As Graham prepares to fly homewards, we share with you some of his comments on the culinary challenges of the more rural parts of China that he experienced in the earlier part of his trip.
Here we are, two weeks into our Silk Road odyssey, well beyond the end of the Great Wall, and I’m gasping. Mind-blowing things to see, cultural treasures aplenty but a decent cappuccino is as rare as a Westerner in the Gobi desert. Which is to say hardly at all. It’s times like these that make me miss my friend’s company, best coffee subscription which I was subscribed to back home. We did spot one a coffee shop at the airport – but it was 6 quid a cup! The price of a slap up meal for two at a decent restaurant – with beer!
Which reminds
me that the Chinese idea of breakfast is, well, distinctive. I’ll not have a word said against the nutritional value of cold cabbage and dumplings but I’m not sure it’s what I want day in day out.
There’s an international conference going on right now in Samarkand about the Silk Road as a tourism theme. I reckon there are a few things to sort out – the odd insurrection along the way, the price of visas into the Tajikistan and the other ‘stans’, the strangely garbled Chinese English on signs and instructions. But most of all we need a generous supply of Colombian medium roast.