"As Bertrand Russell once said, 'The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation'. I think we can all appreciate the relevance of that now.""Was that on a beer mat?""Yeah, it was Guinness Extra Cold." -- Shaun of the DeadThe second part of our look at China. If you remember, last week I was lecturing - and it is a lecture - on things like culture and travel. This episode it's the turn of such fascinating topics as politics and food to rear thei...

"It's this whole other country"-- Forrest GumpLaos.... country number 16 on our fair trip around the world. Another language, currency, culture, horrible road network and method of going to the toilet.We left China first thing in the morning and decided to walk across the kilometre or so of no-man's-land between the countries. The landscape had been changing slowly as we wound our way south of Kunming, and long before we reached the border we found oursel...

"Okay, I get the picture - White Tigers, Lords of Death, guys in funny suits throwing plastic explosives while poison arrows fall from the sky and the pillars of heaven shake, huh? Sure, okay, I see Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu and a hundred howlin' monkey temples, and that's just for starters, right? Fine! I'm back! I'm ready, goddammit let me at 'em!" -- Big Trouble In Little China It's that time again... After seven weeks in China, we're...

This is for Adam The American, who wanted a story.... bless.Prince Adam's Journal, 9th August My search ended last night. Everything happened as the prophecies predicted. It took a full moon to give the thing its power, and only with all my strength could I take that power away again. The thing had, as I expected, possessed the spirit of a young male, a British backpacker called Vonny. He had been unaware of this until I confronted him with cold, hard evidenc...

"You're gonna die now John!"-- CommandoKunming.... A city of four million people close to the southern border of China, that serves no real purpose other than to allow Tibet-Weary travellers to gorge on Big Macs before continuing south to Laos. We have arrived in Kunming from a quick two night stop in Dali - another 'new old' town that seems to exist only for somewhere for stoner backpackers to congregate and talk about how great being a stoner is. Ol...