South China Morning Post - Travel & Leisure\

Could merely glimpsing a 357-year-old Buddhist manuscript really grant you seven lifetimes of good fortune? An old Chinese folk belief regarding the Tibetan Dragon Canon has recently been revived on social media as the monumental Qing dynasty (1644-1911) scripture takes pride of place in “Tibetan Dragon Canon: A Symphony of Imperial Power, Belief and Art in a Golden Age”, an exh...

Standing on the ferry as it waits to dock on the Greek island of Ithaca, Giorgia Ongarato is only too keen to talk about the Odyssey – the epic poem about a hero battling his way back home from the Trojan War that inspired Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film. The Italian lawyer says it was her dream to come to Ithaca, widely believed to be the same island as the home of Odysseu...

The first night in a new place is always the same for Robinson Leoni: he takes longer to fall asleep, wakes up more often during the night and gets less sleep overall. At home he averages seven hours. The first night away – with or without earplugs and regardless of the bed’s quality – his smartwatch tells him he gets about five. “I feel normal, you know, no stress, nothing, but...

Stepping into the Old Town of Lijiang, a city in China’s Yunnan province, feels like entering the set of a Chinese period drama. Passing timber homes dotted with red lanterns, you walk on slick, rain-polished cobblestones worn down by centuries of Himalayan traders’ footsteps. The 800-year-old network of timber-framed architecture – often associated with Naxi ethnic minority cul...

“If you go down to the Sichuan woods, you’re sure of a big surprise…” No, it is not a new species, exactly; but you might chance upon a famous British TV presenter seemingly cosplaying – as a giant panda. This unsettling mise-en-scène occurs during Ben Fogle’s Chinese Adventure, available on Now TV, at the Shenshuping Panda Base, a remote, government-run wildlife unit in Wolong,...