Delhi, India
Forewarned by tourists and locals alike that Delhi is terribly polluted, we expected the worst. Sure enough, the city smog is dense enough to see within a 5-meter distance. Never had we seen air pollution this bad. Remarkably however, the streets, especially in Connaught Circus, were cleaner than in Varanasi, Agra, or Jaipur. For the [...]
Taj Mahal – Agra, India
Agra has an impressive marble tomb called Taj Mahal. The city around this world famous tourist attraction is the most polluted part of India we saw. Despite visits by millions of Indian and foreign tourists, the streets stank of unimaginable contamination. The area around our hotel was polluted to the extent that we lost our [...]
Kashgar Xinjiang, China
Kashgar was once an important haven on the Silk Road between the snowcapped mountains to the south and west and the scorching desert to the north and east. Today the city still plays an important role as the overland junction between China, Pakistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Travelers and tradesmen crossing the 4800-meter high Pakistani-Chinese Khunjerab Pass [...]
Turpan Xinjiang, China
Turpan In the middle of a vast desert sits an oasis called Tulufan (spelled Turpan in English). Famous for its vineyards, Turpan draws some independent foreign travelers and busloads of Chinese tour groups. Scenic spots listed in guidebooks are overrun with trinket vendors and touts. To see the real Turpan, dismiss the touts and start [...]
Uzbekistan
Tashkent Not always, but often a country’s capital city and its embassies abroad are representative of its government. Tashkent feels like one of these cities. The city is a sprawling mass of neglected discontinuity. Newly erected buildings are out of place in the cracking concrete landscape molded in the Soviet days. Police stop anyone and [...]
Lhasa, The Capital of Tibet
After driving 5 days overland from Kathmandu through the desolate Tibetan landscape watching people manually till their frozen fields and walk the yaks between valleys, we were startled by the modernity of Lhasa. A suppressed Tibetan culture emanated from the pragmatic Chinese orderliness visible in the compartmentalized concrete shops, straight wide roads, and posted Chinese [...]
Overland to Lhasa, Tibet
Before we reached Nepal, our friends emailed us that tours from Kathmandu to Lhasa could be arranged. We agreed to travel to Tibet together. Numerous agencies in Kathmandu sell Tibet tours. Many are unreliable, providing false information or no information. In our opinion, Green Hill Tours gave the most honest and complete information. Unfortunately, we [...]
Mogao Caves, Dunhuang
In the vast desert of Gansu Province, near the borders of Xinjiang and Qinghai Provinces, is a pleasant but overpriced tourist town called Dunhuang. Dunhuang draws crowds from around the world to see the Mogao Caves, the oldest known Buddhist caves in China. These caves were once nearly inaccessible due to the harsh desert climate, [...]
Labrang Monastery, Xiahe
260 km south of the Gansu capital of Lanzhou is the peaceful Yellow-hat sect Buddhist monastery town of Xiahe. Situated at an altitude of 2905 meters (9530 feet) and surrounded by walking trails up beautiful hilly grasslands, many tourists arriving from low altitude with the intension of immediately exploring the area find themselves winded and [...]
Beijing, China
Collect millions of countryside hillbillies, stick lavish government offices in the center, and voila, you have Beijing. Certainly, after seeing Hong Kong and Shanghai, Beijing seems like an overgrown Chinese country town. Traffic is a mess, clothing is drab, and bare bellied overweight men saunter about in short stockings and cheap black shoes. On top [...]
