Fun fact#124
Lake Baikal holds a fifth of fresh water
Baikal contains roughly 20 percent of the planet's unfrozen fresh water and is deep enough to swallow several stacked skyscrapers.
Asia: 215 stories, quotes and facts
From Himalayan passes to convenience-store dinners, the continent that keeps rewriting your assumptions.
Page 1 of 3
From Himalayan passes to convenience-store dinners, the continent that keeps rewriting your assumptions.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Story#339
The last train to Kyoto
We ran the length of the platform and made it with four seconds to spare. A salaryman already inside held the door with his briefcase, then bowed slightly, and neither of us mentioned it for the next forty minutes.
Quote#38
A single step
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Fun fact#157
Turkey's underground city held thousands
Derinkuyu descends eighteen levels and could shelter around 20,000 people with livestock, wine presses and ventilation shafts.
Story#342
Vending machine dinner
Everything closed at eleven and we ate hot corn soup and a boiled egg from a machine on a residential street. It was the least romantic meal of the trip and the one we still talk about.
Fun fact#160
Istanbul spans two continents
Istanbul is the only major city built across two continents, with commuters crossing between Europe and Asia by ferry every morning.
Story#346
The convenience store test
A local told us you can judge a country by its convenience stores. We ate egg sandwiches from a Tokyo konbini at midnight and understood immediately what she meant.
Fun fact#161
Cappadocia's rock is soft enough to carve
Volcanic tuff in Cappadocia is soft when freshly cut and hardens in air, which is why entire churches and hotels are carved into the cliffs.
Quote#42
A good traveller has no fixed plans
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Fun fact#164
Pamukkale means cotton castle
Calcium-rich hot springs have built white travertine terraces down the hillside at Pamukkale over thousands of years.
Story#349
Cherry blossom in the rain
The petals came down with the rain and stuck to everything. Nobody left the park. People simply opened umbrellas over their picnic blankets and carried on.
Fun fact#201
Japan has more than 6,800 islands
Japan is an archipelago of over 6,800 islands, though four of them hold nearly all of the population.
Story#352
Onsen etiquette lesson
An older man wordlessly demonstrated the whole sequence: stool, bucket, scrub, rinse, then in. Then he nodded once, satisfied, and did not look at me again.
Fun fact#203
Tokyo's rush hour has pushers
Station staff known as oshiya are still employed on the busiest Tokyo lines to help commuters fit inside the doors.
Quote#109
Roads were made for journeys
Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.
Fun fact#205
Japan's vending machines outnumber people in some towns
With roughly one machine for every 30 people, Japan sells everything from hot corn soup to fresh eggs on the street, day and night.
Story#356
Silence at the temple gate
The cemetery has two hundred thousand graves under cedar trees. A monk walked past at six in the morning and the only sound in a kilometre of forest was his sandals.
Fun fact#207
Kyoto was spared the bomb
Kyoto was removed from the atomic target list partly because of its cultural importance, which is why 1,600 temples still stand.
Story#360
The ramen counter
Eight seats, one man, no menu in English and a paper form with boxes to tick. He looked at my form, changed one box, and handed back the pen. He was right.
Fun fact#209
Cherry blossom has an official forecast
Japanese weather services publish a sakura front each spring, tracking the bloom as it sweeps north from Okinawa to Hokkaido.
Quote#113
Better to see once
It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.
Fun fact#211
Mount Fuji is privately owned above 3,360 m
The upper slopes of Fuji legally belong to a Shinto shrine, a claim confirmed by Japan's courts.
Story#362
Cycling Shimanami
Seventy kilometres over six bridges between islands, with a blue line painted on the road the whole way. You cannot get lost, which leaves you free to look at the sea.
Fun fact#213
Japan has a rabbit island
Okunoshima was once a secret poison gas factory. Today hundreds of feral rabbits hop across the ruins.
Story#366
Bathhouse in Busan
A woman scrubbed me with a mitt until I questioned several life decisions, and I emerged feeling like a new person and slightly smaller.
Fun fact#215
South Korea is mostly mountains
About 70 percent of South Korea is mountainous, which is why its cities build upward and its hiking culture is enormous.
Story#370
Seoul at four in the morning
The city does not really stop. At four we ate fried chicken with people finishing work and people starting it, and nobody could tell which was which.
Fun fact#217
Seoul's subway has free wifi everywhere
Seoul's metro offers signal in every tunnel, so commuters stream video hundreds of metres underground without a drop.
Quote#198
Little by little
Little by little, one travels far.
Fun fact#219
Korea counts age differently
Koreans traditionally counted everyone a year old at birth and added a year each New Year, a system officially retired in 2023.
Story#374
The DMZ tour
The most surreal part was not the soldiers, it was the gift shop. We bought a fridge magnet at the edge of the world's most fortified border.
Fun fact#221
China's high-speed rail is the longest
China has built more high-speed track than the rest of the world combined, linking most major cities at 300 km/h.
Story#376
Hutong hospitality
We took a wrong turn into a courtyard and were handed sunflower seeds by three grandmothers who wanted to know our ages and marital status in that order.
Fun fact#223
The Great Wall is not one wall
The Great Wall is a network of walls built by different dynasties over 2,000 years, and long stretches are earth rather than stone.
Quote#283
Every day is a journey
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Fun fact#225
China uses one time zone
Despite spanning the width of five, all of China officially runs on Beijing time, so the sun rises after 10 am in western Xinjiang.
Story#380
On the wall at dawn
We started at five to be alone. For two hours the only people on that section of wall were us and a woman selling water who had walked up ahead of us and was not out of breath.
Fun fact#227
Shanghai's maglev hits 431 km/h
The airport maglev covers 30 kilometres in about seven and a half minutes without touching the track.
Story#384
The overnight sleeper to Xi'an
Six bunks, thermos flasks of hot water, and a card game we did not understand but were dealt into anyway. By morning we had lost imaginary money and gained four contacts.
Fun fact#229
Terracotta soldiers were once painted
The 8,000 terracotta warriors were originally brightly coloured. Most pigment flakes away within minutes of exposure to dry air.
Quote#287
Do not seek the footsteps
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.
Story#386
Tea horse road
The old caravan route is a hiking trail now. In one village a man was still pressing tea into cakes by hand with a stone and a cloth, exactly as the museum described.
Fun fact#231
Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers
Hong Kong has more buildings over 150 metres than any other city, squeezed onto a narrow strip between mountains and sea.
Fun fact#233
Macau's economy runs on casinos
Macau's gaming revenue has repeatedly exceeded that of Las Vegas several times over, on a peninsula smaller than most airports.
Story#390
Rice terraces at flooding
In February the terraces fill with water and the whole mountainside becomes a mirror in fifteen hundred pieces. Then the rice grows and it is just a hillside again.
Quote#293
The moon and sun are travellers
The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers.
Fun fact#235
Taiwan's tallest tower has a giant ball
Taipei 101 hangs a 660-tonne steel pendulum near the top to counteract typhoon sway, and visitors can watch it move.
Story#394
Hong Kong at eye level
We took the Mid-Levels escalator up through the city and looked into offices, kitchens and living rooms. It is public transport that is also a documentary.
Fun fact#236
Mongolia is the emptiest country
With around two people per square kilometre, Mongolia has the lowest population density of any sovereign nation.
Story#396
The night market rule
Pick the stall with the longest queue of people who are not holding cameras. It worked five nights out of five.
Fun fact#239
Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital
Average annual temperatures near freezing make Ulaanbaatar the coldest capital city on Earth.
Quote#297
Travel brings power
Travel brings power and love back into your life.
Fun fact#241
Nepal's flag is not rectangular
Nepal is the only country with a non-quadrilateral flag, made of two stacked pennants representing the Himalayas.
Story#400
Sleeping in a ger
The stove goes out at three in the morning and someone gets up to feed it. On our second night it was my turn, and I got it wrong, and the family were extremely polite about it.
Fun fact#242
Everest grows and shifts
Everest rises a few millimetres a year and drifts northeast as the Indian plate pushes under Asia. Its official height was revised to 8,848.86 m in 2020.
Story#404
Eagle hunter's arm
The bird weighed six kilos and he held it out one-handed for twenty minutes without a tremble. Then he handed it to me and I lasted eleven seconds.
Fun fact#245
Nepal's clock is 45 minutes off
Nepal runs on UTC+5:45, one of only a handful of time zones offset by 45 minutes.
Quote#303
Don't be satisfied with stories
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Fun fact#246
Bhutan measures happiness
Bhutan tracks Gross National Happiness alongside economic figures, surveying wellbeing, culture and environment.
Story#407
Altitude arithmetic
We flew from sea level to three and a half thousand metres and thought we felt fine. Walking up one flight of stairs corrected that opinion within thirty seconds.
Fun fact#249
Bhutan absorbs more carbon than it emits
Constitutionally required to keep 60 percent forest cover, Bhutan is one of very few carbon-negative countries.
Story#410
The chai stop
The bus stopped where there was nothing except a man with a kettle. Twenty-eight people got off, drank tea from clay cups, smashed the cups on the ground, and got back on.
Fun fact#250
India has over 120 languages
India recognises 22 official languages and counts more than 120 with over 10,000 speakers each.
Quote#307
As you start to walk
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
Fun fact#252
The Taj Mahal changes colour
White marble reflects the sky, so the Taj Mahal looks pink at dawn, blinding white at noon and gold under a full moon.
Story#414
Wedding on the train
Half the carriage was a wedding party travelling to the ceremony. By hour three, they had taught us a dance and by hour five we were invited, sincerely, and we still regret not going.
Fun fact#255
India's rail network moves millions daily
Indian Railways carries more than 20 million passengers a day across a network of over 68,000 kilometres.
Story#417
Varanasi before sunrise
The boat pushed off in the dark and the ghats woke up in stages: bathers, then bells, then flowers on the water, then the sun straight up out of the far bank.
Fun fact#256
Kerala has backwater buses
In Kerala's backwaters, public ferries serve as school buses and commuter transport across 900 kilometres of connected waterways.
Story#421
Kerala backwater bus
The public ferry cost less than a coffee and served as the school bus. Children got off at their own gardens, one by one, waving at the boat.
Fun fact#259
Meghalaya grows its bridges
Khasi villagers train living fig roots across rivers for decades until they form bridges that get stronger with age.
Quote#388
How you climb a mountain
How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.
Fun fact#260
Ladakh has a magnetic-looking hill
Magnetic Hill near Leh appears to roll cars uphill. It is an optical illusion caused by the surrounding slope.
Story#424
Living root bridge
It takes fifteen years to grow a bridge and about six hundred steps down a valley to reach one. The man who showed us said his grandfather started the one we crossed.
Fun fact#262
Varanasi is continuously inhabited
Varanasi is among the oldest continuously lived-in cities in the world, with settlement stretching back roughly 3,000 years.
Story#427
Traffic as fluid dynamics
There are lanes painted on the road and everyone treats them as a suggestion. After a week, crossing the street stops feeling like courage and starts feeling like grammar.
Fun fact#265
Sri Lanka exports cinnamon
True cinnamon comes almost entirely from Sri Lanka, where bark is hand-peeled and rolled into quills that dry into curls.
Quote#392
It's not the mountain we conquer
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
Fun fact#266
Sri Lanka has a rock fortress
Sigiriya's palace sits on a 200-metre granite plug, reached by staircases that pass between the paws of a carved lion.
Story#431
The Sri Lankan train to Ella
Doors open, feet out, tea plantations for four hours. Somebody's grandmother told me to move back from the door, in Sinhala, and I understood every word.
Fun fact#268
Maldives is the flattest country
The average natural elevation of the Maldives is about 1.5 metres, making it the lowest-lying country on Earth.
Story#435
Stilt fishermen
The men on poles now pose more than they fish, and they say so themselves. One of them told us the technique started during a wartime fuel shortage in the 1940s.
Fun fact#270
Maldives glows at night
Bioluminescent plankton can turn the shoreline electric blue on dark nights, brightest when the water is disturbed.
Quote#398
We knocked the bastard off
Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.
Story#437
Full moon, no alcohol
Every full moon day is a public holiday and the bars close. We ended up at a temple at nine in the evening with a thousand people holding oil lamps, which was a better night out.
Fun fact#272
Thailand was never colonised
Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation never taken by a European power, partly through skilled 19th-century diplomacy.
Fun fact#274
Bangkok has the longest official name
The city's full ceremonial name runs to 168 letters. Locals simply call it Krung Thep.
Story#441
The tuk-tuk negotiation
He named a price, I halved it, he laughed, we settled in the middle and then he took me to his cousin's suit shop anyway. The suit was actually quite good.
Quote#403
Because it's there
Because it's there.
Fun fact#276
Thai new year is a water fight
Songkran began as a gentle blessing with water and has become a nationwide three-day soaking in April, the hottest month.
Story#445
Songkran ambush
We stepped out of the guesthouse dry and were soaked within nine metres by a five-year-old with a bucket and no remorse. It was 39 degrees. We thanked her.
Fun fact#278
Vietnam grows most of the world's cashews
Vietnam is the largest exporter of processed cashews, and also a leading producer of robusta coffee.
Story#447
Monks at dawn
Two hundred monks in silence, and one tourist with a flash. A local woman kneeling with rice glared at him with such force that he put the camera away for good.
Fun fact#280
Hanoi has a train street
In the old quarter a working railway runs within arm's reach of house fronts. Residents pull in their chairs twice a day.
Quote#673
Ikigai
Ikigai: the reason you get up in the morning, worth searching for at home and abroad.
Fun fact#282
Ha Long Bay has 1,600 islands
Ha Long Bay's limestone karsts number close to 1,600, most of them uninhabited because the cliffs are too steep.
Story#451
Slow boat down the Mekong
Two days on wooden benches with a boat full of strangers and one guitar. By the second afternoon everybody knew everybody's story and nobody knew anybody's surname.
Fun fact#284
Cambodia's temple is the largest religious monument
Angkor Wat covers about 160 hectares, making it the largest religious structure ever built.
Story#455
Bomb crater fields
The craters are green now and farmers plough around them. Our guide explained the colour code for unexploded ordnance markers in the same tone you would explain a bus timetable.
Fun fact#286
Angkor was a megacity
Lidar surveys revealed that medieval Angkor sprawled across roughly 1,000 square kilometres, likely the largest pre-industrial city on Earth.
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Propose your travel story
The missed ferry. The stranger who handed over a key. The meal that ran until midnight. If something happened to you on the road and you still think about it, send it - a few sentences is plenty, and we do the tidying up.