...And so, as the landscape around us edges towards the tropical and the road we follow sidles quietly alongside the brown, meandering and yet mighty Mekong we come, in many ways reluctantly, to the end of China. Home to some of the world's greatest geological heritage, perhaps the oldest human civilisation known to have existed and responsible for some of humanity's most monumental achievements there is one question that, in my mind, remains to be answered: How within their six-thousand year history can a civilisation that has given us the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors, gun-powder and calligraphy not have come up with eating utensils more effective than chop-sticks? Especially given that their staple diet is rice? Did they start out with the intention of whittling a fork and simply get bored? If it wasn't for the astonishing dexterity I witnessed in Levan, our Chinese guide, ambidextrously eating noodles with these hopelessly inadequate implements I would be tempted to postulate that they are the sole reason why this entire nation is SO BLOODY THIN.

Nevertheless, despite the unyielding cramp in my wrist that has resulted from 7 weeks of chasing various, often unidentifiable substances around my plate, I was sorry to leave this place. It has, if nothing else contributed handsomely to my now relatively trim physique.

China, love it or hate it (and it is possible to do both in equal measure) is what it is. Unlike India, which positively assaults you with a rich and varied culture, China, despite its longevity as a nation, does not. The seven weeks spent doubly traversing the breadth of this enormous country has, in many ways, left me with the feeling that it is distinctly empty. Not, of course, of people; there are the odd one or two of those but of any sense of permanence or identity. This is almost certainly a result of the cultural purges that took place in the middle of the last century. Aside from the 'Big Sights', the ones that due to their scale or historical importance survived destruction the density of any ties to the past is at most thin and this appears (to me) to have left the country culturally adrift. Of course this was at least partially what Mao set out to achieve. There is an up to every down, however, and in this case the 'up' it that indistinct links to the past have allowed the Chinese to reinvent themselves as a modern nation. Something that they are doing with a vigor and single-minded determination that is probably unsurpassed.

In the end being in China is less about its history as it is about simply experiencing China. On first inspection it is easy to tar this place with an undesirable brush. The people are often rude, arrogant and unhelpful, the food is often grim, personal interactions are in many ways bizarre and nonsensical and simply the way things are done are so far removed from what we, as westerners, are used to that it can be nothing short of disorienting. If ever a lesson in not judging by one's own standards is needed, however, China is the place for it to be learned. Elsewhere in the world the influence of western culture, either through physical proximity, forced imposition or simply through the inexorable passing of time has made an identifiable mark. China has so effectively been isolated and so recently been opened to western eyes that more than anywhere else we have visited the culture here is alien. There is no denying, though, that within their own context and expectaations this nation operates like cultural clockwork. Whatever you may think, love it or hate it, unfamiliar and disorienting though it is, the new China is an experience not to be missed. Personally, I loved it.