Back to Europe

The fifth, and final, part of this summer's travels has begun. I'm sitting in seat 1L of an Airbus 330 on Finnair flight 52 from Beijing to Helsinki drinking a very pleasant glass of San Polo Brunello di Montalcino 2005 and looking out the window at the Gobi desert below and thinking how different it looks from 12,000m.

Over the next eight hours I will retrace most of the 12,000km outward journey that took me eight weeks. The real difference between the outward and return legs of the journey isn't the speed, it is the experiences along the way.

I feel oddly relaxed but I shouldn't be surprised since aeroplanes are a familiar environment. I have spent thousands of hours travelling millions of miles in them over the last three decades.

Today will be a long day, I was up at 05:30 (Beijing time) and will not finally stop until I've met up with my wife at Stockholm's Arlanda airport and arrived at our hotel which should be about 22 hours of travel time.

I should pace myself but I think I will also sample the Château Malescasse with my lunch…