Beijing, China

3 days after bypassing Kenya, an Egyptian passenger vessel with 400 aboard is fired at by terrorist pirates off the coast. 2 days after Chennai, India torrential rains deluge the city in a foot of water. 24 hours after leaving Yangon, Myanmar the Junta gov't pulls up it's 40 year capital roots and moves to an undisclosed location. And now 2 more cases of bird flu in Beijing minutes after leaving China. Is the M/V Explorer not the luckiest ship on the high seas right now? 75 of us just returned from a 4 day trip with students at Peking University. They showed us their beautiful campus, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Ming's Tombs the Great Wall. Like seeing an apparition or ghost I actually got goose bumps when I first laid eyes on the Great Wall. It stretches for over 6000 miles across some of the highest and rockiest terrain in China. The journey was extra precarious for me, packing 50 pounds of camera equipment on a 2 hour ascent. Angie, my solo volunteer generously offered to help with the tripod. Naysayers said it couldn't be done but we did it - to the top and back again with the most spectacular footage ever shot. Construction began in 220 BC by 300,000 men, many of them political prisoners whose bodies are buried in the wall. Built as a strategic defense against invaders you can almost feel the souls that still haunt the wall. Descending was much easier. We pulled our sleeves down, leaned our body mass against the hand rail and slid all the way down. At times my feet couldn't keep up with my body and I must have looked like a cartoon figure trying to run on air. Tour buses do not wait for the weary and 'dock time' (punishment for being late) is threat enough to keep the 'ol legs moving. Wrap up the entire experience with a Chinese cirque du soleil like acrobatic performance and a guided tour through a jade factory - Beijing may not have been created in a day but we conquered it in 3. Next up, Kobe Japan, where the literary rate is a whopping 99% and intellectual debates thrive. Ahhh, just like listening to foreign NPR.