yuan and settled into a 2.5 hour bus trip down a river gorge into what felt like the middle of nowhere. I don’t think it was, really, as the bus seemed…