Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Sprint at Ruffey Lake - a rather different venue for this than the last two sprint maps I've been on (in Singapore and China). Normally this would be quite straightforward but a maze section added some challenge, as did a complex picnic/playground area late. Trickiest bit was probably the first control, a tree without a lot of clear features to pinpoint it. Struggled with calf after 15 minutes or so, but both feel similar so it's hopefully just that they haven't fully recovered from last night's needlework. Frederic blew past me at the end.

Those of you who know me will know that I'm partial to a good incompetent/hapless criminal story, and one recently happened close to home in the form of an attempted burglary at my parents' place - the (female) would-be burglar scarpered once they realised people were home, but not before being caught on camera, which revealed (so to speak) that they were wearing, in addition to the gloves and carried screwdriver which would be tools of the trade, a bikini top, a G-string, a towel around the neck and nothing else (perhaps they thought this would make them inconspicuous in a beach area) other than a readily identifiable tattoo. Upon the video being played at the police station (footage which was probably keenly watched by some male members of the local constabulary), the towel was recognised as having been stolen in a previous burglary - it belonged to the local police superintendent (whom the alleged burglar had been staying next door to). Anyway, there was more than enough evidence that she was greeted with a "you're nicked, sunshine" (or the local equivalent thereof) in fairly short order, and will soon be treading the probably well-trodden path to Frankston Magistrates Court.

The first 15 minutes of this were a case of slow and sluggish, but at least the calf is only at minor nuisance level. I was just about thinking that I might be through the worst of it when it started to flare up again (much as it had at a similar stage in Geneva). Not wanting to run it into the ground, I pulled up pretty quickly.

Had a physio session tonight - she doesn't seem too alarmed beyond overall tightness. Some fairly serious needlework which will hopefully do some good (even if it makes walking this evening a bit of a struggle).

This season's fires so far seem to have been pretty good at missing existing orienteering maps. The Black Range one east of Canberra has done so too so far (although I suspect it will eventually get onto the Little Bombay map, which I don't think has been used for 15 years or more?), but it does cover an area I've rogained on a couple of times. There's supposedly some good granite on the Black Range itself (I seem to recall Rob Walter, whose home turf this sort of is, has been up there) but with no proper track access it's not really usable. (I was also wondering how many Black Ranges there are in Australia: the Geoscience Australia placename search turns up 19 though misses the Canberra one, and picks up two in the southeast of South Australia which are possibly stretching the definition of "range").

Update: looking at the latest RFS maps, "eventually" turned out to be "within an hour of my posting that".

Calf improved somewhat on yesterday and was at could-run-on-it-if-I-had-to stage, but given that I didn't have to I left it one more day, and hit the water instead. Not a bad session; felt quite reasonable in the second half.

Changes in the neighbourhood while I've been away: the manchester clearance store in the Station Street shops which, I think, has been holding a closing down sale since I first moved in to the suburb has actually closed down.

C • Worrying trend? 1

Calf a bit worse this morning, meaning I didn't get the chance to go exploring Ararat and surrounds (wouldn't have had time to get into the Ararat Hills, where I've had a couple of very nice runs previously). Feeling rather sleepy in any case. Can't work out why.

The talk went reasonably well, even if there was a lengthy comment disguised as a question from someone who recited a long list of climate sceptic talking points (from subsequent morning tea conversation I don't think he impressed the rest of the crowd greatly). Finally made it home properly this evening, after sleeping a fair bit of the way back - don't think I would have been much company for the person who gave me a lift to Ballarat.

Unusually for me, I got essentially no sleep on the flight so knew I was in for a tough day. Held up OK in the morning, and this session, if a bit mundane, was useful. Obviously a bit of a storm through overnight as there were branches down in various places (including one in my backyard which I think came from next door).

Hit the wall in a fairly significant way in the afternoon - fortunately by then I'd cleared the urgent work tasks which actually required thinking (like preparing my talk for tomorrow) and was down to sorting e-mails.

And I don't get to sleep in my own bed just yet - I'm doing a talk in Horsham tomorrow morning. Fortunately I don't have to drive it, which I would have struggled severely with - I've got the bus/train to Ararat, where I'll stay tonight, and am getting a ride with someone else in the morning. I suggested before leaving work that the probability of my falling asleep on the bus was probably well into the 90s and so it proved.

Looking at the list here of what makes you a suspected religious extremist in Xinjiang, most readers of this would probably be advised to stay well clear. (I'd fail on the second point as well as the first, and will probably fail on the third - surely something must have been lost in translation here - when the time comes).

(It has been suggested, probably not unreasonably, that the fact that this got leaked to the New York Times suggests that someone very senior is not happy about what's going on).

C • List 9

Sprint course in Singapore, at Bishan in the northern suburbs (a course from a training event they ran a few weeks ago). Arrived there and was slightly disconcerted - there were apartment towers everywhere but mostly only small buildings on the map. I quickly realised that most of the apartment towers are open on the ground floor (I guess to help with airflow) and were mapped as canopies, with the lift/stair wells as the "buildings". Seemed a fairly straightforward course at first but a bit more technical in the second half, and I managed the classic sprint thing of getting myself onto the wrong side of a wall at the third-last.

Calf was still not 100% and I probably wouldn't have gone out had I not had a particular reason to, but it didn't get any worse through the run and has come up reasonably afterwards, so hopefully it will be right for my next planned run on Wednesday.

Not sure whether I can count this as a 30th orienteering country or not - it was a course but not an event. (Italy was once in the same category for me but I've competed in a couple of events there since). Also good to get a chance to look at Singapore suburbia - it seemed to be a fairly typical public housing estate (most Singaporeans live in public housing so this doesn't have the social connotations it would in a lot of Western countries).

Now on the way home, after doing a seminar in Singapore this afternoon (at the invitation of a former Bureau colleague who's working here now). Seemed to go OK.

C • It totally counts as orienteering 11

Travel Geneva-Istanbul-Singapore. Nothing terribly noteworthy about this trip; didn't sleep as much as I would have liked (hopefully that will be addressed tonight). A more northern route than usual on the first leg to avoid a major storm which was affecting the French Riviera (daily rainfalls in the 200+ range in places; Geneva is rainshadowed from this direction). Had a missed approach coming into Singapore - the pilot was (quite reasonably) worried about potential outflow winds from a nearby thunderstorm.

I'd originally had thoughts about doing a short session in the hotel gym on arrival, but with the late flight (thanks to said go-around) and a slow passage through immigration, it was nearly 8 by the time I got to the hotel (by which time it was a case of go directly to hawker food complex, do not pass Go).

Calf seems to have settled down a fair bit and was only at minor nuisance level this evening, so I'm still hopeful of getting out on a map tomorrow.

Didn't quite go to plan. After a successful effort on Wednesday and with no urgently pressing commitments this morning, I decided to aim for 70-80 minutes and head up through the Old Town on the way to the Cologny hills. Left Achilles gradually warmed up, but the problems proved to be elsewhere; my right calf was becoming increasingly tight from about 20 minutes onwards. By 30 minutes I'd decided that I should probably head for home, and by 40 I decided that I wasn't even up to running the rest of the way back. The pity of it was that it was shaping up as a reasonable run.

It's been uncomfortable to walk on through the day (although a bit less so in the afternoon), so I don't think there's much doubt I made the right call to come in early. The question is how long-term an issue it is; hopefully not very (and the fact that it was a gradual deterioration and not an abrupt event like this time last year is perhaps encouraging in that respect). Might struggle to add a 30th orienteering country to my list though - the Monday morning plan was to run a sprint course in Singapore.

The flight's at 6pm so during the day I went into when-in-Rome-do-as-the-Romans-do mode - doing a fairly standard Geneva thing on a gloomy November day of heading for higher altitudes in search of brighter weather (in my case, St. Cergue, close to the one decent area that was used in WOC 2012). At 1050m it's pretty much right on the snowline and provided much better mountain views than under the haze at lake level (as well as a good lunch mostly of local cold cuts).

Lakeshore intervals. Ankle stiffness had gone but Achilles quite sore. Almost gave it away after the first rep but persisted, and ended up gradually improving as the set went on (although not at what I'd consider close to full pace until the last three). Got through the full set again, so that's another indicator of progress.

Warm-up and down. Found a new way of getting along the length of the Paquis quarter which didn't involve going out to the main roads (surprising that I haven't seen this before given that I've stayed in this quarter on multiple occasions over the last decade). This took me to past a new addition in the plethora of Swiss recycling bins - there's now one for "capsules de cafe".

C • Déchèterie 1

Ankle was stiff and sore when I got up this morning - not quite sure why. Awkward to run on so I decided to swap today's planned session with tomorrow and took to the water after work instead. It's a bit less crowded in the evening than it is at lunchtime but there were still moments when negotiating the turns was a bit like negotiating the roads of Laos or Thailand. A rather slow session but otherwise OK.

The news came through not long before I started that there had been a significant (6.0 or 6.4 depending on whose numbers you believe) earthquake in the vicinity of Luang Prabang. Reports so far suggest not too much damage (and no casualties), which surprises me a little given local building standards (or the absence thereof).

The plan was to head out to one of my favourite old Geneva haunts, the path along the Arve river (although this run wasn't long enough to get out to the power station). It was clear from early on that as long as my Achilles was prepared to play ball (which it eventually was), I was up for this, and it ended up being perhaps my most enjoyable run over the last few months - surprised it wasn't a bit faster. Flowing quite well over the later stages, after a decent climb up the hill out of Bout-du-Monde. Nice running morning, still, dry and about +4.

With the new railway (connecting Geneva with the French commuter towns to the south) only a few weeks away from opening, I thought the bit of the path which had been blocked off for building works for about the last three years would be open again, but no such luck :-(.

I haven't quite managed to adjust to the time zone yet this time, which is an advantage in the morning, but not so much so in the afternoon.

Achilles pretty bad today - definitely the worst it's been on this trip. Probably overdue for a bit of treatment, so will appreciate next week's version of Attack of the Killer Physio (tm), I suspect. Closest I got to exercise was walking to and from the office (about 20 minutes each way), and an excursion outside at lunchtime during which I noted that there was no giant inflatable object outside UN headquarters to mark World Toilet Day this year.

This picture looks familiar - not because of fire but because I think it was the scene of the most serious road accident I've been in, when a motorcyclist lost control on a bend and hit us head-on on the way back to Brisbane from the 1997 WOC trials. The motorcyclist went over the top of the car and was badly injured but survived (which he probably wouldn't have had he hit a tree instead), the car was a write-off but none of us were badly hurt; Ben Schulz, who would have only been about 19 at the time, was driving, and didn't panic and try to swerve wildly as I imagine a lot of inexperienced drivers would in that situation.

(Walking away from that did place not being picked in that WOC team in some level of perspective).

The (rather generalised) fire maps I've seen take in a number of 1990s vintage O maps (most of which I gather had become unusable because of lantana), as well as the Perseverance Dam camp - wonder if it's survived?

Woke up somewhat earlier than I had planned on, but at least that meant I was awake when I went out at sunrise. Ended up as a reasonable run once loosened up (I was going to say "warmed up" but that may not be entirely appropriate); an out-and-back along the lake shore. Back tightened a little in the last kilometre which is slightly unusual, and chafing I picked up walking around on Saturday in Singapore was a bit of a nuisance at times.

No snow in Geneva, but there was a bit on cars (mostly ones with French plates), so I suspect it wasn't too far away - maybe at 500-550m? (Geneva's at 375).

If Israel Folau is looking for an extreme climate event to blame on the legalisation of same-sex marriage, surely the heatwave in Sodom - which in July reached 49.9, the highest temperature in Israel since 1942 - is a more obvious candidate?

C • Don't... 1

Flew overnight from Singapore to Geneva via Istanbul. First time I've flown Turkish Airlines; the flights were fine, it was just the preparation which was a bit challenging. (They'd changed the time of the connecting flight by 5 minutes; most airlines would just switch you to the rescheduled flight, especially for such a trivial change, but Turkish wanted you to reconfirm it, and because my booking was through an agent I couldn't do it online - I had to call the call centre in Turkey and do it through them).

Istanbul Airport is very big and very new, and dedicated to a cause dear to the heart of any modern airport - separating people passing through it from as much of their money as possible (although it wasn't quite as overpriced as I thought, providing you got your Turkish currency somewhere under the airport, because the exchange rates being quoted at the airport were about 25% below the market rate). I wasn't playing ball there, which didn't help with lingering dehydration from yesterday.

Not much danger of dehydration in Geneva, but the body wasn't otherwise playing ball for an attempt at a run in the late afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow after a night's sleep.

Historical wanderings of the flight: Easter 1983. One thing I noticed was how well-populated B and C classes (the equivalents of today's AS and B) were - with no elite class, W21A only made up about 30% of the total W21 field (there were 21 or them, 39 21Bs and 33 21Cs), whilst M21B also had more people than M21A. Some of the W21Bs were there for particular reasons - Carolyn Jackson (1st) and Alison Radford (4th) were both at the time in the process of producing future national representatives - but the overall balance of the fields was very different to what we see now. (The absolute numbers were different, too - the demographic bulge was still in 21s/35s in 1983). 11B was a decent-sized class too, but that was partly because Easter 1983 was the first major event to offer 10s, and I think people were still used to 11B as a de facto 10s class.

C • demographic bulge 2

Unlike my last three countries, I have been to Singapore before, but not since I was a teenager (other than airport transits), so didn't have a lot of steps to retrace. (I do recall going for a run - I'd just started training regularly then - through the Botanic Gardens). This time I headed up to MacRitchie Reservoir, partly to see some of the local forest, partly because it hosts Singapore's longest rainfall record (although I didn't see the site) - it's interesting to note that the three driest July-September periods on record there (2019, 1902, 1965) are also probably the three most severe drought years on record in northern NSW. (The Indian Ocean is the likely common thread, although we don't have much in the way of Indian Ocean observations in 1902).

I wasn't exactly the only person who had the idea of going for a run here - it must be school cross-country season because I saw quite a few school groups training. Nice setting and OK in the injuries department once warmed up, but the humidity caught up with me from about 35 minutes onwards; I'd originally had thoughts of trying to do the full circuit (about 11km) but settled for three-quarters of it. (This being Singapore, I knew I wouldn't have to wait too long for a bus along the road outside the park, even oin a Saturday morning). Slow, but I suspect the GPS was missing a bit in the rainforest sections.

Spent the rest of the day looking around Singapore, periodically going inside when the heat caught up with me, but still must have done a fair bit of walking because my phone registered 26km for the day (including the run). Now on the next stage, flying out to Geneva.

A fairly slow morning session exploring Melaka - Achilles sore early but definitely improved on Wednesday, and seem to be getting a bit more used to the humidity, too (although it still took me a while to settle down after finishing). Initially headed down the river towards the coast expecting that the waterfront would be worth going along, but in fact there isn't really a usable waterfront at all, just a few hundred metres of weedy vacant land - my initial thoughts were that this area might have taken a beating from the 2004 tsunami, but it had little impact this far south, so not sure why the real estate developers haven't jumped in there yet? Came back into town and did an extra loop around where I was staying, in the process identifying the location of the local mosque which had provided an early-morning wake-up call (I guess it is Friday).

The trip to Singapore was a bit more drawn-out than I was expecting - the bus schedules claimed 4 hours but it actually ended up being more like 6.5 (including 90 minutes either at the border or in traffic waiting to reach it). We stopped early on and I thought that 11 was too early to get something to eat; I shouldn't have thought that, because the next opportunity was 4.30...Was probably a bit too much of a glutton for punishment walking 2km with my gear at the other end, too (especially as Singapore is a country where I'd expect taxi drivers to be honest, or at least well-regulated).

Made a confirmed sighting of someone crossing the road against a red light.

Very early start today - getting a 7.30 train out of Butterworth so needed to leave the hotel at 6.15 to get the boat across to the mainland. Breakfast was somewhat improvised - I'd hoped to pick up something at the station but no-one seems to have yet worked out that if one of the main train departures of the day is at 7.30 then there's money to be made by selling food and drink before 7.30 (a bit of a surprise in what's a fairly entrepreneurial part of the world).

The day's sequence was train to Kuala Lumpur Sentral, then a local train to the bus station, then bus to Melaka. Those parts all went reasonably smoothly, and the bus even slowed down when we hit a downpour. (Malaysia seems to have an incredible number of long-distance buses - considerably more than it has passengers to fill them by the look of it). Saw a lot of palm oil plantations - at least in peninsular Malaysia they're no longer clearing rainforests to plant them (the Malaysian companies are clearing Indonesian rainforests instead). These are mostly quite clear underneath and I imagine form the basis of most Malaysian orienteering maps, although of the ones I saw, many were dead flat (and often swampy) and the non-flat ones were covered with contour ditches.

The most awkward bit of the trip was the last - from the Melaka bus station to the centre of town (about 5km). Since I was disinclined to do business with the taxi touts (who are reputedly the worst in Malaysia and would have charged 2-3 times what I'd paid for my ticket from Kuala Lumpur), I got the local bus instead and thus spent as much time as I did travelling from Kuala Lumpur - it took over an hour for one to turn up.

Melaka's an old port city - at various times, Portuguese, Dutch and British (it ended up becoming British in a swap with a British port in what's now Indonesia). Some interesting buildings as you'd expect with that history, but perhaps the most striking sight was the lavishly decorated trishaws (Hello Kitty seemed to be a fairly common theme).

Eventually got my fix of Penang laksa (a bit more sour than the version you get in Australia) in the food court at KL Sentral station.

Something which happens a bit to me on longer trips (with a long period without regular calf massages) is that my Achilles gradually goes backwards. On Monday it warmed up. Today it didn't - hopefully this won't be the start of a pattern. (Bangkok may have been a good place to get a massage, but I wasn't especially confident that in a foreign language that I could get across that I wanted a massage and not a "massage").

Penang wakes up a bit earlier than some of the other places I've been to, which is a little surprising when it doesn't get light until after 7 (Malaysia is a time zone ahead of where it should be).

Took advantage of the hotel's pool for plan B. Not quite as good a view as it was in Bangkok, but still not bad (over the straits to Butterworth), watching clouds build over the mainland but show no sign of moving onto the island. (The forecast had been for rain most of the day, so I was quite happy for it to be wrong).

Spent quite a bit of the day going to Penang Hill - an 800m hill in the centre of the island with good views and a reasonable amount of rainforest (probably not pristine but still looking pretty good). There's a funicular railway to go up. Decided to walk down to the Botanical Gardens, which I'll file in the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" department - I'd envisaged a walking track but it was in fact a paved road with some (if limited) traffic, and extremely steep in places - walking down a 30% gradient on pavement isn't a lot of fun. (Driving a truck up it would be even less fun). Getting public transport out of there was also a bit of a seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time item - after waiting 40 minutes for a bus, the driver helpfully informed me that I was standing on the wrong side of the road, bus number two's driver waited around for a few minutes on his phone and smoking a cigarette and then drove off without acknowledging my existence (perhaps he thought that white people should be using taxis?), and I eventually got on bus number three.

(At this point I was reminded of an episode in my school years when, during an industrial dispute, our school bus was cancelled and the leader of the union involved said something about all of the Grammar students getting chauffeured. We had a good laugh about this a few years later when he was chasing my vote in an ACT Assembly preselection ballot).

The food continues to be excellent; just a bit disappointed that none of the places I've been to offered laksa, one of the local specialties. Laksa, served by one of the few establishments in those days near our office open in the evenings, fuelled many a spell of late-night number crunching for the original version of the Australian long-term temperature data set (perhaps they knew this because the place closed down two weeks after the data set was released).

C • Penang Hill 3

The train was a bit more basic than the last one but I think I probably slept better this time, notwithstanding that I was traversing a bit of Thailand that DFAT thinks Australians shouldn't be going to (the British Foreign Office advice, which tends to be more specific, explicitly excludes the railway line - the actual trouble, in the form of a long-running and rather nasty separatist conflict, is further east towards the other end of the border). Woke up to a greener setting, mist and the odd rice paddy - definitely more equatorial than what I've been through. Crossed into Malaysia mid-morning, discovering in the process that, although quite a lot of countries these days make you give them fingerprints on the way in the Thais make you do it on the way out too (authoritarian regimes everywhere seem to be enthusiastic consumers of the latest in security technology), and continued on to Butterworth to get the ferry across to Penang in the afternoon.

Today's session was on the stationary bike in the hotel gym, not too exciting but allowed me to turn the legs over. I'll take to the streets (as a run) tomorrow, having already done a couple of bits of wandering through what looks like an interesting city. The food here also has a particularly good reputation (especially the various hawker markets) and so far I haven't been disappointed.

One familiar name which popped up en route in northern Malaysia was Alor Setar (previously known as Alor Star). A staple of mid-high school geography exams was a set of questions based around interpreting a topographic map - as you can imagine, I tended to do quite well on this section - and one year Alor Star was the map (not quite sure why - perhaps Australians mapped it because it's fairly close to the old RAAF base at Butterworth?). Presumably not there in the mid-1980s were the Malaysian McMansion equivalents on the northern edge of town, or the 165-metre high tower.

I was staying opposite the National Stadium complex (which I don't think is the real national stadium these days - the main stadium looks like it would have a capacity of maybe 20,000 and there must be something bigger than that), so thought that would be a good place for an intervals session - at least there was a reasonable prospect of finding a sufficient traffic-free distance. Took a couple of reps to (a) find somewhere good to do it and (b) get up to a reasonable pace, but once that was achieved it went quite well - ended up getting through what I consider a full set (10x1 minute) for the first time since mid-year.

Didn't do a great deal else in the morning other than deal with a few practicalities (like getting my watch battery fixed) at one of the nearby enormous multi-storey malls, then headed out of town in early afternoon, on the overnight train towards Malaysia.

Warm-up and down. Achilles a bit sore early on but warmed up OK - was no longer a problem by the time it came to the start of the sprints.

Didn't sleep that well on the train, and after a hot day doing the rounds of the temples, I was feeling pretty tired by the time I eventually checked in properly to the hotel in mid-afternoon. With effectively free nights of accommodation before and after, I decided to splash out (figuratively speaking) in Bangkok, which meant I was staying in a place with an 11th floor infinity pool - which I took to after a hookup with the OA governance working group (the pleasures of sporting administration...). This was great for doing a workout with a view of the sun setting over the city; unfortunately, there was a bit too much sunset and the pool wasn't very well lit (I didn't help matters by bringing my darker goggles), and after banging into the wall a couple of times I decided to cut the session short. Still nice to get into the water.

The temples were indeed impressive, although the Grand Palace and surrounding complex were a bit too overrun by tour groups (a hazard of major tourist sites, I guess). The city generally wasn't as chaotic or as polluted as I was expecting, although I'm aware that it's a Sunday so tomorrow might be more revealing on that front. Managed to avoid any solicitations from tuk-tuk drivers (some visitors feel they need to do it once for the experience, but having already done that in Luang Prabang and Nong Khai where they're the only transport option, I felt no need to do it in Bangkok, which has a decent public transport system, and proper taxis if you want one).

Naturally, this was my session earworm. (Can anyone who was there remember how it came to be the theme song of the 1996 Victorian Schools trip to Tasmania?).

Out to and along the road paralleling the river in Vientiane (not the riverfront as such; there's a few hundred metres of floodplain between the road and the river), a route chosen mainly in the name of minimising road crossings - only had a couple of significant ones to get there and didn't have too many dramas. (Also only saw three stray dogs, all placid). Ended up as a decent run; no issues apart from a bit of early Achilles soreness, and humidity wasn't too bad for the tropics (probably the last time I'll be in a position to say that for the next week).

Left Vientiane today, discovering in the process that some things are the same the world over when the woman across the aisle was keeping her toddler entertained by using her phone to play "the wheels on the bus go round and round" and "Baby Shark". Border crossing was painless. Spent a few hours hanging around the Thai border town of Nong Khai, including some very nice food at a very unpretentious spot near the station (I suspect my tastebuds are going to enjoy the next week), before picking up an overnight train to Bangkok.

C • Baby Shark 1

C • Picking up 1

Another long day in transit - the bus trip from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. It may be less than 400km but it was scheduled for 9 hours, and the word was that this was optimistic. I hadn't been able to get a ticket for the "VIP bus" (i.e. a normal bus) - and haven't yet gone sufficiently native to enquire as to whether there was space available on a stool in the aisle, standing in a stairwell, hanging out a door or on the roof (all of which I've seen here, the first three in vehicles I've been in) - so was booked on a minibus.

My objective was fairly basic - get to the other end in one piece. I thought it was going to fall apart at the first hurdle because I thought the bus left at 8 and the tuk-tuk pick-up circled so many places in the town that we got there at 7.59, but it was actually supposed to be an 8.30 departure (and ended up being more like 8.50). Bags went on the roof (but no motorcycles, something I've also seen here), and there was a substantial crack across the windscreen, but I snaffled a seat and it didn't seem excessively crowded - at first. What I didn't know was that this bus also stopped at random places en route to pick up locals and their assorted goods (including bags of food for markets, although no chickens), and that there always seemed to be room for one more, somewhere - I think we peaked at 31 people on what was nominally a 22-seater bus.

Progress was made, slowly but steadily, through countryside more mountainous than Wednesday - a couple of climbs and descents which must have been in the order of 1000m, and almost continuously winding for the first 150km out of Luang Prabang. Stopped at the bottom of the first big descent to have water sprayed on the bus; I probably could have done without hearing that it was to cool the brakes down (the driver seemed more cautious on the second descent). The numbers gradually thinned out in the second half of the trip, and the terrain got easier, although the overtaking got no less crazy (of the several hundred overtaking manouevres on this trip, the number that I would have done myself could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand). I was almost relieved when we hit a traffic jam coming into Vientiane. Ended up about an hour late.

It's beautiful country, but I'm glad I don't have to do any more long-haul bus trips like this - from Vientiane it's a short hop across the border to pick up the train on the Thai side.

Somewhat to my surprise, Laos's road death rate is actually somewhat below the average for southeast Asia. Thailand's per capita rate is one of the worst in the world (only behind four African countries) - although they fare less badly when counted per 100,000 motor vehicles (which is another way of saying that some countries which have lower death rates also don't have many vehicles). It's probably still as well that almost all of my travel in Thailand will be on trains.

Set out around the peninsula which makes up the Luang Prabang old town. Back was very marginal today and I probably wouldn't have pressed on beyond the opening minutes on another day, but thought I'd at least make an attempt to do some sightseeing. That mission was more or less accomplished. Unsurprisingly, it was a fair bit quieter on the streets than it had been yesterday evening, there weren't too many wandering dogs, and those which were there were placid (something to be aware of in a place where getting bitten means go directly to Bangkok for rabies treatment, do not pass Go). I've heard they're more of a problem in Vientiane.

The morning was spent going to the waterfalls about 30km out of town (as beautiful as expected). I'd expected that getting there might be tricky but in fact there is a dizzying array of minivan operators prepared to offer their services (although the imbalance between the number of people in the vehicle and the number of seats in the vehicle was a bit disconcerting, and provided a strong incentive not to be the last one back). Did some wandering around the old town in the afternoon, and the night markets in the evening - although my view of shopping is as a practical exercise (which is why I was disappointed that none of the large number of very nice pencil cases were big enough to take a 30cm ruler). I did like the idea of the bracelets made out of old bomb casings, though.

C • Bomb casings 2

C • Laos 1

As expected, it was a long bus ride, but not too bad all things considered. While not as plush as their South American equivalents, there was enough space to lie down (as long as you're not too much taller than I am). Judging by the amount of time we seemed to be going up and down I suspect we missed some reasonably scenic country. We also stopped for around three hours between 2 and 5am (which meant the best sleeping opportunity of the trip), perhaps because road improvements on the Chinese side meant that pressing on would mean reaching the border before it opened (why they haven't simply shifted the departure time later is a bit of a mystery).

As is often the case, border arrangements were a bit confusing - we knew we had to get off the bus with our gear but weren't sure whether we got back on it after the Chinese exit point or had to walk up to the Lao entry point (we did the latter, and were pleasantly surprised that the distance was only a few hundred metres and not the 2km I'd read somewhere). Got through in the end, but probably took about 2 hours for the whole process (mostly because the bus was stuck in a truck traffic jam - it's the major trade route from China to Laos and Thailand).

The motorway goes to within a couple of kilometres of the border but it was immediately obvious that we'd crossed the border, as the road became a wide strip of dirt within a few hundred metres of the border post. (Other very large expanses of dirt in the vicinity, along with various buildings under construction, suggest that this will be a very different place soon). It was only like that for a few kilometres, but then the first 200km were relentlessly hilly and winding - reminded me a bit of some of the country out the back of the Gold Coast/Byron Bay (maybe not this year) - and we weren't averaging much over 40 km/h despite some occasionally creative overtaking. There's a drought here too, although you needed to look closely for signs of it because tropical areas will look fairly green at the end of the wet season, even a lousy one.

Made it into Luang Prabang only 90 minutes late, not bad by local standards (although I then added to that by doing some needless wandering trying to find my hotel). Haven't explored much yet but have heard very good things about the place from everyone who's been before. It's definitely much more on the Western tourist track than anywhere I went in China, and English is much more widely spoken than I expected, which makes organising logistics a little less challenging.

In two or three years time it will be perhaps six hours from Kunming on the train (the construction site was frequently visible), and Laos will probably become a very different place - the ultimate plan is to connect southeast Asia through to the Chinese rail network all the way to Singapore (although Malaysia has put their part of the project on hold after a change of government), which will put Laos squarely in the middle of a major trade route.

Ended up a bit squeezed for time this morning too, so just enough for a quick loop of the southern and central parts of the old town - nice to be out early although it's not quite the same with all the shopfronts closed. Felt reasonable, although I didn't attempt to go up any hills (which is often where altitude issues manifest themselves).

That was the start of the haul south - train to Kunming, then bus south to Luang Prabang. The train trip was smooth, although with cloud and occasional rain the views weren't as good as they were on the way here. I then had three hours to kill around the bus station; to actually go into the waiting room you have to go through security and there didn't seem to be any eating options on the other side, so I stayed outside, sitting on a wall under the railway overpass and spending some time by catching up with some IPCC writing (to the occasional curiosity of the taxi drivers milling around nearby waiting for fares).

Second half of the Tiger Leaping Gorge walk, a bit shorter than the first (11km compared with 16) and with no major climbs. The mountains are still stunning but they weren't as photogenic today - wrong side for the morning sun, and a bit more cloud around. I'd been led to believe that today's track was easy, and it was in as much as there were no major climbs, but in fact it was quite a bit more challenging than I expected - much more exposed than yesterday (including a couple of parts of the track on ledges a metre or two wide with 100+m cliffs below), and rough underfoot in places (although generally not on the exposed bits). Was worrying too much about my footing to enjoy this as much as yesterday.

The end of this part of the track is perhaps 300m above the river, at the only feasible crossing point of a side gorge (you can keep going further if you want). It's also possible to descend to the river on a series of ladders, but I know my limitations. (As you might expect, compressing a river the size of the Yangtze into a narrow gorge makes for some intense flow - you can hear the river even 800m above it).

I hadn't finished with my heights issues for the day - the first few kilometres of the road out were as scary as any road I've been on, cut into the side of the cliffs and regularly reduced to one lane by either fallen rocks from above or landslides to below. I was slightly reassured by the fact that the driver of the ancient minibus we were on (which appeared to be missing its first gear) has probably done this hundreds of times before, but was still glad to get to the other end (and similarly glad that I wasn't here for the 1996 earthquake).

Back in Lijiang tonight, in preparation for heading south again.

C • Good thing you didn't fall off a mountain... 7

Original plan for this morning was to go for a short run in the old town using the tourist map. I had quite a tight time window to do this in - first light isn't until about 7.15 (China doesn't have time zones and Lijiang is far enough west that it should be an hour behind the east coast), and I needed to be back before 8 to give myself enough time to get to the bus station for a 9.30 bus. The plan was scuttled when I headed downstairs to find no-one around and the front door locked (I could have got out, but wouldn't necessarily have been able to get back in). Well, it wasn't as if I was going to be lacking in exercise today anyway, and I'll have another chance for this run (under less time pressure) on Tuesday.

The main activity today was the first part of the Tiger Leaping Gorge walk - this is where the upper Yangtze has pushed through the range between two 5000m+ mountains. There's a road sort of along the bottom (of which more later), but the walking track climbs well above the valley floor and then goes through three villages on the slopes - I think historically this would have been the donkey/mule track to access these villages, although all are now connected to the valley road by road. Spectacular views of the river and mountains as you might expect, on a brilliantly fine day. Two big climbs (about 400-500m apiece) which were hard work - particularly the top end of the second one, where I also suspect I was starting to feel the altitude (2650m) a bit - but generally a good walk, and not too many exposed bits (regular readers will know of my discomfort with heights). Pulled up in the second village, a bit earlier than my original plan, but I'd realised that if I'd pressed on to the Halfway Inn, it was actually well beyond halfway and I'd be sitting around at the end for half of tomorrow waiting for a bus. Probably didn't drink enough and felt a bit dehydrated at the end of the day.

Had a potentially embarrassing gear failure at dinner - the button on my pants came off. I'd packed a pair of O pants in my bag in case the others were too hot to walk in, so it looks like that's what I'll be wearing until I get back to the hotel in Lijiang. Hopefully the locals aren't too perturbed. (Part of my travel kit is a couple of old-style nappy pins for emergency gear repairs of this nature, but they were in the bag I'd left back in Lijiang).

This one was a pleasant surprise on a number of fronts. I was staying in downtown Kunming and thought I'd be dicing with the concrete jungle, but a trip to the shops late last evening showed me that the street around the corner was pedestrianised for a way, and after that I was able to get northwest to Green Lake (a worthwhile target) with only one major road crossing (although one slightly hairy bit around some construction hoardings). Back was fine, and I was also fine with the altitude (1900m), although the extra 500m of Lijiang will be more of a test - maybe my Canberra upbringing hasn't completely left me? (I noticed at 1994 World University Championships in Switzerland that the decline in performance that others were feeling at around 2000m was hitting me around 2600). All in all a nice one.

Getting to the station was a bit fiddly - its south entrance has been closed, presumably for security reasons (there was a terrorist attack here in 2014), so getting to the north entrance from the metro station involves a circuitous 15-minute walk. Fine once under way, though, and Lijiang was definitely a worthwhile destination - a very well-preserved old town, with a 5500-metre peak towering to the north (I'll be on the other side of this tomorrow). It's something of a tourist mecca - although this is low season so it was busy but not unpleasantly crowded - but it's definitely a Chinese tourist mecca; haven't seen another Westerner since I arrived in town.

The old town would be an excellent sprint venue. There is a map of here but I forgot to get a copy before leaving Guangzhou, so the plan in the morning is to head out on the tourist map.

And the taxi driver from the station actually used his meter. (He didn't have seat belts, but you can't have everything).

So much for taking advantage of the good running conditions in Yangshuo - my back definitely didn't want to play ball today (and didn't enjoy the day's travelling that much, either).

Quite a long day travelling - Yangshuo to Kunming, which is only scheduled as 5 hours on the train (1100km), but ended up about 12 door-to-door through a wait between two connections, long trips to the stations at each end, and at the Kunming end dropping in to the bus station to organise my ticket south to Laos in a few days' time (one of the major remaining pieces of the logistical puzzle). Shouldn't have been too surprised, given Yangshuo's touristy reputation, that in 10 minutes' waiting at the bus stop I had eight motorbike taxis or pedicabs offering their services (I'm sure the locals could balance on the back of a motorbike with a big pack on, but I wouldn't fancy myself to do it). I've read that this doesn't happen much elsewhere in China, which would fit in with my experience.

The train trip didn't go quite as smoothly as my other ones in China; the Guiyang-Kunming one was about 20 minutes late to start with (not sure where it began but I think it might have been as far away as Beijing) and ended up about 30 late after a couple of slow sections (i.e. it had to slow down to a relative crawling pace which is only marginally faster than the average speed of the Melbourne-Sydney run). Got to see more spectacular Chinese civil engineering than I did spectacular Chinese scenery (probably at least half the distance is in tunnels), but still got enough glimpses to feel as if I'd seen something worthwhile. Eventually made it to the hotel around 9.

C • Bus 7