I can't properly post at the moment, so you'll have to forgive me that. The reason is that we are up a mountain.

Well, that's only the half of it. We are twelve hours from Chengdu, in a tiny mountain town inhabited by Tibetans and called Jiuzhaigou by the Chinese.

Tiny town it may be, but it's also a Chinese Tourist Phenomenon. The only things here in town are grotesque concrete hotels lining the main drag.

The town's not the attraction in Jiuzhaigou, though - the national park featuring snow-tipped mountains and impressive aquamarine lakes is the draw-card.

In the last twenty-four hours I have gone from states of wordless, impotent rage (don't TALK to me about the bus journey here, or the unbelievable price-gouging on everything from potable water to entry fees) to dancing-on-the-spot happiness. Full details shall, of course, be forthcoming - likely when we are no longer up a mountain.

In the meantime, let me just say this: I think I have now seen the world's strangest Sheraton hotel. We came in here just now looking for internet access, and were sheparded downstairs into a fully-fledged basement den filled with flashing-light-loud-noise arcade games, a bevy of computers for surfing porn, two billard tables, and some inexplicable large blue stuffed toys that are shaped like giant mice and hang off the ceiling.

It looks like the bastard-child of New York's Coney Island and Tokyo's Harajuku district. Very strange indeed when you're in a small Tibetan village 3000 metres above sea level.