Our final day in Beijing was reserved to go and see the Zhoukoudian village where "Peking Man" was found. The archaeological findings here changed the known history of man, pushing back the date that present day man was known to exist, to 600 thousand years. This was where evidence that man had the use of fire, was also found. Peking man is the link between Modern Ape and Modern Man. A very well set out and labeled museum was on site. We also found another museu...

We had a mission in mind to see two more UNESCO World Heritage sites in the vicinity of Beijing, and to see Tianniman Square (which we had missed last time in Beijing) before our departure in three days time for Mongolia and Russia by train. This meant a pretty tight schedule, so it was an early 5 am wakeup call on the first day, to catch a four hour train to the city of Chengde. China city names are so confusing in their similarities! We have already been to Che...

Shigatse, half way between Mt Everest and Lhasa, became our stopover going to and coming from Everest base camp.It is rather famous in its own right and on the way back we found out why on a trip to the Tashilhunpo Monastery. We arrived with our guide at 9.30am and found a large crowd waiting outside a temple. There was a real air of excitement amongst the crowd who were mostly Tibetan peasants. They carried packets of yak butter, the smell of which pervades ever...

Driving through the Tibet countryside gives me a strange feeling of time travel. We are in a Toyota 4 Wheel Drive and our driver and guide in front wear western clothes but the scenery going past is from another time, another place. Tibetans work in the fields with, at best, horse or yak ploughs, and at worst, a hand plough. The earth is dry and looks unproductive and uncooperative but this is just because the snow has only just melted. In a few weeks crops will ...

Travelling on the highest train line in the world, made for an exciting experience! We spent two days gazing out at the unfolding scenery and two nights sleeping quite well. The only draw back was the toilet. There was supposed to be one Western toilet and one Asian squat toilet, for each carriage, but unfortunately the Western toilet was out of action the whole trip! We survived of course.We were met at the train station by our Tibet guide, Ngawang, and taken to...