Bring ‘em on

Actually I’m not sure if China is preparing for a sports event, i.e. running around in circles, jumping over obstacles, throwing things, generally fooling around and having a good time, or about to go to war. Reading websites such as the China Daily [CD] and the Shanghai Daily [SD] you might be excused [...]

a2b - Crotos, to Zhangye

Another posting from Crotos in one week! Written by Vasilios Mesitides and posted on 2008.7.10.

The narrative begins at Tung Huang [Dunhuang] with their visit to the Mogao caves, murals and carvings. [days 126-7] There is small problem with a cycle lock - key is missing – so it must be cut [...]

a2b - Accor Beijing, from Lh@sa onwards

There are no more entries on the blog but there are six postings on the Express Bank, shown below, most recent first.

明早到西宁（6月9日）
发布时间: 2008-07-09 22:30 发布者: 雅京行 点击 15 评论 0
正坐车往西宁，昨天到的格尔木，大概明天早上到，准备从西宁开始认真骑了，现在在车上，明天找网吧选些照片发上来——阳健颖…
萨迦古镇（6月9日）
发布时间: 2008-07-09 21:41 发布者: 雅京行 点击 12 评论 0
今天已到萨迦古镇，到拉萨后可能坐火车赶上戴维汇合——刘佳…
今天到沱沱河（7月6日）
发布时间: 2008-07-07 20:54 发布者: 雅京行 点击 23 评论 0
今天到沱沱河，骑了93公里，感觉身体不行了。。。都骑的很累，明天准备骑150公里…
明早到唐古拉山口 [...]

a2b - Crotos, across the Taklamakan and beyond.

We have two blog postings this week, one from Carlotta and the other from Vasilios and Danae. One thing to note is that the group appears to have divided into small sub-groups and even a few sub-sub-groups. This is just speculation but possibly they have given up their support vehicle as they couldn’t [...]

May you live in interesting times

The PRC government is making an effort to systematically clear out foreigners residing and working in China, particularly those in Beijing. That the clear-out is widespread is not disputed and no one with a non-Chinese skin is safe no matter how long they have lived in China and no matter what they are there [...]

a2b - Accor Beijing, a partial recap plus the latest news

Quite a substantial change has occurred on the Accor Beijing website. A number of postings have appeared on the Forum which were not visible before; posting dates span from mid-June to the present– there has been a persistent page not available message for some time – and the weblog has come back to life [...]

a2b - Accor Beijing, into the Himalayas

Just two postings on the Express Bank of the Accor Beijing website; I guess this is because internet access is not available and signals from portable devices will be weak or non-existent. The first post announces the group’s entry into Tib@t and the second one gives an indication of their progress.

Date of posting [...]

a2b - Crotos, from Kashgar into the desert

Now we have lost our prime blogger information must be taken from other sources. Some of the these notes have been gleaned from a Google-analytics translation of Carlotta Dal’Aglio’s blog and the rest taken from the blog of Vasilios and Danae.
2008.6.11 At Kashgar the party said good-bye to 6 members, Joachim Lent who [...]

a2b - Accor Beijing, into Nepal

There are two entries from the Express Bank of the AB website copied below with Google translations added -
Date of posting 2008-06-12 02:11

我们明天去奇旺国家动物公园，三天后去博克拉，再三天回加都，之后骑中尼公路回国。

Tomorrow we go to the Royal Chitwan National Park, three days later to Pokhara and then another three days for riding across Nepal to the Tib@t border.

Date of posting 2008-06-13 21:45

2008.6.12 [...]

No favour

An interesting article in The Guardian newspaper here. Just cast your mind back to the fuss over Sharon Stone’s comments, the storm in a teacup over the tea stains advert, the fiasco of the poster showing Tib@tan monks on a rollercoaster, and a few other recent ‘insults’ to the Chinese nation. In every [...]