Landed...

Landed in Beijing after a great flight (many thanks to British Airways for the donated flights) and immediately thrust into business. Business in China typically (in my experience anyway) involves a great deal of what is best termed extreme hospitality and I have not been left wanting for food and baijiu. The cultural significance of dining, drinking and general merriment for the development of working friendships cannot be overstated. We are now very good friends (moving off the baijiu scale and onto the Karaoke scale) with the Sichuan’s Forestry Administration and have an open invitation to visit some of their suspected key areas for snow leopards on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. This is a great start, particularly when combined with similar invitations to survey some areas on the edge of the snow leopard range in Yunnan.

Preparations for Xinjiang are fully underway and the team is building. More to come…

P.