2009 has gone and with it goes my greatest year of travel; so many people have asked for highlights, so here is my top 5 in no particular order!
I had the enviable task of spending six months of 2009 on the road – taking in 14 countries – and I’m going to try and narrow it down to the top five spots that I visited. Plenty of people that I’ve spoken with think that such lists are daft, that there is little point in designating an obscure spot that is …

 
Dali was a great town. Given that the author of the old Lonely Planet that we refer to suggests that Lijiang is the must see tourist mecca, and is a better experience than Dali we were obviously keen to make it up to the road to see our new home for the next few days.
 
Lijiang isn’t much chop.

The beauty of this old town with its canals, stone bridges and cobble stones is apparent immediately, and the small shops selling ponchos, scarves, stone combs, and bars on the river give …

Dali, Yunnan – Images by Jamie McDonald
There are always the tourists who insist that they’re travellers because they go harder, go further, and poo-poo anyone who has a day off the trails. Then there will be the armchair-traveller who cannot fathom not checking out sites or new food stalls etc on a day because each hour away is precious.
I’m letting both down today. Into my third week away and I awoke to a pretty drizzly dark old morning in Dali, Yunnan, so the decision to walk to our favourite cafe …

Five days without an update, and that must surely have more to do with the dreadful internet speed over here in China than it does to do with my work ethic!
I’m sitting in a bar in Dali, Yunnan. A peek over my right shoulder and I can see that for the first time in the two days that we’ve been here the rain has stopped. At approximately 3000m above sea level it should have come as no shock that it is wet and cold, but in a country known for …