Page 2 of 2 in "travels" in Weblog

A couple of mates of mine recently came back from Tanzania and looking at their photos, particularly the ones of Zanzibar with the beautiful mix of what looks like Arabic, Indian and Roman architecture, got me thinking. I know very little about Africa between Egypt and South Africa. So I bought a couple of books. But they all strongly advice checking out current travel advice before making any plans. Over on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s website they have a nice long list of places you should and shouldn’t go… Which is great except that I discovered that my geography is patchy at best and I can’t place half the African countries on a map.

I decided that what I really needed was a map. A little scraping, some geolocation (with a manually added exception for Georgia to make sure it got pinned next to Russia and not South Carolina) and a Google Map later I had something working. Nothing too fancy but it’s already proved to be dead handy for me so I thought I’d put it live. And thus I present the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Travel Advice map.

I’ve had a bit of time on my hands recently so I’ve taken the opportunity to finish up my China photos… FINALLY. The complete collection is up on Flickr titled Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces, China 2005… I’ve gone a bit over the top, to be honest, but I can’t bear to take any more out than I already have. I guess it’ll come down to something more succinct over time.

I’ve also been writing up the trip but so far it’s pushing 2,000 words and I really don’t think anyone will be that interested in it. Instead of an epic, but ultimately tedious, account, I’ll just pop down a summary of the itinerary and leave the photos to flesh out the story.

We started in Xian with a trip to the Terracotta Warriors, the Wild Goose Pagoda and the Muslim Quarter. Then we jumped an 18 hour train up to Datong for a quick look at the Yungong Caves, the magnificent Hanging Temple and the Wood Pagoda. An overnight train later and we were in sleepy Pingyao. Pingyao was China’s financial heart before Beijing’s ascendancy and has been left largely unchanged for the last 150 years. The place is one big museum. One final over-nighter later and we were on our way back to Xian for the flight back to Shenzhen. It was a week of heavy travelling, all told, and well worth the effort.