Just Turn Left at the Mountain

The second edition with clean language. When Andy's redundancy money clears in the bank, and with middle age fast approaching, the only realistic course of action is to wave goodbye to the UK and start again. A one way ticket to China please! This is one man's light-hearted three year account of his numerous attempts and failures of settling down and creating a new life in a different culture. Wanted: A traditional house with sliding screens and curved roofing in quiet Eastern suburbia. Single guy avoiding mid life crisis seeks gorgeous thirty something Chinese girl to live with forever in perfect bliss and harmony. Instead, with the influence of tourism and modernization, any romantic preconceptions of how things should be like in the East quickly go out of the window. With zero Chinese speaking ability and minimal planning, Andy's story starts with a disastrous online romance played out in South China and his great escape. From the first Chinese haircut, to encountering the most fearsome waitress in China, to Chengdu and its famous napalm like hot pot, the journey winds its way from Tibet into Yunnan via one of the most dangerous bus journeys in the world. Across borders he foolishly goes ghost hunting in Cambodia and to the DMZ's 'no man's land' in South Korea. We also take a visit to the eagle hunters of Western Mongolia and the Russian border where Andy manages a Mongolian holiday camp. These are just some of the many dynamite stories, anecdotes and descriptions written in Andy's streetwise style that will make you choke on your breakfast.