China was full of surprises, when you are in a developing nation you see everything from huge cities to small remote towns. What I noticed was how the ancient Silk Road had crossed middle eastern culture into China. For example Taoist monks had big beards, wore head pieces and had similar clothing that is worn in the Middle East. There are mosques all through the north west of China and greater China in general. The north of China is arid and sometimes I thought I could have been in Afghanistan but without militia. It is truly amazing and shows the rich culture of China which can be lost on people who haven’t been to the remote areas. A lot of Westerners can’t get access to a lot of the remote areas.

When we were around one thousand kilometres from Lhasa in the middle of nowhere some local authorities wondered why anyone would want to risk their lives especially foreigners in the difficult terrain. I saw cars crushed by landslides and they were in the middle of upgrading the roads and it was difficult to get access but we made it in, just. It isn’t that the authorities are hiding something, it is just that you can either fall off a cliff or get swept away by a landslide. In one remote area I saw an attack helicopter and some military vehicles. We were close to a lot of foreign borders. The Chinese have had plenty of land stolen off them in the past and now they keep a military presence in case.

On a very delicate border with India the Chinese and Indian soldiers will engage in hand to hand combat so they don’t trigger a war. A lot of Indian soldiers have been killed in these stoushes, the Chinese only put soldiers used to high altitude who have martial arts training. The Chinese only engage if the Indian soldiers cross into Chinese territory which they did for some reason. The hot spot has calmed down, this all happened over a year ago when the US was trying to ramp up countries to not engage with China. I was close to those borders and it was so beautiful. The mountains are worshipped by the locals, when you are there you can understand why.