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.