Christmas Card from Bangkok
avatar

Happy Christmas from Bangkok. We’ll celebrate by crossing the International Date Line on Christmas Day.
Bob and Claire Rogers prepare to return home from their adventurous tandem bicycle tour from Tibet to Bangkok.

Claire and Bob Rogers Read the rest of this article…

Zippy Draws A Crowd
avatar

Chinese do not like to be photographed as a part of a crowd, and yet they always like to be a part of a crowd. I wonder if it has to do with how much they are under surveillance, or think they are? Read the rest of this article…

Shangri-la Back Roads One
avatar

We took a detour after the city of Shangri-la, deep back into the mountains where the non-Tibetan tribal peoples live. Many of the villages are prosperous, and the spirit and cooperation of the people is inspiring. We will have many more still pictures soon; this is a very very beautiful, if remote, area. Read the rest of this article…

Detour to the Hospital
avatar

Claire was not responding at first and I got her out of traffic carefully, in case any bones were broken (none). I can’t explain how I felt seeing her, barely moving, having trouble hearing me, or answering to her name. She finally came around, and I got her sitting upright and talking coherently. I checked her eyes for dilation or wandering, and she could focus and had no double vision. Read the rest of this article…

Meeting the Yangtze
avatar

We saw the Yangtze overwhelm our aquamarine river, with a hard line of flood brown. With the load of sediment being carried by the Yangtze, here in the mountains with little agricultural land to contribute to the load, I wonder how long the impoundments behind the Three Gorges Dam, will last before filling up the impoundment? About a week ago we were within 100 kilometers of the true headwaters, much higher in the Himalayas.

We were in a spectacular gorge all day. This is a land of precipitous mountains, still thousands of meters high, and rushing rivers cutting deeply, quickly. We expect to see the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge in a few days, but I can’t imagine it being more spectacular than the ones we have already seen. Read the rest of this article…

Shangri-la; Journey into Myth, search for Reality
avatar

The British author James Hilton published a small novel in 1933 and set it in a Utopian kingdom in China. He was no doubt shocked at the widespread repute the location of his fictional sacred Utopian kingdom would achieve, and the misuse that would subsequently be heaped upon it. Read the rest of this article…