Magnetic Island, Yunnan, Shanghai, Lake Baikal, Moscow: places I’d go back to
5x5 I’ve just visited seven countries in three months, so here are five incredible destinations I’d like to give a second look or some serious get-to-know-you time.
1 Magnetic Island “Go to Magnetic Island,” said Georgie when I told her I was going to Townsville, a city with very little to see once you’ve been to the aquarium. It’s an even worse place to be stuck in a hotel room being ill for three days. The first day I felt well I took a 20-minute ferry across to Magnetic Island, and discovered a place where I could happily have stared out of the window for three days, whether it was at the green mountains or the blue oceans off the golden beaches. An afternoon felt far too short, and it’s also close to Adrenalin Dive, who helped me to pass my PADI Open Water diving qualification. Even the stars came out to say hello after the magnificent sunset, but I’d love to go back.
2 Yunnan The Yunnan is a huge chunk of western China, with tropical jungles in the south and mountains in the northwest that look up to the Himalayas. I flew into the northern town of Lijiang for my third Chinese excursion with the Insiders Expeditions, spending three days in the enjoyable company of Belgian-born Maxime Tondeur. Lijiang is a strangely Disney-fied old town, charming but inundated with tourists, so I stayed in nearby Shuhe, a much quieter tourist spot with pretty streams trickling beside the cobbled streets, resting at the friendly and comfortable Songyun No1 Hostel (don’t be fooled, it’s really a boutique hotel). Our tour took in hilltop temples, a stunning trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, and the fabled city of Shangri-La, where they brew a nice IPA that goes straight to your head at 3,000m! Definitely worth more time.
3 Shanghai My only reference for Shanghai is Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, so I didn’t know what to expect from the world’s most populous city. I didn’t expect it to be so accessible, but the architecture is dominated by Shanghai’s colonial past and its high-energy commercial present. Any Westerner could navigate the Shanghai Metro (although even Xi’an was very navigable), there’s food to suit every palate and beyond the tourist landmarks is a bustling city of opportunity. Staying there on-and-off for a month, I enjoyed the Chinese Grand Prix (classic track but middling venue), the Strawberry music festival and a Spanish food festival at El Ephant. There was also a fascinating motorbike sidecar tour with Maxime of Insiders Expeditions. Sure, it’s polluted AF, but if you need a break there are trains and planes to take you all over China and beyond. I’m very tempted to return for a long stay.
4 Lake Baikal You can’t see the Great Wall Of China from space, but you can see Lake Baikal: it’s the world’s oldest lake, a gradually-spreading 636km-long rift in the Earth that holds one-fifth of the planet’s fresh water in its 3.9km depths. Water so clean that you can drink it, and air so clear that you can feel it. I took a trip from the local capital, Irkutsk, to Olkhon Island with a smart and engaging young guide, geologist Dasha Svereva. The overnight stay gave me a chance to sample the island’s stunning views of snow-capped Siberian mountains and enjoy a soup of omul, a firm white fish endemic to the lake. It wasn’t enough, however, to meet the unique Baikal seals, go scuba diving in the world’s clearest waters, hike the taiga forests, or walk, drive and even mountain bike on the translucent winter ice. I saw almost nothing of Irkutsk, either. So I have to go back.
5 Moscow England’s triumphant Europhobes will not be pleased to hear that Moscow felt very much like Europe when I arrived after six weeks in Asia and three nights on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Ironically, it’s much harder to navigate than Shanghai, because there are almost no signs in English (and not many people speak it). Maybe that’s because Cyrillic, as far as I can tell, is just a sneaky way to disguise the fact that Russian isn’t so different from European languages. My six days in Moscow were just enough to discover that it’s a friendly place once you understand that Russians only smile when they really mean it, but the Bolshoi was booked and there are too many museums to see, from galleries to Cold War bunkers. I did see the inspiring Cosmonaut Alley and the glorious stations of the Moscow Metro, and you’ve got to respect any city which was willing to burn itself to the ground to defeat the French. If only the visas were less complex.
