Sixteen different people, all with their own tales to tell, merge upon Hong Kong one hot humid September evening to embark on an epic adventure around Mid-Western China. Upon their travels they will come across curious people, different food, the odd dead body, fall in and out of love, and discover the answer to some long-discussed questions, such as : How many DVDs can two Swedes buy in an afternoon? How do you stack shelves in a disco? What do Tibetan Monks do in their spare time? Where exactly is Tibet anyway? What does Chinese home-brew taste like? And just who is Lloyd and why is he a gimp?

Come with us now as we join these Imaginative Travellers in their voyage into the unknown, on the Sichuan Explorer!

Many thanks to everyone involved with the trip, and to those who helped out with the web page, Jane Castledine for being a marvellous tour leader, Tom and Mona Ahren, Andrew Heskins, and Kathrin Lüthi for letting me use a couple of their pictures (I hope!), and finally to Helen Johnson for putting up with my writing style as she dictated a few of these entries to me.

All images are (c) Ian Oliver 2002, except for those from people listed above. Pages created in Windows WordPad, website (c) Ian Oliver 2002-2003. (Yeh I know I was slow!) Any errors and omissions are caused by bad memory, any spelling mistakes by Microsoft Word's spell checker.

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