Journey to The East: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Middle Kingdom

Book excerpt: Journey to the East is the story of a western traveler with a very limited Chinese vocabulary traveling in China. The author took small trips to large and mid-sized cities trying to learn enough about communications and culture to be able to travel freely in China. After tiring of organized tours, he adapted to trains, buses, taxis, and black cars which allowed him to see culture and sights beyond the reach of most western tourists. He found that adding hitchhiking to the mix of transportation modes allowed broader access to remote sites. The author tested his cultural and hitchhiking lessons learned in small trips by traveling cross country. He followed the same route that former NPR correspondent Rob Gifford traveled in "China Road", but from west to east, from Kazakhstan to China's east coast at Shanghai. The book reports on the travels and how the lessons learned succeeded or failed.