Stephen McCutcheon
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Articles by Stephen McCutcheon
June 15, 2008
Education becomes the property of the people in Pakistan as community based schools begin to show results.
June 10, 2008
Recent trouble with so called 'earthquake lakes' in China highlights the problem of dam construction in China and the future of Chinese energy security inparticular.
May 27, 2008
Twin disasters in Burma and China make 2008 mark entirely different responses yet the need in each has never been greater.
May 27, 2008
Ten days after a devastating 7.9 factor Earthquake rocked China's east to its core, rescue workers must look to the previous 2005 disaster in Pakistan to avoid past mistakes.
September 04, 2007
With a click of a button I'm amazed that I can email and podcast now from the Pamirs. The technology is nothing new, but the ability to do so from this location was a long lost fantasy to previous Silk Road caravans in china.
Ten days gripped me like a vice in Kashgar clinching me in a state of fi...
September 04, 2007
Mountain Trails
The river had flooded. The road was out. We were stranded. Within one day of leaving Datong, we were stood in the evening twilight gazing across 150m of muddy brown water at the track that continued up the other side. My hope was gone, the locals had been right. We would have t...
August 02, 2007
The Last Frontier in China
Hopes, dreams and a whiff of adventure carried me to Dunhuang for a winter sojourn before I considered continuing my journey in spring. The train journey from Kashgar was cold and was only memorable for existing in double digits for far too long. For 37 hours our ...
August 02, 2007
Making decisions is easy, it's all the 'what ifs' that get in the way and finding the right camel driver threw up a whole bunch. There was no ideal. No one man who matched all the requirements of English speaker, Chinese speaker, camel expert and route guide to Beijing all rolled into one.
Of...
August 02, 2007
It's a tremendous time at the moment, sort of like sitting in an airplane waiting for a skydive. I arrived in Hong Kong on the 22nd February and left on the 4th June 2007 and now with days to go the whole R4E expedition is about to kick off.
Yet how do you organize a first expedition? Where ...
February 21, 2007
Long Rider Daniel Robinson has recently been imprisoned in India for the ‘gross and negligent’ act of stumbling across the Indian border to escape starvation and death whilst on spiritual pilgrimage across the Himalayas from China. To figure this was ever his intention is wrong and reckless. To thin...
January 25, 2007
8th September 2006 -
A relapse if you may. Spring in Kashgar brought new life to the city. Trees blossomed afresh, t-shirts appeared on the streets and horses broke their winter retirement. There was a vibrancy and pulse to the city I hadn’t felt before and above everything else I felt an imp...
January 24, 2007
Tuesday 03rd March 2005 - Afghanistan Part I
The Afghanistan embassy wasn’t far from the tourist Inn where I was staying in Peshawar. I’d been told visas were easily issued and they were, more or less. After the High Commissioner had quizzed me about why I wanted to go, the embassy sent me on a...
January 24, 2007
(December 2006)
Nearly all Pakistani's have a heart attack when I tell them I'm 27, single and without child. I was sat on the bus in the thick of it all, heading once again towards Rawalpindi. I glanced out of the window, I was back. Back in the land of minarets against the sunset, the wail of ...
January 24, 2007
6th October 2006
The land outside raced by as our train chugged East towards Beijing. It was a mammoth journey of 4000kms and three solid days of sitting. Life waved goodbye to my buttocks and time ticked slowly by.
Last year I was overwhelmed. The taxation of school visits, riding, filming...
October 23, 2006
A chapter closed
Both horses knew and perhaps I did too. But I didn’t want to accept it. The fact was that both needed a new home. There was no alternative. Rohan snorted and tested his lead rope. Pausing mischievously, he then suddenly pulled away to the right, jerking his lead rope and dragging...
May 12, 2006
Four years on the road, and now I'm sat here staring out across the Taklamakan desert and the challenge that lies ahead. Camels need bringing down from the mountains and fattened up, equipment has to be bought, a decent guide found...the checklist never ends. But this now is my dream and finally I...