Jun 2008

First back to Hong Kong...

On the Saturday i headed off to the International Dragon Boat Regatta...i thought it would be this massive event, loads of people there, stalls, things to see etc. the flyer said it was a 10 min walk from the mtr station.......an hour later i was still walking along the river!!!! finally found the area where it was being held. There were lots of teams there, probably about 50 different ones from all over the world they had small gazebos for each team.........and that was it!!! it was almost like it wasnt a public event, there wasnt really anyone there apart from the teams taking part...alll very strange. also there wasnt any information about who was racing or anything so you couldnt really tell what was going on, i watched a couple of races and headed back into the city a bit disappointed!

ooh one good thing did come of it though, i found a place that sold jacket potatos at the shopping mall where the mtr station was........it was so nice, i've really missed not being able to eat jacket potatos!
That evening i went to watch the Sex and the City film, really enjoyed it, all the women in Hong Kong are obviously big fans too!!

Sunday i went to the market area there are 3- the goldfish, flower and bird markets....pretty self explanatory what they sell!!!!! the bird market was probably the most interesting, lots of men selling little birds in gold cages...it seemed to be a boys club..whether the birds were status symbols or something i'm not sure...there seemed to be a bit of 'my bird is prettier/sings better than your bird' going on!!!

I took the Star Ferry over to Central again and went up to the Peak on the tram...it's so unbelievably steep!!!! the view from the top is amazing, i was really lucky to get a clear day, the first one since i arrived in hong kong.

Walking around central after going to the peak i saw lots of women in a skip i was wondering what an earth they were doing when they started flinging piles of clothes out to women waiting on the pavement. turns out a shop had been damaged by water (not sure how) and they were dumping all their old stock into the skip so the women had jumped in and were pouncing on all the soaking wet clothes...very bizarre!! these were normal women, dressed pretty well etc....they obviously love a freebie in Hong Kong!!!

The next day i flew to Thailand! It was my one and only cathay pacific flight...unfortunately it was only a couple of hours, i wish it was one of the long ones as it was the nicest plane i've been on i think!! really good inflight entertainment too. we even got a full on meal i was surprised as it was such a short flight. Landed in Bangkok, i wasn't sure what to expect and i think i was more nervous landing there than in Beijing! Having gotten used to the Chinese way of doing things i was wondering if it would be difficult to adjust. turns out i neednt have worried at all, everything here is very easy as most people speak english. got the airport bus into the centre of bangkok....the journey took 3 hours- longer than it took to get from hong kong! (its meant to take 45mins). there was a big storm and apparently when it rains in bangkok the traffic gets really bad!

the hostel is lovely (i'm back here again now) probably the nicest place i've stayed, more like a hotel really, its very new and clean which is nice as when you walk down the road there are massive rats and cockroaches so its nice to be able to retreat to somewhere spotless!!

Went for a walk to the river with my new dorm mates and had some street food in the evening.

its funny getting used to the drivers in each country. in china there are lots of cars but as there are also a lot of bikes they tend to drive at a reasonable speed so if they do get into a big crash no-one gets that hurt... in Hong Kong and Bangkok however they drive like mad-men! in Bangkok you have the added variety of lots of mototaxis and tuk tuks.

Got my vietnamese visa no problems, very excited to be filling up my passport with lots of different stamps and things!

Traveling around Bangkok is quite quick if you go by skytrain but its quite a limited system s stop-wise so you can also use the ferry which stops at lots of piers along the river. i took the ferry up to Wat Po and saw the famous reclining Budda which was very impressive...its so big!! the feet are beautiful, they are inlaid with budda images made of mother of pearl. just up the road is the Grand Palace so headed there too, the temples are all so colourful with lots of mirrored glass tiles which make them twinkle in the sun.

made my pilgrimage to Khao San road....it wasnt actually as crazy as i thought it would be, lots of stalls and western orientated bars, it was the day time though so i think it gets livelier at night! went to Boots, stocked up on cucumber cleansing wipes! there are lots of boots all over bangkok actually...i feel the need to go into every one i pass...not sure why? i got like that in hong kong every time i saw a marks and spencers, i think it was a good job i left hong kong when i did because i was spending my entire budget on percy pigs!!! (i cant remember if i said but i had fish and chips in Hong kong at a proper chippy!!)

on the way back to the hostel i got caught in a massive storm and got drenched, looked like i had stepped into the shower with my clothes on...! we went out for dinner to a korean bbq place which was nice, you cooked your meat on a little bbq in the middle of the table then we headed to patpong the bar area near to the hostel....it used to be notorious for the sex trade but now its more of a tourist attraction with a big market and lots of bars..it is still the place for men to go and find 'company' and you get lots of men trying to get you (they arent fussy about which sex you are, i was with 3 guys from my dorm and they would still be asking me aswell!) to go and see ping pong shows....we declined of course!

The next day we went to Jim Thompsons house, an american man who fell in love with thai culture, moved here and introduced thai silk to the west, it became really famous after it was featured in the film the King and I. He built a house from 6 traditional wooden thai houses which are up on stilts. the house itself is really beautiful, all dark wood and open balconies he obviously had an eye for interior design, its filled with all the original furniture and i'd quite happily live there! its also surrounded by a thickly planted garden which he called his 'jungle'. Jim Thompson disappeared in the 60's in Malaysia and his body was never found...! still a big south east asian mystery

went out for dinner again, it was one of the guys birthdays...we were trying to find a traditional thai restaurant but ended up eating vietnamese! i seem to have eaten everything but thai food! it was very nice though.

the next day i travelled to Ko Samet which is a 3hour bus journey from bangkok. bought a boat ticket for the 30 min journey to the island and asked when the next boat left....when there were 20 people! i was the only person in sight!!!! the different attitudes are so contrasting, in china and japan everything was like clockwork and left on schedule but in thailand they are a lot more 'manana' about things! after an hour they had scraped together about 9 people so we headed off. wasnt sure what to expect from my first thai island, i hadnt booked any accommodation so just named one of the places in the lonely planet when the driver asked where i was going. we headed off along the dirt track on the songthaew (basically a pick up truck with bench seats in the back songthaew literally means two rows). there had been a bit of rain and the dirt track had turned into a bit of a mud fest...felt like i was doing the wild and woolly!! got dropped off at toks little huts, it seemed a bit quiet and no-one was really around but it was late so i paid for one night and decided to look for somewhere else in the morning.

the next day i headed down the road to naga bungalows which is also home to the island post office. its run by an englishwoman who moved to ko samet 26 yrs ago and is married to a thai man. her grown up children were visiting so it had a real family atmosphere to the place. it also had a large open lounge area and they showed dvds in the evening and served good food. they also had a bakery and had fresh croissants and rolls every day. a 30 second walk and you were down onto the white sand beach and into the clear calm sea......this explains why the next 5 days literally went...sleep, read, eat, sunbathe, swim, read, eat, watch films, sleep....! i was really lucky with the weather and it was bright sunshine all the time i was there.
paradise comes with bugs though!! i went and bought a little plug in bug repellent thing and that seemed to do the trick, as the bungalow was made out of bamboo and not sealed there was a mosquito net too which i was glad about! also the showers were cold!! even though it was quite warm i still wasnt the biggest fan but i got used to them in the end. the fresh water has to be shipped over from the mainland so they are big on water conservation!

forced myself to head back to bangkok yesterday, the boat ride back was a bit hairy, lots of waves and when we pulled up at the pier, it was low tide so we had to climb up the pier legs to get onto it!
didnt do that much today, went to see Get Smart, its really cheap to go to the cinema here, only 1 pound 50! (i have no pound sign on this keyboard!) in thailand they have a monarchy obsession and they love their king so much they play the national anthem and a little king montage at the start of each film...everyone stands for it...the cinema was mainly full of schoolchildren and every one of them stood up...you'd never get that in england!!

flying to vietnam tomorrow so getting an early night.

phew this has been a long one!!

have uploaded some photos, unfortunately i got a virus on my flash drive so i lost some of my HK photos and my bangkok ones but i've put some up of HK and ko samet

My second day in Guangzhou i went to the Temple of the Nan-yue king, it has a museum and the excavated tomb, bit like a basic version of the pyramids with everything they would need for the afterlife including sacrificial cooks and concubines. The king was buried in a suit made from hundreds of small pieces of jade sewn together as they believed the jade to have magical properties and helped to prevent the body from decaying.

On my way to the museum i passed Qingping market notorious for its live animals including kittens and puppies, all for human consumption eek. i didnt venture in but on the outskirts are stalls selling lots of dried herbs and plants for medicine and someone was selling dried snakes which smelt awful!

the next day i got the bus to Macao...slight confusion when we got dropped off. The bus stops in a big underground shopping mall and it's very unclear where you have to go. In the end a local said Macao and pointed upwards so then we discovered Macao at the top of the escalators...all very weird!

The difference as soon as you cross the border is just incredible, it's like stepping into europe!! lots of narrow winding streets and Portugese architecture, it's also quite small and easy to get around by walking and the bus which is nice. Found the guesthouse no problems, Macao has very little budget accommodation, basically this one place which is actually a 2 bedroom apartment! its quite cosy (read very very small!!!) with one shower and one toilet for 13 people! i had emailed the owner before and he had told me that the hostel was full on the second night but they could give me a bed in the lounge which i agreed to, it sounded ok and there isnt anywhere else to go. so the first night i was in the smallest dorm room ever but the second night i was in the lounge....which actually turned out to be the hallway/lobby! there were three of us packed in there on campbeds, it was hilarious!!

so the first thing i did in macao was to head out to the local cafe for a sandwich...not having had a sandwich for 2 months i was quite excited and tucked in! however the baguette was really chewy and halfway through i realised the cap on my tooth had fallen off so i only had half a tooth! i couldnt even find it in the roll so i must have eaten it...nice!
after consulting with the hostel owner who claimed all the private dentists in macao were 'very very dirty' i headed to the local hospital where they had a dental department. luckily i was now in macao where most people speak english (and the dentists arent just in dirty garages with no doors or even flooring as they are in china!) so was able to explain to the dentist what had happened! he wanted me to make an appointment for root canal and come back but i managed to explain that i just wanted it capped again...no major dental procedures thanks very much! he started talking about how he wasnt sure he could get a good colour match and i was thinking all sorts of horrific things but he actually did a very good job!! the front looks fine but the back feels quite rough on my tongue!! overall i think the whole thing from breaking my tooth to walking out the hospital took about 2 1/2 hours, a lot more efficient than england! and a lot cheaper, only 25 pounds, bargain!!!

that evening i headed up the Macao tower to see the view over macao, the casinos look great all lit up.
the next day was full on sightseeing as there is a lot to do in macao. First i walked through Senado Square up to the ruins of St pauls, only the front facade of the church is left after a fire demolished the rest, then onto the Macao Museum and the old fort. During the Portugese occupation anyone who wasnt Portugese (catholic) or chinese was buried in the Protestant cemetery where there are lots of interesting gravestones, lots of people from Britain and the USA, sadly their occupants often very young.

after the graveyard we headed up to Guia Lighthouse via the cable car. the Guia lighthouse is the first lighthouse ever to be built on the China mainland. its very cute and wouldnt look out of place on the cornish coast!!!

back to the hostel for a freshen up and then it was time to hit the casinos!!! Macao is the Las Vegas of the east with many vegas style casinos opening up, its already overtaken vegas' annual turnover. First stop was the towering Grand Lisboa with its modern gaming floors where we discovered the game of choice for the chinese was baccarat. then over the road to the retro Casino Lisboa which had recently had a facelift but you wouldnt have guessed, this seemed to be the old school joint. down the road to the Sands which is more your bog standard vegas style casino, seemed to be a bit rundown but was packed to the rafters. Down to the Venetian on Taipa island via the courtesy casino buses! the Venetian is very impressive,the second largest building in the world, its an exact replica of the vegas one, complete with canals and gondolas! we spent about 5 hours looking round casinos, i'd never been in one before so it was all very oceans eleven to me!!! no george or brad though unfortunately!!!

the next day i got the ferry over to Hong Kong and checked into the notorious Chungking mansions, home of many budget guesthouses...all of varying degrees of quality! Chungking is unlike anything i have ever seen, the ground floor is a maze of shops restaurants and tailors with two tiny lifts (and very long queues) in each block to take you whichever of the 17 floors you require. I was in an 8 bed dorm and if you had shown me the beds and the size of the room i would have said it was impossible to fit them in there but somehow they are jammed in but you are basically 1 foot away from your neighbour and in the middle two bunks they are actually pushed together so you are basically in the same bed!! it was a fun night though as everyone got into the spirit and we had a laugh. one of the other guys in the room i had a met in yangshuo so it was a real coincidence to run into him!!

i checked out the next day and on the advice of someone i met in Guangzhou moved down the road into the Mirador mansions, a slight step up from chungking but not much! the dorm however is a lot bigger with good air con (hong kong has 90% humidity at the moment!) and even has a large outdoor terrace area which weirdly doubles as a kung fu school 3 nights a week!!!

the nice thing about the nathan road area (also called the golden mile due to property prices and the amount of money made from tourism) is the cultural diversity, like being back in london. its home to Indians, Middle Eastern people, Nepalese, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Nigerians, Europeans, Americans, Pakistanis, people from all over the world, an anthropologist discovered that over the course of a year 120 different nationalities would have passed through Chungking. i did find mainland china quite a strange experience due to the lack of any kind of ethnic diversity so seeing lots of different faces around is more familiar and a bit more comforting!

its also nice to see touches of england here and there....they drive on the left hand side, have english plug sockets (rather than very dodgy looking pin ones!) i even found a chippy!!!

today i took the star ferry over to Hong Kong island and looked around soho and the central area. also rode the mid level escalators- commuters that live up the hill on hong kong island but work in central take the mid level escalators to work, they are a series of escalators (the longest in the world) that operate downhill from 6.30am-10am and then uphill for the rest of the day so you dont have to wear yourself out climbing the steep hill!!

went down to the avenue of stars...a hong kong version of the hollywood walk of fame...which has plaques dedicated to prominent members of the hong kong film industry. it is a good vantage point to see the views of Hong Kong all lit up at night...it really is an amazing view!!! there is also the symphony of light show where many buildings on hong kong island are lit up with musical accompaniment but it was a bit cheesy!!!!

another massive storm tonight so have taken refuge in the hostel! a couple of people in the hostel have come to hong kong to try and get new chinese visas. at the moment the government is cracking down on foreigners living in china as they want to reduce the amount of people living in beijing for the olympics (the city is basically one big carpark the traffic is so bad!) one canadian man who has lived in beijing for 8 years, has a chinese wife and runs a business is unable to get anything other than a 3 month tourist visa!
the whole country truly cannot wait to hold the olympics. Its funny contrasting it with london where people are already moaning about getting the olympics, how our taxes are paying for it etc and its still 4 years away!

trying to upload photos to flickr but its not working at the moment, will try again tomorrow.

Made it down to Sanya, on the first night there was a massive tropical storm, the biggest storm i've ever seen! In the middle of the night i suddenly heard a really loud noise at the door, sounded like someone was banging on the other side...didnt open it as naturally i was thinking it was some kind of serial killer! It kept on going for ages and i managed to fall back to sleep then in the morning i looked outside (In my room there was no outside window) and there was a massive storm and it turns out the banging had been the wind rattling the door! phew...! judging by the size of the storm i thought the whole island would have been shut down and was really worried but when i ran into the hostel owner she seemed to think it was a normal occurence!

so i was thinking the chances of getting to the beach were nil but after a couple of hours it was like there hadnt even been a storm, so weird! so headed off to the beach and had a nice lazy afternoon.

there is a big russian community in Sanya (strange to see the signs in chinese, english...then russian!) so it was fun to people watch on the beach. also to see the chinese holidaymakers in matching hawaiian shorts and shirt combos...somtimes entire familes...all matching!

had an early night as i wanted to head to some of the more secluded beaches along the coast (the one near the hostel, although only being 3 minutes away was a bit 'costa del china!') unfortunately the weather was still unpredictable so i spent the morning (turned into the day!) trying to sort out my departure from hainan.

now this journey seems to have been doomed from the start!!! there is a train that runs from haikou to guangzhou (which is put onto a ferry to get to the mainland...interesting..had to see this!) so i set about getting a ticket when i was back in haikou, but due to some misleading directions from the hostel staff it took about 3 hours and 3 return trips to the hostel for more directions! eventually got the ticket and went down to sanya and there i found out i could have got a train which started in sanya! (negating the need for the 3hr bus journey and complicated across town journey to the train station) so after asking the hostel staff they thought i might be able to change the ticket but then mentioned it would only be 300 yuan (21 pounds) to FLY to guangzhou...taking just one hour as opposed to 12 on the train, sounded like a plan as i was so tired of long journeys, even if it did mean missing out on the train on a ferry adventure! booked the air ticket and then headed off to the train station to get a refund (thought it was a 20 min journey, turned into a 3hr round trip!) at the station they said as i got the ticket in haikou they could not refund it here...great! but in the grand scheme of things not too bad as it was only about 14 pounds so not the end of the world. spent my last day enjoying the beach and in the afternoon a storm rolled in, thunder and lightening but no rain. hmmm would be airport be ok? as the last storm passed fairly quickly i was hoping it would be ok especially as everyone had seemed so blase about the last one.

got to the airport at about 8.30pm (flight due to leave at 10.30) lots of delays posted on the board but for flights earlier in the day... about 5pm time so i thought maybe the later flights would be ok. sure enough we were able to check in and head down to the gate....there the fun really started! the storm hit and the rain came thundering down...the information boards were a sea of red...delayed delayed delayed...cancelled cancelled etc. 10.30 came and went, my flight disappeared off the screens altogether as there were so many flights delayed. Time to find a nice spot to settle down for the long haul! already the departures lounge was starting to look like a third world country people all over the floor the roof was leaking on the upper level...people were buying their way into the VIP waiting lounge...airline staff started to hand out instant noodles and drinks. managed to grab a seat and spent the next 4 hours reading, wondering why i didnt just get the train and staring like a zombie at the information boards! didnt want to listen to my ipod incase i missed some essential announcement (luckily they were in english too, although heard to hear over the din of card playing chinese travellers!) eventually flights started to leave once the storm cleared and we took off about 3am landing in guangzhou at 4. got to the hostel about 5.30am and fell into bed exhausted! what a mission! hehe the airline was called Deer air...thought it was going to be the dodgiest thing ever but the actual flight was no problem at all, plane was really new and clean and i had probably more leg room than on the ba flight to beijing.

well that was the fun of last night!

after a couple of hours sleep i had a walk around Shamian island which is where the hostel is located in Guangzhou. the island itself is tiny, take about 7 mins to walk the length and 3mins the width! it is such a strange place as it was a foreign concession after the opium wars so is just like a little bit of europe! it was mainly british and french inhabitants, french took the east end, english the west! there are about 5 bridges that connect the island to the mainland and they used to have massive iron gates to keep the chinese out! a lot of the buildings have plaques explaining what the buildings used to be which is interesting.

lots of people were fishing in the Pearl river earlier as i walked around, some with rods and some just with little nets and i even saw the head of a chinese man bobbing along as he swam around the island! i dont like the look of the water much so think i'll be giving that one a miss!

oh also walking along the island at 5.30am i saw a few chinese people out exercising! they use the childrens play parks to limber up for the day!! such a funny sight. i know that they all do morning tai chi etc but have never been up early enough to see it!!!

massive thunderstorm at the moment, they seem to be following me around....!!

It's been a while so i've forgotten!

Well for the last couple of days in Yangshuo the weather was not too good so didnt venture far from the town...on my birthday i had a lie in then went to the local farmers market...complete with live and dead dogs!!! Wasn't that distressing but i'm glad i didnt actually see them kill one...does make you wonder what you are eating!

went to one of the parks in Yangshuo and climbed the karst there, wasn't very high but gave a good view over yangshuo. Lots of the cafes have upstairs dvd rooms so went and had a lazy afternoon then spent the evening at the lengendary Monkey Janes rooftop bar!

the next two days did virtually nothing! took full advantage of the fact all the cafes served western food...lots of pizza! did boring things like laundry at the speed queen ( the name is not a lie it only took one hour!) and finally burnt all the photos so far onto disk...theres going to be a very long slideshow when i get back!!!!

Left Yangshuo last thursday, could easily have stayed longer and just lazed around but would probably never have left especially as for the last 3 nights we were in a hotel rather than a hostel so it felt like luxury!

Got the bus back to Guilin, a lot quicker this time round...no stops for the police! Checked into the Backstreet Hostel and spent the afternoon looking round Guilin as i had only passed through before. Not much there really, same landscape as Yangshuo but not as pretty as Guilin is a big ugly town! Walked down by the river and saw the boats practicing for the Dragon Boat racing which takes place all over china next weekend. Hopefully whereever i'll be i'll be able to catch some racing! The sound of the drums was quite loud and you could hear it as you walked around Guilin.

The next day i went to the seven star scenic area in east Guilin, a big park with seven karsts (one shaped like a camel!) it is quite pretty but it was a bit overcast. As always, being China, there is something completely random and this time it was that the park was full of foam figurines of cartoon characters, animals, strange beasties, transformers, the olympic mascots, even the teletubbies! all very weird!!!! they also had a small zoo but it wasn't very nice, the animals looked very sad and they had monkeys with chains round their necks posing for photos with the tourists...not nice.

• *just had a slight meltdown as i accidentally closed the travellerspoint window by mistake...luckily it saved what i had written so far...phew**

the next day was the journey to the Longji (Dragons Backbone) Rice Terraces, bus to Longsheng then a small minibus up to Ping'an- home to the Zhuang ethnic minority group. The village is made up of tradictional wooden houses built onto the hillsides, there are quite a lot of hotels but typically i picked a hostel where they didnt speak any english! but got a great room rate of 20 Yuan (1.40) when the other places were asking 50-100! think i was literally the only person there, i saw the owners to pay and check in and then never saw them again!

had an early night so i could get up early to climb up to the actual rice terraces but when i got up it was very misty so had to wait a while for it to clear. there are two observation points you can walk to fairly easily and i just did a round trip of them. the views are truly amazing, the Zhuang people started to build the terraces (to enable them to farm the mountains) in the 13th century and it took them until the 17th to finish! Also living along the terraces are the Yao people whose women have long ankle length hair. they follow you up and down the terraces trying to get you to take pictures of them with their hair down (for a fee of course!) and also buy the hand made goods they make. Its fairly annoying but they do it with good humour, they are much more persistent than the Zhuang women who are also trying to flog handicrafts!!

Back to Guilin in the evening then next day onto the train down to Hainan, the island of the south coast of China. Almost the scene of another train disaster....i had tried to book a hard seat (the journey was in the day and only 8hrs) but they didnt have any so got the ticket anyway in the hope that i could upgrade to a hard sleeper even though i didnt actually have to sleep....was quite worried as 8hrs standing on a train was not going to be nice. after lots of wandering up and down the train to find the right conductor i managed to get one...phew. I had to change for a bus at zhanjiang which was a further three hours and then onto a ferry for 1 1/2 hrs with very hard wooden benches for the journey over to the island. all in all probably my hardest journey yet especially with the 6/7 hour return trip the days before to Ping'an! Think i've finally learnt why the Chinese have an automatic sleep button as soon as they get on any form of transport.

So after what seems like days of travelling i am finally on Hainan the 'hawaii' of china...unfortunately its raining so not made it to the beach yet but am getting the bus to Sanya tomorrow which is meant to have some beautiful beaches so fingers crossed! very weird to see palm trees everywhere though!

also been bitten by an insect all over my ankles and legs which is not a pretty sight...must be about 35-40 bites in all and they itch like mad! went to the chinese chemist today to try and get some cream and some antihistamines and it took about an hour but i finally managed to get the right thing but not before they tried to give my the chinese traditional medicine alternative!!!

off to bed now to nurse my bites/stings!!!

have uploaded some more photos onto flickr!