A great turnout for the meeting organised by the Hong Kong branch of the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday. About 80 people attended the talk, which was partly on the many unknown and obscure travellers that will feature in my forthcoming book about the exploration of the steppe.

For the second part of the talk I was on more familiar territory; it concentrated on the recent expeditions I have organised in the footsteps of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson in Buryatia and Eastern Kazakhstan. Thanks are due to RGS-HK director Rupert McCowan for organising this meeting (and another, the following night, about my work as a reporter in Fleet Street) and to his staff for making the whole thing go so smoothly.

For those of you in Hong Kong – or nearby – I will be speaking at an event on Tuesday evening (9th April, starts at 19.30) organised by the local branch of the Royal Geographical Society. My speech is entitled ‘The Steppes of Central Asia: Rediscovering the History of Central Asian Exploration‘ and will be held at Hill Dickinson, Suite 3205 Tower Two, Lippo Centre, 89 Queensway, Admiralty. Further details can be found here.