Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan the legendary warlord who subjugated China from his Mongolian stronghold, built the Xanadu palace complex as a summer retreat from the heat of the Forbidden city in Beijing. The palace is arranged in a pattern of three concentric walled circles. Standing on the outer crumbling wall little remains of the buildings that once stood inside, only the odd column base, and linear foundations are visible amongst the plains of grass. When the Khan lived here many of the buildings were temporary, large tents were erected on arrival and taken down on departure.

Waiting for Mr Wong I looked through the Jinlianchuan hotel gift shop. It had the a delightful array of essential products seen to be required by tourists. No toothpaste or mineral water, but huge quantities of local brands of alcohol, sharing shelf space with stuffed squirrels in tasteful poses.

It's not every day you bump into Nelson Mandela. I had arrived from London via Athens and Nairobi on an epic Olympic Airways flight. I was exhausted, hungover and wondering how to safely get to my hotel in Hillbrow. All of a sudden there was a commotion and a group of six men with AK47 guns surrounding a small figure were moving swiftly out of the airport. It was the recently released Nelson Mandela, who was returning from his first overseas trip to Windhoek in Namibia. Everyone else in the airport seemed to be ignoring them, and there was no rush of journalists or photographers ready to greet them.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
a stately pleasure dome decree,
where alph, the sacred river, ran