Tour companies and tourists alike have been confronted this past northern summer by angry folk, posters and pushback from cities complaining about their presence. From Venice and Rome to the Adriatic ports cruise liners pull into, locals have been agitating against the influx of tourists in their streets, cafes and shops. 'Its an invasion', they cry. Certainly, anyone who has been jostled in the no-longer quiet of Notre Dame or queued for ages to tour the Alhambra knows that

When I first started traveling by myself around China, back in the late 1980s, Xi'an was a long hike out over the western horizon. Back then I still had Chinese classmates in Shanghai and Beijing and was trying to catch them when our varying university schedules allowed. Xi'an always seemed a capital too far. In those days, journeys were intricate combinations of long hardseat train rides zigzagging up the eastern seaboard. It always seemed just too hard to spend the time to