Before anybody takes the trouble to reply to this they may care to have a look at sandy's record (click on his or her blue name above).

Sandy has been posting in Fodor's and other forums with many, many questions about different parts of the world. Some people even think the questions are to help with the writing of a book.

You can make your own mind up.

additional research:

www.travellerspoint.com/forum.cfm?thread=47326

www.travellerspoint.com/forum.cfm?thread=45057

This is, after all, a public forum with many readers to each response.

There's a lot to tackle here, but concisely:

The first problem will be with moving on from Tibet if you're on a visa from Kathmandu. These visas are tightly restricted and your chances of being permitted to continue to elsewhere in China are slim. If your final destination is Central Asia you should a) acquire your visa elsewhere, b) enter China elsewhere, and c) enter Tibet from elsewhere in China.

Lhasa to Xinjiang is gruelling and problematic, the rules regarding it tending to vary at short notice. But you'll probably have to organise the rental of a vehicle by grouping with others of similar interest and using a Lhasa-based travel agency capable of dealing with the paperwork. It won't be cheap, either.

Overall you'll be better to enter Tibet from Chengdu, exit to Dunhuang (a serious bus journey in its own right), and carry on northwest from there.

I think you'll find Canadians only get Kyrgyz visas on arrival if they fly into Bishkek, and not via any other port.

The issuing of Central Asian visas in Urumqi is a very variable business. When I last looked into it there was more cooperation between the CIS members than currently and the Kazakhs were dealing with Kyrgyz visas there, and distinctly unhelpful. Times may well have changed for the better, but this is one area of the world where you want to arrive with the right paperwork as much as possible.

From Kashgar you can take one of two routes overland into Kyrgyzstan, of which the Irkeshtam-Osh route is by far the easiest (although I have succeeded via the Torugart Pass to Bishkek route in the past). You'll definitely need to have a Kyrgyz visa in your hand already to succeed on either route. Public transport will at best get you to the border and you walk over or negotiate with trucks to give you a lift. The through bus from Kashgar to Bishkek (via Torugart) is not open to foreigners (or hasn't been in the past) but the customs people run their own bus service 100km from their post to the Torugart Pass for an exorbitant price. You'll be able to pick up the latest news on all this at the backpacker hang-outs in Kashgar. The Irkeshtam route will be the best bet. When last checked, however, there were no visa services in Kashgar. You're going to need to deal with your Central Asian visas somewhere larger (London? Beijing?) before getting close.

A Kazakh transit visa may well be available in Urumqi, but you may be asked for documentation supporting your onward travel. A longer visa may require an invitation. And you may have to wait a few days. Again, you'd be better to sort all this out in advance, but then there are two train services a week from Urumqi to Almaty, and express buses six days a week. So with a visa access is much easier than to Kyrgyzstan. If you show up in Urumqi with a Kyrgyzstan visa in your passport you may well find it far easier to get the Kazakh transit visa. A willingness to bribe may also help, and watch out for the rapacious customs people on the train--thieves on wheels.

There is no overland crossing to Takjikistan that's open to foreign nationals, I believe. Your other available crossing is to Pakistan via the Karakoram Highway over the highest paved border crossing in the world. There are daily buses for most of the year (and you can charter minibuses with Pakistani traders when not), and the trip is the most spectacular border crossing you'll ever make. Again, no visas at the border, so you'll need to plan ahead. But tourist visas to Pakistan are available merely for a fee and the asking.

Peter N-H

Peter. Read the above posts. Please.

I forgot to add that on the Torugart route the Kyrgyz are now requiring that all foreigners entering the border area must have an official guide. So you might be turned back there now, or not allowed to enter the border area by the Chinese unless you have a telex or similar confirming that such a guide has been booked and is waiting. If you want to make this really simple you pay a small fortune to CITS in Kashgar to make the booking and drive you up to the border.

I talked my way onto the customs service bus, negotiated for a lift over the pass, and haggled with private cars on the other side. But it's hairy as you are left with few transport options, although there's primitive accommodation there if you want to wait for a decent price for transport the next day. And as I said, this is probably illegal now (although that doesn't mean it's impossible, either).

Peter N-H

Peter,

In addition to Fodor's and Traveller's Point this person, under a variety of names, has frequently been posting identical questions on a wide range of topics connected with many parts of the world on Virtual Tourist, Thorn Tree and Flyer Talk forums plus others for all I know.

You are probably wasting your time in giving considered answers and merely encouraging the OP to waste the time of the many others who may be conned into giving help.

Michael

I believe it is inappropriate both to address other individuals on a public forum like this, and to spend time here discussing other posters, which is both impertinent and entirely off-topic. So I'll post on this subject precisely once:

I am not interested in others' views of whoever the OP may be, and on whether this is a genuine request for information or not. I am not interested in the mob mentality that easily surfaces on the Europe section of this board and on many others, full of bile and little else, nor do I regard group abuse of someone as evidence of fault in that person. Witch hunts are no more attractive in digital form than they were in the days of ducking stools. While trolls are not to be encouraged, I can see no evidence of anything but simple requests for information here.

I do not see any problem with posting the same query in multiple locations. Given the emptiness and inaccuracy of many responses, especially those made entirely without factual content and merely because the respondent wishes to hear the sound of his or her own voice, or made in an attempt to demonstrate that a particular site is the private sandbox of a certain in-crowd, or merely made to demonstrate assumed superiority, or simply to be smart-alec, posting queries in several places seems a wise policy. If anything the responses to the queries already given here seem to demonstrate that.

I would object if I detected an overt commercial purpose here, such as if this was a guide or travel company or commercial website attempting to garner income by pretending to be helpful, but I do not detect one. I also note that in posting the information I do on Fodor's I am already giving it away to anyone who cares to copy and paste it elsewhere (as often happens) as well as to Fodor's itself, which I believe reserves the right to use it in print and elsewhere. In short, if you post helpful and knowledgeable material on such a public forum, you can expect to be exploited commercially whether you like it or not. But there seems to be no hard evidence that this is the purpose of the original post. Impertinent speculation does not amount to evidence.

But even supposing the OP's intentions were to be entirely dishonest, the main point is that this is a public forum, and conversations here are not private, nor person-to-person, but person-to-group. The questions asked here are worth asking, the OP is not the only person asking them, and most importantly of all, not the only person reading the responses: many hundreds of others may do so both now and following future searches of the Fodor's website for information. In fact the forum could do with more postings of this kind, and less person-to-person chit-chat, in-jokes, preening, competition, one-liners, and general discussion of others rather than of the facts of travel in Asia.

The responses made, therefore, are with the larger audience in mind, as all postings here should be. And it can be quite certain that it is responses containing concrete information, rather than speculation about the purposes, intentions of other posters, that will continue to be useful to readers who follow, regardless of the intentions of the original posting. I am not, therefore, wasting my time any more than when I respond to any other posting (and if I am it's my time to waste), and nor is anyone else who may be able to improve on my contribution.

I suggest that this discussion is taken back to its topic, which is Napal-Tibet-Xinjiang-Central Asia travel. I, for one, will not contribute further in this thread on any other topic.

Peter N-H

minor miracles do happen

> My question is what kind of transport is there from Lhasa to Xinjiang? What's the website for the Chinese train that goes from Lhasa north? Does it stop in Urumuqi, or do I have to backtrack through Xining?

Omitted to deal with this. There's no reliable rail timetable for China on-line, but there are daily early-morning trains from Lhasa to Beijing, taking just over 24 hours to reach Xining, where you would change for Urumqi (and changing again at Lanzhou gives you more choice of trains). No back-tracking here: that's the most direct route.

Peter N-H

Hey Peter - it's dogster here.

You know - that same dogster that comes in to your posts and says 'Wow! What a wealth of knowledge that is Peter N-H guy has! - how impressive.' THAT dogster. Not Satan.

So when dogster, your friend, says, 'Hey Peter, I think you're about to step in a puddle! Watch out!' then the appropriate response might be..

'Oh, thanks, mate. I'll step in it just the same - but thanks for caring...'

rather than ramming your fist in his face and hurling polite, pissant abuse randomly in his direction. I didn't care for it. Pick your target more carefully in future, please.

I agree with Peter. He is right in posting helpful information, and pointing out those who take up space on my posts with non-sense about how I am posting on other forums, and SO WHAT? I will post on 1000 forums if I could, because as Peter said, a lot of answers are bad, wrong, or useless, like a lot of the replies on this forum. I would say less than 25% of the posts regarding my questions have even been remotely helpful, except for Peter's, and a few more on other forums.

The whole lot of you are jealous, confrontational, and bored out of your minds.

Now bugger off, and let Peter and I have our conversation about Border crossings

How wonderful to see you in here Sandy. Yes, please do continue. I'm thrilled to make your acquaintance! It's like meeting a legend. You have quite a following.

And, to be told to 'bugger off' by Sandy456 AND Peter N-H in the same post is akin to being pissed on by royalty.

I'm proud. Wet but proud.

Now I'll bugger off - but just before I go... what happened in Norway? Where are you now? And can I have your autograph?

Can true nomads (Sandy's own term for herself from the Norway thread) use computer travel forums for help?

Wouldn't they talk to locals as they travel about in the true spirit of being a nomad? This is pretty high tech planning IMO.

Well, wasleys and dogster - Take pleasure in thinking of all the people who took your advice and didn't answer.

Jed,

I'm rather surprised anyone answered. Until this thread I seem to have been the only person ever to ask a question specifically about Kyrgyzstan. This thread might even boost its visitor numbers (which would be good, because it's a nice country with nice people).

Chinese rail authority does have up-to-date online searchable timetables. But it's in Chinese only:

http://www.shike.org.cn/

I also use the train search function on 3rd party sites like this one, again in Chinese:

http://oklx.com/cn/train/

The only English site that I've used is this one. But it may not be totally up-to-date, but at least it gives you an idea of what the approximate times are among major stations:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/

The rail from Lhasa connects to the rest of the Chinese rail system at Lanzhou. From there, you'll connect to another train to Urumqi.

If you want to go by road, you have to go west from Lhasa and then north and enter Xijiang from the far western part of that autonomous region; or follow the train route to Gomud in Qinghai first, then go north. Really can't go straight north from Lhasa. Too many mountains and desert and no habitants.

> Chinese rail authority does have up-to-date online searchable timetables. But it's in Chinese only:

Hence not mentioned earlier. This one doesn't even take pinyin, so users have to be able both to read and to enter Chinese characters in order to be able to interrogate the database. Useful for those who can, though.

> or follow the train route to Gomud in Qinghai first, then go north. Really can't go straight north from Lhasa

Nevertheless, with the odd wiggle, that is what the road and the bus services to Dunhuang through Goldmud have been doing for a few decades, long before the railway line showed up. But these days anyone sane takes the train.

Peter N-H

Ok, I give up. What ARE these places and how do they get onto one's travel radar?

Xinjiang, Qinghai, Urumuqi, Xining, Dunhuang, Bishkek, Torugart...??? Yikes.

The station-to-station search function on oklx.com does have pinyin:

http://oklx.com/cn/train/search_station.aspx

The results page is Chinese only, but one can see the train numbers and times.

As for the OP, since he/she seems to be looking for a place to "hide", and his/her idea of over-staying in Schengen had been shot down, the question about Krygystan and Kazakhstan seem pretty legit to me.

"Ok, I give up. What ARE these places and how do they get onto one's travel radar?

Xinjiang, Qinghai, Urumuqi, Xining, Dunhuang, Bishkek, Torugart...??? Yikes."

Think Silk Road, western China and Central Asia. Xinjiang is China's westernmost province, once known as Turkestan, very large, mostly populated by Muslims (Uighurs, among others), although with a similar problem to Tibet with the Han Chinese moving in. Urumqi is its capital (Kashgar is a better bet for tourists). Dunhuang is home to the Mogao Buddhist caves (do a google).

Bishkek is the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Torugart is a pass with a border crossing between China and Kyrgyzstan.

I've traveled overland from Beijing to Islamabad through Xinjiang province and into Pakistan on the Karakorum Highway that Peter mentioned earlier. Fabulous and highly recommended trip, although now may not be the best time for the Pakistan leg, unfortunately. I haven't made it to Central Asia yet, but it's very high on my list of places to visit, and I'm therefore very interested in Peter's info here, although I've been less than enthused by sandy's posts on the Europe forum.

> The station-to-station search function on oklx.com does have pinyin:

> http://oklx.com/cn/train/search_station.aspx

In this case anyone searching for the Lhasa to Lanzhou trains will need to know to find the province or autonomous region of the departure point in the pull-down menu, and that Tibet is 'Xizang' in Mandarin. Then click on 'Lasa', the pinyin spelling of the Chinese version of Lhasa. For destination, the province is Gansu.

The button to click to perform the search is the left one of the two option.

On the table that results, clicking on the train number gives you the full schedule for that train. The first column of times is departure time, the second arrival time, and the one at the right-hand end of the table is the duration of travel expressed in days, hours, and minutes.

The six columns of numbers are prices, in order from left to right:

Hard and soft seat
Top, middle, and lower hard sleeper berth
Top and bottom soft sleeper berth.

Peter N-H

I don't think there is any great need to show too much concern over the OP's command of Chinese:

http://tinyurl.com/5cag4w
http://tinyurl.com/5p878q

The problem, as I see it, from reading Sandy's posts for oh, months now, is that Sandy doesn't really seem to be anywhere in the world at all.

Sandy is just picking people's brains for info for some nefarious project that he might (and I do stress might, because Sandy hardly seems erudite or personable enough to actually BE a writer or researcher of enough talent to command a fee for his work) bring to fruition in some "work" or other.

If you're interested in Sandy's background, there are now literally thousands of posts on the web, on countless sites (though as of now Sandy has been banned from quite a few of them, so there's not that much to see anymore). And hundreds of folks whom Sandy has ticked off with his cavalier attitude about border crossings and visa regulations, not to mention the fact he's irritated innumerable folks by always asking questions and never saying thank you or offering anything of his own (not something that personally I ever expect on an internet site).

Peter, you're a wealth of information but you are seriously wasting your keypad skills on this one. In the past week alone, Sandy has posted that he's headed for more than 5 different countries on 3 separate continents. As of yesterday I think he was trying to find his way through and out of northern Italy. I really would not waste your time. Of course, it's your time, so.....

Sandy now wishes to be known as shoeman.

> I believe it is inappropriate both to address other individuals on a public forum like this, and to spend time here discussing other posters, which is both impertinent and entirely off-topic.


> But even supposing the OP's intentions were to be entirely dishonest, the main point is that this is a public forum, and conversations here are not private, nor person-to-person, but person-to-group. The questions asked here are worth asking, the OP is not the only person asking them, and most importantly of all, not the only person reading the responses: many hundreds of others may do so both now and following future searches of the Fodor's website for information. In fact the forum could do with more postings of this kind, and less person-to-person chit-chat, in-jokes, preening, competition, one-liners, and general discussion of others rather than of the facts of travel in Asia.

Keep on posting peter, you are the most helpful person on the forum, an a great inspiration for more questions.

as for the other person, have you ever thought that maybe I am researching 5 countries over a period of many months? Just use your brain, and get it through there that I am an information collector, and I don't need to be somewhere to ask info about it, and I don't always ask info for myself, friends, and family also seek advice on my behalf on these forums.

Just use your head, an all the conspiracies, and mysteries you've created around me will fade away, and you'll see I am just another supertraveler seeking maximum information.

It's really not necessary to hijack each of my threads and turn it into a circus.

Perhaps the whole lot of you can start your own thread about me, and leave Peter and I to discuss real topics of importance.

I'm guessing Sandy is getting paid by Lonely Planet to update some chapters, and would rather do her research here than on the road.

although her efforts to smuggle money out of China were rather interesting....

Or shoot, maybe Sandy is Peter N_H and fishing for additional info for his own books!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/14/10

It happens a lot alledgedly

Wow, I make a joke about this and today I got an email that I was removed from Peter N_H's Oriental list.

Jeeez. Pretty thin skinned aren't you Peter?

Or did I actually hit upon the truth???

Unfortunately, Peter doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor.

Perhaps some of us actually use this forum to gather information, and not use it as a launchpad for personal attacks, funny or not.

I think Peter should remove a whole lot of you from his list, you didn't deserve his advice.

I would imagine Peter is severing all Fodor's connections about now. I think he might be divorcing us.

We'll see if he takes Sandy's bait in the latest post - a fabulously arcane and convoluted conundrum right up Peter's alley.

Q: Who would actually WANT to make such a trip?

A: No one, hence the huge outpouring of doubt and speculation from a forum of REAL travellers.

"Q: Who would actually WANT to make such a trip?

A: No one, hence the huge outpouring of doubt and speculation from a forum of REAL travellers."

Wrong. Central Asia to Tibet and/or Nepal is at the top of my list of "trips I want to take". Whether I actually get there in 2009, or put if off until 2010 is another matter, but ever since I traveled the Silk Road from Beijing to Islamabad, this has been high on my wish list.

Not sure how to define a "real" traveler, and don't especially want to debate it, but I would hope a 10-month round the world trip (including 17,000 miles by rail) would qualify me. (And no couch-surfing involved.)

Thursday, my sarcasm is directed at the multiple postings this OP has had recently in Asia, Africa, and Europe. No offense intended for going to these areas.

thursdaysd,

I'm sure no one means any disrespect to you and your ambitions and, as you know, people on Fodor's give help willingly to genuine questions.

Elsewhere the OP claims to be "traveling (on a global journey) for more than 3 1/2 years". Fair enough.

But he has been making large numbers of identical posts on many different forums, on some of which he has caused annoyance or been banned. Questions very often seem to be about exploring the edges of visa requirements. All his posts seem to be questions, never do there seem to be answers to other people or reports on his experiences that may help others. Assuming he is genuine he is a person who seems to take but not give, but his travel pattern and questions seem to be unusual to say the least. Many people here, like those on other forums before them, have become dubious about and weary of this person.

It's a shame that Fodor's now allows so many postings that contain nothing more than malice and ignorance.

Round-the-world trips by young people are now very commonplace, and poverty of imagination on the part of those not able or willing (or wanting) to take such trips and busk their way around the world is no justification for a public parade of ignorance and prejudice. (Nor, sandy456/shoeman, is an abusive response justified, and I for one, if I see any more postings in that tone, will not be replying to you further under any heading. Ignore those postings with no useful content and simply deal with those that have some.)

The first time I passed through the area under discussion I travelled UK-Sri Lanka, then the southern tip of India-Nepal-India-Pakistan-China (across to Beijing, then south)-Hong Kong entirely overland by bus and train, followed by Japan and then Canada.

En route I met many hundreds of people taking similar routes, sometimes adapting mine to fit theirs, and sometimes being joined by those who changed their own plans. Many of these remain friends who have visited me in the various corners of the world where I've subsequently lived and worked. From Colombo to Kathmandu to Beijing we pored over maps and books, planning travel as we went, picked the brains of those coming from where we were going, and carried on until we tired or funds ran out.

The second time I passed through the area I travelled Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan-China-Pakistan-China (south Taklamakan route)-up through Gansu and Xinjiang again to Kazakhstan, almost all by bus. The third time was Kazakhstan, across the width of China and back by assorted routes, and overland into Kyrgyzstan.

And all the time I met people doing much the same thing, exchanging news on the latest visa and border regulations, some trying to cross where no man had been known to cross before, and so on. I met two couples, one Dutch, one German, who had driven all the way to Central Asia by motorbike and car, one pair successfully getting all the way to Australia by bike (and I later visited them back in Holland), and the other selling their vehicle for a profit in Kazakhstan before crossing by land to China and continuing to Tibet. Both couples (one of whom had spotted the other's tyre tracks in a Central Asian desert), were working with information supplied by those who had gone before.

All travel is 'real' travel (or none of it is), whether spent flying to one Holiday Inn and eating at McDonald's, or improvising a low-budget round-the-world trip and sharing a cross-border hitch on a truck. The point of travel is to please oneself, and not others, including those who make empty commentary here.

Who would want to do this kind of long-distance, low-budget, make-it-up-as-you-go-along travel? Thousands of people every year, all the time. Thursdaysd, sandy456, and I are not alone, and probably all do it partly because we like the company we meet. And when those thinking of doing the same or who are already en route ask politely for assistance there is every reason to give it to them, rather than to speculate unpleasantly about their motives, or grotesquely to slander the professionalism of those who do try to help and later feebly to claim that this is humour.

Yet again it is important to remember that this is a PUBLIC forum, and useful information supplied is useful for very many people, and not just the OP. A little generosity of spirit goes a long way. Meanness of spirit shown here is equally visible for all to see.

So how about if all parties cut out the school playground antics, leave the other children to their own games, and stick to posting useful information, expressed in an adult manner, and just ignoring any poster to whom they happen to take an entirely pointless dislike? Thursdaysd, if I know anything useful for your planned 2009/10 trip I'd be happy to share.

Peter N-H

P.S. If anyone's interested in comment on the story of someone who claims to have written for Lonely Planet about places he's never visited, and on guide book research and publication in general, see:

http://peternh.blogspot.com/2008/04/all-his-own-work.html

Thanks Peter - as a result of assorted injuries and illnesses I've been traveling in Europe instead of Asia recently - I'm looking forward to getting back.

Jaya - apology accepted, although I would have thought "no-one" meant "no-one".

BTW, to counteract any suggestion that only gap-year kids are interested in long-term travel, perhaps I should mention that I was in my later fifties when I took off on my RTW trip (and I'm female). Ed Hasbrouck wrote in "Practical Nomad" (2nd ed., don't have the latest), that 13% of Airtreks customers were over 50 and 24% were solo women travelers. (Airtreks specializes in multi-destination and RTW plane tickets.)

Probably most of the questions posted in the various forums are genuine, as are the replies, so it's a real shame when someone like this OP not only asks fake questions, but Fodorites really try to be of help - even with the most outlandish questions. This OP is posting on all the Fodor boards - always with lengthy, tedious, and often very odd questions.

The postings are in such short succession, there's no possible way he/she could be in so many parts of the world in such a small frame of time.

Further, I have not found one posting by OP in which he/she actually OFFERS any information, supporting the speculation that it's all a big hoax.

Some of you are really dumb, and you think I have to be in that part of the world to ask about it, and if you think my questions are strange, it just means you are boring, because you couldn't dream of answering such exciting questions. Just face it, I am way ahead of you, and you can't take it, so you break it. Really, all you do is follow me around, and destroy my topics with your non-sense about who I am, and if I am real or not. Really pathetic considering other people, who don't bother contributing to your conspiracy gossip actually miss on reading answers, that only Peter cares to give, since a bunch of you take up space, and hijack the thread, leaving no room for anyone to answer, or discuss the topic.

If only this place had a moderator, I think some of you would be kicked off in a heartbeat. I of course, will always be here pointing you scounderls out, from the real travelers, and helpers.

And so what if I don't answer questions, maybe I don't have answers to give.

And there's no such thing as a wierd question in the world of never ending travel. If you can't handle me, don't respond to my threads.

Do you see 'Persecuting Other Posters' as the subject at the top of this page, or do you see 'Asia'?

If you actually read the postings you will see that many are enquiries about travel months from now, and a clear sequence of countries is presented, sometimes with queries obviously intended to help choose one of several possible routes. No one who has already professed comprehensive ignorance of Central Asia (in a posting above) is in much of a position to comment on the real-world viability of the routes under discussion.

And what is a 'fake' question? Nothing the OP has asked here is out of the ordinary except in terms of your own apparently limited horizons. There's no question that hasn't been asked in travel forums before, and no answer that might not be of use to others (as some have come forward to say). Once again, do you realise you're not alone here? And if there were no actual intention to travel would that somehow remove meaning from questions or answers?

The outlandishness and oddity of the questions are in your own mind only, and your dislike of their style (some of which I would be prepared to share) is no evidence to support your proposition that the postings are 'fake'.

Nor does the observation that the OP offers no one else any help offer any support for the conclusion that 'it's all a big hoax'. (And it would anyway be a very small hoax at best.) Perhaps you haven't noticed that exchange on the Internet is characterised by a few giving a lot of answers to the many, and nor is this much of a surprise, if you give it the slightest thought.

If you consider the OP to be a troll (however you can engineer this from the asking of perfectly sensible travel questions) then, in the standard phrase, the answer is not to feed him. But then you've said nothing on-topic at all, have you?

This board is for the discussion of travel in Asia, not speculating unpleasantly about others who post.

For heaven's sake just give it a rest.

Shoeman's arrogance is only surpassed by Shoeman's ignorance. And perhaps Shoeman's naïvété.

I have no problem with anyone traveling anywhere in the world asking legitimate questions and getting the best answers possible. I've been answering questions (and posting trip reports) on travel boards for more than a decade. It's a wonderful thing how that works.

Perhaps that's why I can smell a rat.

There comes a time on every travel board where someone shows up purely to take advantage of and waste people's time. This is that moment. I don't know about the rest of you, but aside from my many yearly travels I run a business, have two college-age kids to deal with over the holidays, am writing a book, have an elderly parent to care for, and just have the usual stuff we all have to deal with. Spending time answering questions from some self-proclaimed morally superior nomadic twitso who really isn't actually traveling anywhere is NOT a valuable use of my or anyone else's time. If YOU think it's a valuable use of YOUR time, please continue. Just know you are probably contributing to either a guy who is illegally traveling around the world or who is getting paid to travel and report on stuff when he actually isn't doing the traveling (perhaps both, actually).

If Peter wants to waste his time with this, GO FOR IT! The argument that it's useful information for ANYONE is half-baked, because not ANYONE asked this, only the renegade scofflaw Sandy did. But do as you wish.

Oh, and Shoeman himself said he doesn't need this board, so why in hell would anyone bother to respond when he's said that? Let him go to the few places he hasn't been banned from yet to get his info for his mythical travels.

There are so many legitimate people here asking for help. I don't understand why folks would just be so generous as to help a guy who is actively trying to break the law (and go to the Europe board for links to many threads that show that that is exactly what he is up to if you think I'm mad).

> If Peter wants to waste his time with this, GO FOR IT! The argument that it's useful information for ANYONE is half-baked, because not ANYONE asked this, only the renegade scofflaw Sandy did. But do as you wish.

The 'half-baked'-ness lies in wasting time making a posting that's completely devoid of fresh argument to support the (anyway irrelevant) proposition that the OP is not actually travelling, entirely off-topic for this board, and yet that complains about not having enough time to post.

It's a simple enough proposition that the answers to any particular individual question are seen by very many pairs of eyes indeed. This is so obvious (and so definitely not 'half-baked') that it doesn't need any worked examples, although as it happens Thursdaysd has already mentioned that answers to the OP's queries on the topic of crossing certain Central Asia borders were of interest to her.

It's an equally simple proposition that this board is for the discussion of travel in Asia, and that 'Listen everybody about how I'm such a busy person with no time to post' is not related to that topic.

The OP's questions, however unfortunate his manner may sometimes be, are specifically about travel in Asia. What he deserves is replies and not the Internet equivalent of a mob with pitchforks and torches. And what this board deserves is more postings that are on-topic, and less that abuse others or amount to no more than speculation about them, even when made by very busy people with children, an elderly parent, a business to run, and a book to write.

lol, he thinks it's some kind of conspiracy against the members of this forum, lol

God forbid anyone should read your book, especially if it's about travel.

I, for one, won't respond to queries from someone who posts merely to abuse, and who can thus hardly complain if abuse is received in return.

The topic of this forum, as it clearly says at the top, is 'Asia', not other people nor their books, nor others' theories. If you expect to be taken seriously and given only courteous, informative replies, then stay on-topic and courteous yourself.

I suggest this thread is abandoned (and, preferably, deleted) and that any further genuine travel queries appear under a fresh heading.

Now you understand what the others were saying, Peter?

Its a shame you defended him/her so strongly before she turned on you too.

These remarks have no more dignity, intelligence, or relevance to the topic of this forum than the OP's choice of making a posting simply to attack StCirq, and add no support whatsoever to the unfounded accusations of the mob.

Queries about travel in Asia deserve answers in kind, and not off-topic persecution, or unpleasant remarks about anyone else. This is merely further unwarranted abuse of the forum and its users, neither better nor worse than abuse by others, and does not belong here.

This is a forum for the discussion of travel in Asia, not for remarks addressing or abusing others, or speculating grubbily about who supports or defends whom. What is in need of defence is the forum itself from off-topic and impertinent postings whoever makes them.

No one who posts solely to conduct little personal chit-chats speculating about or abusing others is in any position to complain about abuse by them (and especially not imaginary abuse).

Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter - you just don't get it, do you?

Stop for minute and think. Stop huffing and puffing. Stop this barrage of verbiage. Then look in the mirror. What do you see? Can you detect the faint shadow of foolishness that will not wash off?

You go on and on about 'what this Forum IS' - well, Peter, I think you're getting confused. I think it's YOUR forum you're talking about. This is a different one. You can be General Haig in YOUR Forum. You can run it any way you like.

But this isn't YOUR Forum. We live here too - and YOUR rules don't necessarily apply. No matter how much you think they should - they don't. You can produce chapter and verse from your rule books - imaginary or real - but nothing will alter the fact that this place has its OWN dynamic.

Sandy is like a fungal irritation. You have to deal with them quick or they spread. This Forum - the body corporate - has endeavoured to rid itself of the disease while YOU, in your supreme wisdom, have encouraged it.

I fear that all Sandy has really done - with your enthusiastic participation - is make a fool of you.

Now that's a shame. You deserve better.

Sandy has posed questions about travel in Asia, which is the topic of this forum as defined by its owner.

My replies have answered those questions, while yours and those of several others, have consisted of nothing but a petty malevolence unpleasant to see, completely off-topic, resembling the behaviour of playground gangs, and unbecoming to adults. This, not giving straight answers to entirely reasonable queries about Asia travel for the benefit of the wider audience of this site (whose interests are clearly of no matter to you), is the 'fungal infection'.

This forum needs a lot more postings of the kind originally posted by Sandy, which follow Fodor's poorly enforced guidelines, and a lot less of the childish delinquency seen above, which does not.

Self-important expressions of like or dislike for any other poster, or opinions on the intentions underlying their postings, are of little interest to the myriad other readers of this site, even if they were in any way appropriate to start with.

If you don't like other posters, simply leave them alone. This attempt to treat a public forum as your own personal sandpit and to organise gangs to drive away whoever you take a dislike to is disgraceful, entirely misplaced, and very ugly to observe.

Posters like sandy456 (aka shoeman and who know what all else) come into a peaceful village such as our with the intent to inflame and turn neighbor against neighbor and then disappear.

We were not like this before him/her and we should not allow a rouge poster to do this to us in the future.

No one forces you to post anything at all in response to anyone. The questions here have been entirely reasonable, and the fracas has been entirely of your own making because you refuse to leave ordinary travel queries alone.

You, not Sandy, are the problem, and your attempt, as with others' postings, to suggest that you have some kind of group support for your behaviour which makes this your sandbox and you somehow superior to all the other individual readers of this site who want to have nothing to do with your off-topic petty vindictiveness, is ridiculous and ill-conceived.

If you don't like a poster, or have nothing constructive or helpful to offer in response to a query, then just leave both poster and query alone. The 'rogue' poster here is not Sandy, but you.

Did I miss the memo where someone died and made Peter Hall Monitor?

Go to the Europe forum and read OP's Oslo Gardermoen airport "question" AND the 200+ replies. Your persective may change.

> Did I miss the memo where someone died and made Peter Hall Monitor?

Did I miss the one that said you were allowed to decide who might post travel queries unmolested and who might not?

> Go to the Europe forum and read OP's Oslo Gardermoen airport "question" AND the 200+ replies. Your persective may change.

And in what way would that change the fact that the perfectly straightforward travel query opening this thread could have been equally straightforwardly answered and none of the bile on display here need have been seen at all had you and others not chosen to put it here?

Because IT WASN'T PERFECTLY STRAIGHTFORWARD, by any definition of such....what is it about that that you don't get?

Maybe he's on OP's payroll.

From the Africa board: (Africa??)


http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=4&tid=35171686

Yep, he/she strikes again. Poor, unsuspecting Africa forum people. One is actually waiting for the trip report!

Actually Peter, if you care to scroll back, you'll see that my posts were intended to help you. To stop you making a fool of yourself and to stop you wasting your valuable resources on someone who was clearly a troll.

But off you went. On and on and on, trapped in a topic of your own sweet creation. Bless you. Any time I want a champion for a lost cause, I'll call. But I do have to say, dear Peter, that most of the bile in this post seems to have come from you...

I, of course, am clearly the AntiChrist - even reading this will send you to Hell. I stand damned and unrepentant. Perhaps you could compose a few pithy paragraphs on this topic? Bile away at my expense. Have fun.

But you're still looking a little bit silly, I do have to say.

Hi...
Peter your amazing.
If only half of what you say is accurate, you are amazing.
Keep it up, and if you have a blog site please post it and I will be there.
Cheers
jege41

You know, I think we all need to go away and let Peter answer Sandy/Shoeman's questions to his hearts' content. Peter has made it clear that he doesn't care whether Sandy is sincere, Peter likes answering these questions.

After all, from Peter's point of view, we're a pretty sorry lot here. When was the last time you asked Peter about land border crossings in and out of Pakistan or about how to best enter Kyrgystan? Peter has all of this esoteric knowledge, but the usual questions he gets here are pretty boring. Allow Peter the pleasure of dredging up all of this info he hasn't used or thought about for years.

Haha... I decided to receive an open-heart surgery after initially replying to this thread. I'm already back home and you guys are still debating. Fascinating.

> Because IT WASN'T PERFECTLY STRAIGHTFORWARD, by any definition of such....what is it about that that you don't get?

What is it that you don't get about the information you've already been supplied that people do this route all the time, and that there are others reading this site who hope to do so?

Similar questions can be found in many forums, and have come up here in the past, not that that's relevant--these are questions about travel in Asia that belong here, whether you like them or not, and whether you are profoundly ignorant of the area in question or not, whereas your self-important pronouncements about how busy you are and your irrational dislike for other posters do not belong here.

> Actually Peter, if you care to scroll back, you'll see that my posts were intended to help you.

Who needs this kind of 'help'?

Conducting digital mob violence against someone who posts a straightforward travel query helps no one, reduces the chances of anyone posting here either to make an enquiry or to answer it, is entirely irrelevant and off-topic, not to mention profoundly unpleasant, self-absorbed, distasteful, and entirely inappropriate.

By all means help by answering the query, or, if you don't know the answer, ignoring it.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Sandy is a troll, and simply stating it again and again won't make it so, nor make on-line vigilante behaviour any less ugly, nor justify the response given. Even for real trolls the most effective response is just to ignore them.

This isn't the place to discuss other posters, it is the place, as Fodor's states, to discuss Asia travel. The questions posted were entirely on-topic, entirely commonplace in travel forums, and the answers to them of interest to the larger readership of this site that you insist on ignoring in favour of trying to turn it into your own little sandbox with only your friends permitted to post the kind of comments you want them to post.

> You know, I think we all need to go away and let Peter answer Sandy/Shoeman's questions to his hearts' content.

Nearly right. You need to let anyone and everyone who wants to ask questions about travel in Asia do so without suffering the onslaught of your trite and off-topic one-liners. You need to ignore queries you don't like the look of and leave them to those who have something constructive and interesting to say. You need to stop molesting both those who make on-topic queries and those who reply, and start behaving in an adult and civil manner.

Most postings under this thread are simply digital thuggery, in which a handful of socially maladroit people elect themselves judge, jury, and executioner of other posters. If you heard of such behaviour in your children's playground you'd be the first round to the school to complain, and probably none of you would be anything other than embarrassed to exhibit such loutish behaviour in the real world and under your real names. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, and Fodor's should be ashamed of allowing you, contrary to its own guidelines, to carry on persecuting others.

I, for one, will not add any more off-topic responses to my already excessive contributions to this thread, for which I heartily apologise to the larger readership.
Nor will I click on this thread to read it any further.

Peter, why do you feel the need to defend yourself against these mundane people? You are right, in everything you say, you don't need to repeat it more than once. All that matters is that stand your ground, and let the naysayers gossip amongst themselves. It's only reason they keep responding to these pointless threads. If they cared one about about travel (real travel, not their hotel fantasies) they would have stopped answering along time ago. They are only a handful of people, who keep returning. And as i said before, it's only for their entertainment, gossip value, and oppurtunity to show their nasty tendencies to turn a travel forum into a circus.

You'd be better off answering questions such as mine on other forums, where these mundane people have no accounts.

Your choice.

Just stop it!

Like you haven't been banned from just about every other travel forum on the web, Sandy-sandia- Shoeman!

But I'm sure Peter would love to have you on his forum. He doesn't get much action, and your obscure questions will liven things up for him and his very few remaing members! I'm really surprised he didn't post the address for you earlier.

send an email to :

subscribe-oriental-list@datasinica.com

Peter,Peter, Peter......I like the name.

Here you are AGAIN pissing everyone off.

How many screen names do you have at Fodor's? How many fake threads have you done here under guise?

I know that on your Oriental List website there are several contributors who have the same temperament and personality of you. They are you, I am sure of it.

Do you often talk to yourself?

I always wonder what motivates someone of your nature?

I know this will upset you but you are not the brightest bulb in the pack.

You may make it as the most pompous one though.....

Lcuy, you found the word I've been looking for "obscure". That's a good description, along with "fake", for the questions that our dear sandy/shoeman has been posting on the various forums recently.

Ho Ho, HT!

You're gonna keep the other Peter up all night trying to figure out who you are so he can unsubscribe you!

Mele Kalikimaka lcuy!

I've already been unsubscribed and it didn't even hurt

Aloha!

Aloha! HT, you peeled the skin off that pompous paper tiger!!

OMG, I had no idea. Thanks for that link.

What a pompous windbag!

Does anyone subscribe, or does he just talk to himself?

I don't need to to join any list, I will just keep asking him on this forum, so all of you distasteful people can read it, and learn from the world traveler.

You're welcome