London; so far so good…

Air Asia flight D72008 to Stansted was early, and I’d slept like a baby with valium dabbed on the dummy. Though I initially found it all a bit chaotic to get a train to the terminal and then queue for about 20 minutes to get to Mr Immigration I was told by fellow travellers that it was a god-send compared to Heathrow, so I’ll take it as a positive.

Those three countries sounds pretty whirlwind given that it’s only a touch over a fortnight ago when I was still in China. The truth though is that my time in South East Asia has been pretty quiet with a lot of lazing around.

D5675, Shanghai South Railway Station to Hangzhou, 17.58 scheduled arrival time. This wasn’t a train that I was anticipating sitting on. A couple of weeks ago I booked a flight from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia X. I never took too much notice of the airport as I figured I’d sort it out when I arrived in Shanghai.

Terracotta Warriors, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China – Images by Jamie McDonald
Well, one thing I have learnt in the past week since leaving Xi’an and arriving in Beijing. Don’t ever, ever catch the bus from Xi’an to Pingyao – it is bus number AF432 and it leaves from the bus station next to the train station in Xi’an.
It is a sleeper bus that costs 144 Yuan, and whilst in the first instance that is steep, when they leave over 2 hours late, and then fill the corridors with twenty to thirty people …

Taklamakan Desert, Xinjiang, China – Images by Jamie McDonald
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well, we were on the road to Rome, in Kashgar, a crucial silk road stop after and before the Taklamakan Desert.
The name of the desert in local folklore means Go in and you won’t come out, and the fierce heat and sandstorms could easily allow one to dissapear very quickly. We wanted to go for a ride into the desert by camel, so we contacted Ali at Uighur Tour and Travel Centre (mailto: silkroadguide@hotmail.com) …