That strong breeze you may have felt was probably me exhaling after many days of holding my breath, waiting for the outcome of our Chinese visa application.

I'm extremely pleased to say that we managed to get our visas. Not only that, it is a double-entry visa valid for 6 months! This means we can probably see all that we wanted to see and enter China via the Trans-Mongolian express (although there is a rumour that this may be closed for the summer...there's always the bus).

Meanwhile I have been frantically planning a different route to India. Instead of entering China from Laos we will now go into northern Thailand, catch the train to Bangkok and then to Phuket where we will relax on an island for a few days before continuing down to Kuala Lumpur.

The dream of going only over land and sea looks increasingly possible. A freighter leaves Port Kelang, near KL, and takes passengers for a reasonable $600 to Chennai, India! What's more, it leaves close to the date on which we arrive in KL.

If all goes to plan we may well travel from the UK to Latvia, Russia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Nepal without taking to the air. Who knows, we may even make it back into China as well before flying to Australia.