Graham’s latest from China
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. We did spot one at an airport – but it was 6 quid! The price of a slap up meal for two at a decent restaurant here – 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.