holly and ben go adventuring.

Category: East Asia

  • City fix

    1st – 7th August 2026

    A mere week after the desolate mountains of Central Asia, with the help of a flight from Kashgar, we found ourselves in a windowless shopping centre in the heart of Chengdu. This would not be either of our first choice of places to be in, and after weeks of failing to buy the most basic things, it felt completely bizarre to be surrounded by so much stuff.

    Given we will be spending some time off the bikes and will be going hiking at the end of the trip we were shopping for backpacks. Buying backpacks was the kind of decision which made complete sense up to the very moment we made it, at which point we began trying to work out how we would each strap a 48 litre rucksack to our bike and cycle many, many kilometers with it on top of everything else we are already carrying. Still, I was now the proud owner of a mustard yellow backpack, and that has to count for something.

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  • Worlds apart

    25th July – 1st August 2026

    We had been told by many people that Kyrgyzstan is beautiful, and they were proven to be correct before we had even crossed out of the 20km of no-man’s land separating it from Tajikistan. The green and red rocks which had greeted us at the Tajik border control continued, opening to a wide valley which in turn unfolded into plains stretching impossibly onwards in both directions either side of us, as if they were about to drop off the face of the earth. Behind us was a band of mountains, generous portions of snow heaped onto their peaks. The fenceless landscape was filled with a variety farm animals all intermingling in a far more sociable way than we are used to back home; Ben had to remind me on more than one occasion that I was at risk of over-romanticising the situation. For the briefest of moments, the beauty of Kyrgyzstan almost tempted us to change our route, but after an insubstantial lunch of two-day old bread and fig jam with a questionable use by date, we decided to stick to our guns, head to China and leave Central Asia on a high.

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