Second: Kaduna to Kano 140 miles in 5 hours for 120 Naira Kaduna is not such a pleasant city now, due to the usual fervid growth, but it does have a letter for me at Poste Restante so the system does work after all. At the railway station there is not much happening. Some fellows [...]
As yesterday, I emerge into the dawn gloom at about six twenty, with activity in the streets and buses in motion. Indeed, one is leaving even as I cross the street, but when I mention Peking, the driver motions me to the terminal building. Within, the ticket office ladies nominate a bus to some illegible [...]
It is however, no ordinary embankment, but the remains of the walls and towers that girdled round twice five miles… Yes… this is the place. I go out into the bitter wind, and besides the track are stone pillars on which I recognize both Mongolian, and the ideograms for Shangdu. So here we are. The [...]
Sunday starts with a delay over depositing the Green Toad (my backpack) in the baggage room, so a city bus to the railway station would risk missing my 8:50 train. The assistants normally lurking around the gates are absent but a small taxi delivers some Chinese so he gets an immediate refill, and only charges [...]
Ampara at the foot of the cliff Lunch is in the form of a platter of spaghetti: tomato and onion and the usual tough meat. Afterwards, we lounge on mattresses, picking soft sweet tree-ripened dates from a bowl and sipping beautiful cold clear clean water taken straight from a bucket placed beneath the cliff’s overhang [...]
Around three p.m., after the full ferocity of the sun had eased, I stroll to the village for a look around. The Land Rover is there, but there is no other sign of life. Some kids gather around me, especially a little girl who wants many lifts up, and more swing-arounds. The Land Rover is [...]
