The heat hammers off the asphalt and at 45 degrees everything shimmers to attention. Or sags completely. The last puddles, quite deep enough to sodden socks in shoes last night are now mostly gone. Indeed, footprints left in a mud patch last evening are now fossilised. None of this is allowed to get in the…
The sand and dust create a haze around the sun but not sufficient to ease the 46 degree heat or the glare that radiates off buildings, and walls, even those whitewashed ones on either side of the lane down which we bounce. Acacias bend in the oven wind and move their shade from one side…
This morning I am doing the American thing – sitting in a hokey little New Jersey Greyhound terminal waiting to catch a bus to New York. But there is a home feel to this adventure, for Frente is being playing on the radio. A small touch of home although if it wasn’t such a unique…
Tiananmen Sqaure is a terrific melting pot. All sorts of people congregate there at all hours. Many are there simply to soak up the site, to say they have “been there” before moving on to other icons around the city. The majority of visitors are Chinese who seem to wear an air of surprise –…
In the backblocks of Beijing, up a filthy lane heaped high with refuse and rubble (the best places always are) is one of thousands of restaurants which feed the hordes. We stumbled into one, late in the evening, that advertised an English menu. The owners were true to their word but they could not read…