Thanks Simon, for alerting me to Curzon's travelogue.

I enjoyed reading his travelogue, and I loved his photos – just beautiful. I have lots of China travel photos on my site too, though my site isn't as beautifully presented.

Curzon's travelogue, as Jing commented, is a little light and “crispy”, but it is his overall assessments of China that arouses my interested the most, for they are both provocative and insightful. Curzon writes: “Regarding political freedoms, I think Robert D. Kaplan is right when he says that [today’s] Chinese Communist Party has done more to raise living standards than any other ruling elite in any society in the modern world. Had a dysfunctional democracy arisen out of Tiananmen Square in 1989, China would not be as rich as it is today. Human rights must be viewed in context, and the right to an education, to eat, to work, and to raise a family are far more important than the right to vote.”

I couldn’t agree more with this, though in the past I have often been dismissed as a “CCP apologist” for expressing this exact same opinion. It’s refreshing to find others who have similar assessments. The British journalist, Kieth Sinclair, shares in this view too, but he is among the few that I have come across.

I’m sceptical of Curzon's assertion though, that the Vietnamese poor are “poorer” than their Chinese counterparts. How has he measured and compared the two, I wonder? I have travelled throughout Vietnam too, and although extremes in wealth are certainly not as sharp in Vietnam as they are here in China, the poverty I saw there was no “better” than what I have come across here in China.

Thanx for the link. It was really informative. We got to know a loads about Japan's and china's culture.

Thanx for the tons of pics! Seems you enjoyed a lot. Visiting these unknown places would be much easier now, since everythings are so detailed and informative. No more crap about travelling, food and accomodation.