I had negotiated a couple of stops on the way to Ranthambor from Agra and the first of which was a trip to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Fatehpur Sikri. Fatehpur Sikri is the remnants of the ancient capital of the Mughal Empire – much of the surrounding city[…]
Arrival I arrive in Agra on the train from New Delhi in the early hours of the evening and grab a tuk-tuk from the station to my hotel. On the way I ask the driver how much it would cost for a day shuttling me between the sights of the[…]
Arrival I landed in New Delhi after a week in China with some trepidation. Of all the countries I had been to, India had thrown up the most warnings about tricks and scams in my research, so I knew that I was going to have to be alert. Getting to[…]
Day Zero We arrived in Shanghai and grabbed the high speed train, the Maglev, into the city proper. Our flight had arrived from Xi’an on time at 4:35 and by 5:22 we were hitting speeds of over 300 kph (186 mph). Apparently they didn’t reach top gear as they regularly[…]
Temple of Heaven The Temple of Heaven is a World Heritage Site and is an impressive chunk of greenery in the middle of Beijing. It has an interesting history but for me the most interesting part of it is how the modern Chinese use it as a celebration of their individual[…]
Should I Go? Beijing is the third biggest city proper in the world and home to significant historical sites – which reflects the fact that it has been in existence for over three millennia. It is the cultural capital of China, and has over 20 million people living there Climate[…]
Day Zero We arrived in Xi’an late after our flight was delayed from Beijing. We hadn’t organised a transfer to the hotel, so elected to catch a cab from the rank. We had heard that taxi drivers out of the main cities probably wouldn’t know English, but since we were[…]
By Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa), via Wikimedia Commons We woke up early to head out to Mutianyu for the Great Wall. As we left the outskirts of Beijing we were no longer under the haze of the smog – though our hosts were most insistent that it was in fact fog![…]
It was my second time at the FastForward conference which was held at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ which is a great venue overlooking the River Ij. While it is only a ten minute walk from the central rail station (close enough for taxi drivers to balk at taking you apparently),[…]
Grayline Tours £45 Saturday Night We were picked up by a van on time and driven across town to a central bus station. There we joined an enormous crowd of tourists from all over Reykjavik who were divvied up and apportioned across a dozen 60-seater buses. To tell the truth it[…]