Mersey paradise

Monday, 12/11/2012 – 151 A.D.

Rise and shine, Hong Kong Phooeys! We both slept absolutely fine, neither of us waking once in the night. This may have been due to the tough two nights previous, or maybe this room in Chungking Mansions isn’t actually that bad? It’s difficult to move about first thing in the morning though, but even with the smallest bathroom ever constructed, we still managed to get some hand washing done and hung up to dry. We are British, after all.  

Unfortunately it was a bit of an admin morning – yawn! More time stuck in a miniscule room. We have three train journeys to book; Hong Kong to Shanghai; Shanghai to Beijing; and Beijing to…wait for it…Xi`an. We need to make sure we get the train numbers totally correct and, after the Nanning-Guangzhou experience, we never again want to spend the night sleeping in a seat. Once that was all sorted we headed somewhat apprehensively out into the Hong Kong weather…but it was perfect temperature, absolutely just right for shorts without getting a sweat on. Still, this is the best it will be for a while. As good as the climate is here in November, I already miss the Indochinese warmth, even though the sweating really annoyed me at the time. But I probably only miss it because it’s gone for good as far as this trip is concerned. Yes, and I know this is incredibly perverse of me to mention, given that most people back home are currently freezing their bits off! Don’t worry, I’ll have to buy a coat soon. Possibly a woolly hat as well.

At the main station ticket office we were told we could get all three of our fares from the China Railways stand nearby. They are essentially an agency that gets allocated a block of tickets – if they don’t sell them all then you get the situation we had on the Guangzhou train where people in the seats were upgrading to beds that had magically become available. The woman behind the desk who dealt with us was extremely abrupt and tried to answer several peoples’ queries at once – they really do not respect the system of the queue here! Plenty of times I have been standing in line and people try to sneak their way past as if I’m a hologramatic spectre. Now I know that I have to physically stand across them, but in the early days (i.e. err yesterday) my queuing quota was doubled, in some cases trebled. Anyway, back to the trains – our Hong Kong to Shanghai train was sold out for soft sleepers, so we decided to “risk-it-for-a-biscuit” (a popular phrase of ours) and opt for the hard sleepers. Next up, the Shanghai to Beijing sleeper train we wanted was completely sold out and only the snazzy high speed ones were left, the ones that cost the Earth, sun and moon for a ticket. We decided to try our luck at the Shanghai booking office with that one. And as for Beijing to Xi`an, well, that journey was over ten days away so the tickets weren’t yet available. As the popular song doesn’t go, “…now don’t be sad, coz one out of three ain’t bad.”

It wasn’t far to walk down to the waterline and this time get some great views of the Hong Kong skyline by daylight. Down here they have “The Avenue of Stars”, which is the Hong Kong film industry’s equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’m afraid that, despite the large size of the Hong Kong film industry, we only knew Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan! And Bruce had his statue displayed, but I wasn’t in the mood for posing next to him and giving it my best roundhouse kick or one inch punch.

As we were strutting around by the water, the following happened... 

...two middle-aged Japanese men approached Tim and wanted their picture taken with him, then with me as well. No sooner had that photo shoot finished and some Japanese women jumped on the bandwagon and got their own piccies posing with us. By now we’d realised that they didn’t mistake us for famous people, just wanted photos with us, for some bizarre reason. Do I stroll around Southport Pier looking for Japanese tourists to snap myself with? Nope! This continued for quite some time as we strolled along. Sometimes they were blatant about it and came up to us to ask permission, other times they took sneaky “guerrilla shots” from a distance, some of which we saw, but goodness knows how many we missed. The whole thing was a bit weird, but also kinda funny. For a while. Then it became a tad annoying.  I don’t know how Beckham stays so cheery all the time!    

The cheapest way to get across the water from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island is by the Star Ferry. We booked our passage over to the central ferry terminal for about 30 pence. Hong Kong is already a bit of an anomaly – pricey accommodation, yet cheap-as-chips public transport. The cost of food and drink seems to fall somewhere between the two. The crossing over the water was pretty choppy, but I’m too old `n` ugly to get seasick these days, especially as the journey lasted barely ten minutes. Altogether now, “Fe-rry…cross Victoria Harbour…coz this laaaaaand’s...the place I think is pretty cool to stay in for four nights…”

Hong Kong Island (the bit where the famous skyline is located) has skywalks and subways all over the place that make walking around a piece of cake. Gone are those days tentatively crossing treacherous Vietnamese roads with babysteps, here you just stride above or below it all. Around the central point of the island is the escalator up to the mid-levels, i.e. the buildings halfway up the hillside. This escalator, or rather series of escalators, holds the record for being the world’s longest covered walkway. And it was a leisurely ascent to the top, though we thought it might have been a bit steeper and, dare I say it, even a bit longer – never satisfied, are we?

The mid-levels were cool for a stroll, which developed into a bit of a rambly walk under the emerging November sunshine. If town planners mix enough greenery with their concrete then they’re always onto a winner. We both decided at this point that we quite like Hong Kong, and we prefer it to Singapore, that other famous Asian island city of similar size that has become vastly rich from being deliberately lax with its tax. Or maybe we just like sunny, hilly places a-la-San Francisco? We got a reasonable view of the harbour from up here, but thinking about it we probably should have gone a bit higher. 

After a steep descent to the western suburb of Kennedy Town, we looked for the nearest tramlines. The website Wikitravel has become a bit like our online Bible for telling us all about every new place we arrive in. Yes, yes, so any fool can log on and edit the articles, but overall the info seems pretty trustworthy and reliable. One thing the website recommended doing was catching the tram from Kennedy Town right across the island from west to east, through the financial hub, and ending up in Shau Kei Wan – a more traditional area (read ‘working class’). That was fine by us, because we needed to rest our legs after all that climbing (whaddya mean we went up an escalator???) Took a while for our particular tram to arrive though, and of course we had to deal with more sneaky Chinese queue-jumpers, the little tinkers!

The journey was great to start with, the breeze blowing in my face through the open window, the people rushing about in all the hustle and bustle below. I didn’t care that every ten seconds or so the tram had to stop for traffic lights or pull up at another stop. It was only costing us 25 pence to get from one side of the island to the other. But after a while it got a bit samey and by the hour point every new district we entered had already blended into the previous one well before we left it. There were high rises everywhere, so many in fact that I’m surprised there are not more than seven million people living in the place.   

[Journey's end, the night market at Shau Kei Wan...80 minutes after first getting on the tram!]

We got the subway back to Kowloon. It was a pretty swift trip, but we timed it to coincide with late rush hour. When we changed lines at the station called Admiralty (Hong Kong's equivalent of London's Victoria), there were more people waiting on the platform than could physically get on the next train, maybe twice as many. But a new train seemed to come along every minute and there are young ladies holding big STOP signs who are employed to push the punters back once each train is full. They're a little like the underground's version of Lollipop Ladies, but with licence to use kung fu if you don't step back when told to. 

That night we went for a curry. I had a madras, as usual. It wasn’t that hot. In fact, the temperature was just right, which summed Hong Kong up to a tee.

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

Sunday, 11/11/2012 – 150 A.D.

Guangzhou! Hello!

At a little before 6 a.m. our train pulled into another city I’d never really heard of until recently. I still don’t know much about it, save that it’s China’s third largest city with an urban population of 11 million people. That’s massive, but we had no time to stick around to take the latest census. After the last couple of nights we’d had, all we wanted to do was get to Hong Kong, which is a couple of hours away by train. Before that though, we had to get past all of the “pretend porters” frantically shouting at us to help us move our bags, all for a hefty fee, of course. They were quite aggressive and not easy to differentiate from the rest of the ticket holders. Speaking of tickets, Tim’s was collected by the man at the gate, but mine was not. Why do they even bother to collect tickets that are date-stamped for a particular journey that has already taken place?

Guangzhou was still dark at this hour, but despite what little of it we could make out, there was no time for sightseeing. We joined the herd of people heading for the taxi rank, needing to get a car to take us across town to Guangzhou East station. And as we walked amongst the crowd, I suddenly realised that I had not written down “Guangzhou East” in Chinese characters for the driver. Nor did I even know how to say the word “East” in Chinese! By the time we got to the front of the queue I’d formed some semblance of a plan. Sure enough, when Tim knocked on the window and said, “Guangzhou East?” the driver had no idea what he meant. Then I held out my train ticket, tapped it repeatedly with my finger and said, “Hong Kong?” Fortunately he understood, but I don’t know what we would have done if my ticket had been collected. Aye, The Road works in mysterious ways.

The driver could have taken us all round the houses, but the impression I get is that in China this type of behaviour is frowned upon. Apparently even leaving a tip is seen as a form of corruption and chances are the waiter will come running after you to give you back what you supposedly forgot. The fare to Guangzhou East (or “Guangzhoudong” as should have been said) came in at 29 yuan, whereas the guidebook said it should be about 30. Best taxi driver I’ve had in all of China!

The booths where you buy the tickets for trains to Hong Kong didn’t open until 07:30, so we had about a 40 minute wait. None of the shops were open, but I had a strange moment when I came across a closed Macdonalds McCafe and felt like I’d run into an old friend. While waiting in my second large, unfamiliar city in under 24 hours, it was oddly comforting to see the universal symbol of the golden arches, even if it was closed. Sure, it’s not the British consulate, but it is a Western institution here in this great Eastern wilderness.

The first train to Hong Kong was full, but we got a couple of seats on the next one at 09:03. Back again we went through passport control. I’m still not really sure about Hong Kong and where it stands. Technically it’s part of China, but it retains its own legal and monetary systems. Due to the former British influence, the two official languages are Chinese (the Cantonese variant) and English. No need to write down any tricky Chinese characters for a few days then! After the last one we went on, this latest train was absolute luxury, despite the strong smell of B.O. coming from an unknown passenger. We may have smelt a bit bad after two days without washing, but I checked and we were no way near that bad! The seats were so soft and comfortable, if only we’d had them to laze on the night before! In fact, I got through about ten minutes of an episode of Red Dwarf before I went out like a light, the first of three snoozey sessions on the two hour journey.

Our entry into Hong Kong went fine and it was only one stop on the immaculate metro system before we arrived at our destination - the infamous Chungking Mansions. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! What can I say about this place – dodgy dealers’ paradise, illegal immigrants’ heaven, or complete filthy sh*thole? Or maybe all three? Chungking Mansions has been around since the 1960s. Most of its 16 floors are accommodation (cheap, tightly-packed accommodation at that), but the first two floors feature dodgy shops, mostly selling hooky electronic goods, and the third floor has restaurants of the kind Gordon Ramsey would never review. There was a film made about the place back in 1994 called Chungking Express which we’re going to watch tonight. And why did we come to this place? Because accommodation in Hong Kong is notoriously expensive and we must have booked it after a night of bad pizza before we’d read the reviews.  Still, it’s a larf, innit?

Sort of. We got a bit lost just walking around the ground floor trying to find the correct lift. There are blocks A to E and we are in D block, booked into the Day and Night Guesthouse on the 10th floor. Only two lifts go to D block, but one goes to even-numbered floors, one to odd-numbered floors. We got in the one for odd-numbered floors, went all of the way up, then had to come all of the way down again. And with 16 floors to choose from, these lifts take ages to move and they hold six people at the most. We finally got to the 10th floor and checked-in, but this was no hotel that you encounter on the street with big sign in lights for all to see, it was akin to going into someone’s flat in a dodgy tower block. And even though reception was on the 10th floor, our room was down on the 6th – it messes with your head if you try and figure out the geography of the place. The cherry on the cake was the dogsbody who was asked to take us to our room – as we waited for the lift he idly used the key in his hand to clean out first his left ear, then his right. I promised myself that if he tried to hand it to me I’d shove it up his nose for a good cleaning – see how he liked that!

Our room is absolutely miniscule. I’m not sure what type of person it is that tries to swing a cat, but if they tried it in here they’d fail. I feel like a battery hen, but without any eggs on tap (breakfast is not included). Our beds are about two feet apart, the door is three feet from them, and there’s no wardrobe. Oh hang on, there is a wardrobe, it’s just been converted into a teeny-weeny bathroom in which you cannot clean your teeth over the tiddly sink without banging the top of your head on the rusty box that passes for a medicine cabinet. It’s the smallest room we’ve had since the YMCA in New York, but I suppose at least here we do have our own bathroom. And it’s not as if we haven’t had enough experience of living in such close quarters with each other! Say it again – it’s a larf, innit?

[Sorry for the bad lighting...it's probably for the best though!]

Yep, think of it as cosy and all will be well. Plus the location is pretty fantastic, situated right in the epicentre of Kowloon, a hugely diverse multi-cultural area that was at one time the most densely-populated place on Earth. Pretty much every backpacker who comes to Hong Kong stays here – there are 1,980 beds in the whole complex. Yoshi, who we hadn’t seen since the Vietnamese border, was also staying here in a few days time. And he'd been here before and was returning, so it couldn’t be all bad! And, as we gave the lifts a wide berth and walked down the six flights of stairs to the ground, exiting onto a grubby side alley, we pretended we didn’t see the two stall owners urinating against the wall. If I don’t think about it then it’s not really there, right? Ha! What was there, or rather what was just two minutes walk from Chungking Mansions was the view across the water of the famous Hong Kong skyline, lit up in its all-conquering glory. A fantastic sight for sore eyes that had seen plenty on the long journey to get here.  

Wheels of steel

Wednesday, 31/10/2012 – 139 A.D.

I awoke in the night screaming!!!!!! It is Halloween after all...

Nah, not really. I actually drifted off to sleep quite easily after making my way to clean my teeth at the end of the carriage. Standing over the squat toilet while the train is careering around corners is like surfing on a very scary sea. And speaking of being scared, goodness knows what young Vietnamese girl thought of weird lanky English bloke lying across from her on the top bunk watching Apocalypse Now on his laptop. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that she could have been thinking all kinds of worried thoughts…well, actually that’s debatable, given that she was sleeping peacefully as could be. And as for granny down below, she was sleeping more peacefully than anyone else, snoring away as Tim looked up at me with disgust before gesturing to our elderly companion and shaking his head. Guess he was going to need his headphones in to help him get off to sleep. And fortunately I did not have to listen to the wisdom of Karl Pilkington for long before I was ready to lower the eyelids and head for Slumberland.

I was awoken by the PA system blaring some ghastly music, followed by a speech that went on for ages in Vietnamese, then one that went on for a lot less time in English. Daylight was coming through the curtains, but I was too lost in my snooze to take in anything that was being said. Suddenly I was shaken into full awareness by granny, muttering at me in foreign and pointing above my head. Oh yeah, her big bag was still stashed above me and I guess it was her stop. But last night she’d said she was going to Hanoi…or rather, I’d looked at her and said, “Hanoi?” and she’d nodded. ‘Yes, young man,’ she must have thought, ‘Hanoi is the capital city in Vietnam, which is where this train goes, but I am not going there’. And so she left, and I never even caught her name. Upon glancing at my watch I saw it was 06:00 – back to sleep for me!

Although sleeping on the train was a bummer, I did at least have the opportunity to get plenty of hours of shuteye. I think it was approaching 10:00 when I finally came down from my top bunk and munched my way through the “chocolate bun” I’d bought from the mini-mart the day before – it wasn’t actually that bad, might get another one in for the next journey. And while I was down there eating it, young `un was still up above, sleeping away. Given that she first went up about 07:30, she was close to clocking up a good 14 hours! Wot no book to read?!

The train arrived a Da Nang on time – wayhay! No platform for us to alight to, that’s okay, we’ll just walk across the tracks with our big heavy luggage to the station building and hope an express doesn’t whoosh through. There are taxi drivers a-plenty bugging me, but Tim knows where he is going and he’s already halfway across the courtyard outside the front of the building. You see, Tim has suddenly discovered that his phone can do satnav even when it’s not connected to the internet. So, essentially that means that we can pinpoint ourselves on any map in any country at any time and work out where we are and where we need to go! All those bloody cities where we were wandering around like a couple of lost souls without a clue where we were heading! Thing is, it seems to be one of those sat navs which isn’t reliable 100% of the time. In fact, we’re lucky if we get 50% right now…

We made it to the bus stop, or rather we made it to the street which the bus goes along. Who needs an official structure for a bus to stop at when you can just put out your hand and direct it towards you? This would be the 30 – 45 minute journey from Da Nang to the nearby coastal town of Hoi An…no, not Hanoi, Hoi An. And currently we’re in Da Nang, but I’m sure somewhere in Vietnam there is a place called Nang Da. But leaving that aside, we had been told to be wary of scams on this bus. The price was supposedly 15,000 dong, but tourists have regularly been charged 50,000 for the trip. Okay, so we just insist on 15,000 before we get on, right? Apparently the price is written on the side of the bus.

It wasn’t written on the side of the bus. When it turned down the street we held out our hands and it duly stopped. Two doors were open on the vehicle, one at the front, one at the back, and each was guarded by a loud, young conductor. We went to the door at the back and were practically yanked on board, the bus having zoomed off again before we’d even unstrapped the rucksacks from our backs. So much for paying before we got on! Conductor #1 took our bags and put them to one side and we sat down on the back row, the cheap seats. There weren’t that many seats on the bus altogether, most of the space at the back was for luggage, or for people who got on late and didn’t get a seat and had to squat. Like when they go to the toilet.

To be honest, this was probably the worst bus I’ve been on so far during our whole trip, the only saving grace being that it had recently rained in Da Nang, so the temperature was quite cool. But apart from that it was as rough `n` ready as it comes, but at least we weren’t going far. A young, studious girl boarded the bus and sat next to me, so I took my chance and asked if she spoke English – pretty well, as it happened. Then I asked her what the fair to Hoi An was supposed to be. She was very honest saying that the official price was 18,000 dong, but she has heard of tourists being charged anything up to 50,000. But the official price IS 18,000, so if I gave 20,000 then that would probably be fine. I was most grateful for her for the advice, happy that I wouldn’t be scammed by this travelling menagerie that called itself a bus service. However, a few minutes later, Conductor #2 appeared and spoke to my new friend in Vietnamese, gesturing towards Tim and I as he did so. I could see what he was saying – “What have you been telling those idiot foreigners? Have you been saying they can get a cheaper price?” I felt sorry for the poor girl, especially as I was the one who caused all the fuss, but I wasn’t really sure how I could intervene and put things right. This wasn’t hip, urban Saigon anymore, I was up in the midland region of the country, where possibly foreigners weren’t as accepted as they were in the park by the ever-friendly students. My assessment was pretty accurate. After a period of uncomfortable silence, the girl turned back to me and said she’d misunderstood and that the price for foreigners was double that for Vietnamese. She was very apologetic, but I told her that it wasn’t her fault and not to worry. I’d done my research on Vietnam and I knew that in recent memory it was perfectly normal for tourists to be charged up to 400% more for things than locals, so this was kind of expected, even though it was the first time I’d experienced it.

So what to do? I had Conductor #2 hassling me for payment – 40,000 each for Tim and I – but Conductor #1 had already said I could pay on arrival at Hoi An, and not before, which I expressly stated to Conductor #2. It gave me some time to think of a way I could possibly get away without paying the extra. Yeah, yeah, it’s only 20,000 dong, which is under one pound, but it’s the principle of having to pay more because you’re not from around these parts. Like we don’t contribute enough to the local economy just by being here! (and by "we" I mean tourists in general, not just the Grayboys). When Conductor #2 hassled me again for the money some 5 kilometres before arriving at Hoi An, I stalled and claimed that my dad was Vietnamese, making me half-Vietnamese and therefore only having to pay 30,000 dong. It fell on deaf ears, or ears that did not understand. In the end, Conductor #1 sat down next to me and we had a bit of a friendly chat before pulling into Hoi An bus station and I was happy to give him the 40,000…just so long as evil Conductor #2 didn’t get it! At the end of the day, there’s only so much protesting you can do, especially if you’ve spent the night on a sleeper train with someone else’s grandma snoring below you.

[Downtown traffic, Hoi An-style.]

We left the bus station and walked it to our new residence – The Sunshine Hotel. Shame it was overcast, gloomy and soon to rain. How bizarre that the day before I had been sweating through my shirt and today I felt quite chilly…just like being back in England again! But without the hot bit, no? Anyway, the room is fantastic and, get this, the bathroom is THE best we have experienced at any time on our travels! Take that, Angkor Pearl in Cambodia! There’s something about marble in a bathroom that does things to weary travellers.

After chucking our stuff all about the pristine room and making a mess, we waited for the passing shower to go, then headed into town. Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but you’ll hear all about that tomorrow. Tonight we simply went to have a quick meal, finding a decent little restaurant as the rain came down again. We must then have said no to a whole legion of hawkers selling plastic ponchos and umbrellas before we realised that we might actually need a couple ourselves…but were they anywhere to be seen after said realisation? Nope, they’d all hopped it. Why can you never ever find a dodgy hawker selling naff goods when you need one?

[The big, spooky candle was about as Halloween as it got around Hoi An!]

Civil war

Sunday, 28/10/2012 – 136 A.D.

Things I have noticed from being in Saigon so far:

·         There is a small supermarket close to our hotel. When you walk inside a member of staff immediately comes up to you, picks up a (pink) basket, and follows you around the store. If you’re like me and wave away the need for a basket, they do put it back, but still insist on following you around as you browse. Must be store policy, but it freaked us out. We left without spending a single dong.

·         There are slightly more hawkers here than anywhere else we’ve experienced, the big difference being that they constantly hassle you when you’re eating your meals. Fair enough, when I smile and say, “Thank you, no,” they rarely persist in their efforts to sell me something. However, I noticed that the local clientele are far more rude. When the hawkers come to them they completely blank them, either remaining silent and refusing to look their way, or continuing their conversations with their dining companions without pausing for a refusal. It just looks plain rude and makes me feel a bit sorry for the hawkers, who are obviously poorer than the punters they’re pushing the goods upon. So if I feel so sorry, surely I should go ahead and buy something? 1. I don’t smoke anymore. 2. I don’t like bananas. 3. I already have the regulation two backpacker wristbands on my arm, can’t go for more. 4. Isn’t that enough?

·         Certain internet sites are banned here. No, not those kind of sites! But very popular ones nonetheless. The odd TV channel too (alas none showing historical soap operas or playing karaoke!) Being able to walk the streets so freely is one thing, but when I go to log on I have to remind myself that this is technically a Communist country. Which sites are banned? Not telling you – I’ve already said too much!

·         There is a storm coming. You know that big one that hit the Philippines recently? Well apparently it’s heading the way of Vietnam. I would tune into an English-speaking channel to check the weather forecast, but guess what? They’re banned.

Anyway, enough crappy observations, back to today…

The Grayboys woke up feeling reasonably okay this morning. Symptoms still exist, but they’re on the way out. And there were fortunately no roaches kicking around beneath the pillows, sheets or eyelids, so that’s a result. Guess the maid must have sprayed her spray a bit harder when she attacked the room yesterday.

This morning we went to the War Remnants Museum. Sounds a bit naff, doesn’t it? It’s not actually, it’s a very popular tourist destination. Sounds a bit grim, doesn’t it? And you’d be right. This is a museum on several floors detailing all that went on, not just during the Vietnam War involving the Americans, but also the 1950s conflicts where the Vietnamese booted out their French colonial masters, which effectively led to the chaos that followed until reunification was complete (which you heard enough about in yesterday’s blog!)

What immediately hit me was how everything was from the Vietnamese perspective – there were no direct accusations that the U.S. should never have got involved, but massive undertones suggesting that the fault was well and truly with them. And, when I saw the countless photos and souvenirs from the village massacres of the early days, I found myself struggling to remain neutral, though I knew that I wasn’t getting the full picture. But so what? Atrocities are still atrocities, no matter who is wrong or who is right.

Some of the photographs on display really gripped me, to the point that for a few brief minutes I thought of myself in a new career as a foreign correspondent covering wars in far off parts. Then I remembered Smedley, and I came to my senses again. But while viewing the exhibits I was transported far away. However, the most harrowing part was the section showing some of the results of the U.S. dropping Agent Orange – chemical warfare – on the rural population. I had to move quickly through that and took no photos.

In fact, I didn’t take many photos of the whole museum. I hate to say it, but Tim and I agreed that we’re getting a bit “warred-out” at the moment, first with the horrors of Cambodia, now those of Vietnam. We commented as we left that there must be some nicer, happier exports that this part of south east Asia can be proud of, but if there are (and I’m sure there are), then they’re all overshadowed by these damn bloody wars. It’s partly because we are warred-out (terrible expression, I know) that we won’t be going to the Chu Chi Tunnels 40 kilometres outside of town. This is an underground network used by the town’s citizens to escape the bombing and most travellers who come to these parts end up there at some point. Maybe it’s because we’re still a tiny bit under the weather, because we don’t want to get up at 06:30 to drive 1.5 hours out of town, because we’ve had enough of war and all that it’s not good for, or maybe because we just can’t be arsed. Go figure!

The early part of the afternoon was spent in the room at the hotel. This is a room without a window. We had to get out to go…somewhere! Anywhere!

We took a walk west to “District 5”, AKA Chinatown. The plan was to find a Chinese travel agent. We still have to book our flight from Xi`an to Kathmandu at the end of November and the guidebook reckons we might get a better deal if we do it through a Chinese travel agent, i.e. one who handles regular bulk bookings through China. And after a long, sweaty walk, we found what the map said to be Chinatown, though it looked just like the rest of the city. Time to find a travel agent? No – it’s Sunday. They’re all closed. Bugger!

Later that evening, while over dinner in a back alley restaurant, a conversation we were having led me to ask Tim the following question:

“Do you do surreal?”

He laughed the laugh of a man who is feeling the strain but fighting it, and replied with the following.

“Do you do serious?”

I said that I did, then repeated my original question. He said that he did do surreal, but he’s had four solid months of surreal, so it may not look like he does it anymore. Poor lad! But I appreciated his honesty. That may not seem like much of an exchange to you, dear readers, but when you’ve shared a bedroom with someone for 135 nights, you need to know if they do or don’t do surreal. Otherwise you won’t sleep for the 136^th night.

After dinner we went to a place we’d earmarked earlier, name of the Boston Sports Bar. They were advertising the Merseyside Derby at 20:30 and there was no way we were going to miss that. Shame the linesman missed the fact that our third goal was CLEARLY ONSIDE  - DO YOU NEED GLASSES OR WHAT, MATE????

And relax…

I wanna be sedated

Friday, 12/10/2012 – 120 A.D.

“You can’t get lost if you don’t care where you are!”

-          Shop front in Chiang Mai

08:45: We woke up at a decent hour today! Finally made it to Chiang Mai…

…and don’t worry, I’m not going to stick to the same format as yesterday, updating you at every minute when something occurred! Tarwan Court Hotel is down a side alley just outside of the old city of Chiang Mai. The old city is shaped like a square and surrounded by an old moat, bits of which date back to the late 13^th century. Chiang Mai has a population of 175,000 and is akin to the great smoke of Thailand’s north. It is an important centre both historically and economically, but it still has a small town feel and has its fair share of Western tourists, even at the end of the rainy season. See, I’ve been doing my homework…well what else was I supposed to do on a 16 hour train journey???

Tarwan Court has a fine-looking exterior, although the room is a bit below the standard that we’ve been used to, but, and in the voice of Derek Trotter, “What do you expect for six quid?” Exactly. A working internet would be nice, but I’ll leave my moaning about that for now. When we crash-landed early in the morning the only thing we could do was get our heads down and ignore the vague sounds of late night revellers returning home and shouting in the lobby. I normally like a chunky pillow, but this one was like a breeze block. Still being wired from the elongated train journey didn’t help, so I tossed and turned and ended up sleeping on my right side.

I don’t normally sleep on my right, not since America. Maybe it was the hot US climate, but I found that whenever I slept on my right I woke up unable to hear properly in my right ear, at least only temporarily. Give it a few minutes and it was fine. Not today though, I was still hearing very little out of my right ear even at breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, it was the best yet – the “American” version coincidentally consisting of a couple of fried eggs, couple of slices of toast and a couple of sausages (I don’t ask what they put in them). Felt great to be full.

After dropping off some laundry with the hotel’s head honcho, I talked to the live-in tour-guide person, a woman by the name of Longtip  [SIC] who has her desk just outside our room. She wasn’t able to help with our internet problems, but it was difficult to hear what she was saying with my bunged-up ear over the building work that was taking place on the upper floors. Yeah, I’ve probably got some blockage in the ear and I’ll get some ear drops where I can, but I don’t fancy going to a Thai doctor to get it sorted if I can put up with sleeping on the left side of my face for the next two months, which I can.

There were two things we wanted to do in Chiang Mai – go to Tiger Kingdom and do some elephant trekking. Fortunately Longtip was on hand to get us the best deals on both. Well, she claimed they were the best deals! She immediately presented us with a full day package out in the wilds of the local area that involved elephant riding and various other things, including pick up from the hotel – SOLD! She also told us she could arrange a taxi for us to Tiger Kingdom and back for 200 baht (the price we told her we’d heard was the going rate) – SOLD! All we had to do was return at 2.00 p.m. and our chariot would await.

As you know (if you’ve read these scribblings for a while), our time in Thailand is squeezed by the 15 days our visa allows us, which subsequently meant we didn’t have much time in Chiang Mai. Therefore we left the hotel and headed down the main drag into the old city, i.e. the bit behind the wall and the moat (think Chester with fewer Welsh people nearby and no Alderley Edge, or whatever the swanky area is). We did everything south of the road running through the centre of the old town, taking in temples here and there. Tim said that he felt something quite profound in one of the inner sanctums, but he wasn’t able to clarify what it was. I hate to say it, but I’m getting a bit templed-out…it’s not enough for me just to see one in the centre of a city, now it needs to be an isolated monastery on the side of a mountain that has never been seen by Western eyes. Maybe it’s the whole shoes-off-shoes-on over and over that it getting to me! It would be a totally different story if I wore flip-flops…

If you can’t read the above sign next to me, it says, “Crying with the wise is better than laughing with the fool”. And yes, I am doing my best to laugh, rather than look in uncomfortable pain. This was a garden beside one of the larger temples that contained other classic lines, such as:

·         Merit making calculated to impress is not real merit.

·         Clean, clear, calm; these are characteristics of a noble person.

·         Everyone may be a fool, but nobody is a fool for ever.

·         Today is better than two tomorrows.

·         Every honest work is honourable work.

·         Constant dripping wears away the stone.

Y’all fancy contemplating those in your meditation chambers? Time was limited, so we headed back to the newer part of town, pausing at the following temple of doom:

Yep, they even have them over here, and the cashiers are just as slow. Plus my credit card wouldn’t work in their machine. It didn’t delay us for too long, but upon returning to the hotel we were pretty much off out again. Our driver to Animal Kingdom was none other than Longtip, our taxi was Longtip’s own car. Seemed she was doing a bit of moonlighting for 200 baht. In the front seat was a young lad called Winn [SIC] who she claimed was “her partner”, though something may have been lost in translation. He said he was an English language teacher in Bangkok, but he didn’t say much more.

We used the drive as an opportunity to ask about various things that have vexed us thus far, e.g. what’s the deal with the miniature temples that stand outside pretty much every house we see? Longtip explains that when you build a house you must also build somewhere for the spirit that occupies that land to live. Thailand is 95% Buddhist and it’s quite strange to be in a country where Christianity is virtually non-existent. No danger of the missionaries trying to convert us over here! I felt a bit stupid sitting in the back of the car and holding my finger against my ear lobe so that I could hear clearly – nope, normal hearing still hadn’t returned!

The drive is interrupted by a hard shower of rain. Longtip assures us it will last only ten minutes and it does. Tiger Kingdom is one of the premier attractions in Chiang Mai, along with “Flight of the Gibbon” which is essentially Thailand’s version of Go Ape (been there, done that!) The staff are dressed in the typical zookeepers’ fatigues and they all have a good knowledge of English, as you’d expect. The deal here is that you not only look at the tigers, you get in the cages with them. I’d heard rumours that they were drugged, hence docile enough for strangers to stroke, but a notice in the waiting area assured us this was not the case. It went on to say they had been around humans all their lives and were well-fed regularly, which is why they had no interest in wanting to eat humans. Right. And what do they do during the mating season? Is the place closed?

Tiger Kingdom has four types of tigers – big, medium, small and smallest. There were various deals floating about and I opted to go for the big and small tigers, whereas Tim went for the big and smallest. Obviously big are full grown adults, whereas small are about 6 months and smallest are anything from two to four months old. Not sure about the medium ones…they’re probably at that bored teenager stage and best avoiding.

Once you’ve left the waiting area you have the options to get in with your tigers immediately or hang around for a bit and look at them from the other side of the cage. Straight away I could tell that these tigers were not drugged – far from it! The display of boisterous aggression from two big bastards in the pool got my little heart beating quite fast indeed! Maybe I should have gone for the smallest and left it at that? Also present was a male lion who we were told was called “Johnny Depp”…errr, because of his hair!

At the enclosure for the smallest tigers, Tim takes off his shoes and puts on the flip-flops provided, then familiarises himself with the rules, such as no sudden movements, no touching of the tiger’s heads, and not to let them lick you in case they catch an infection. After all our time on the road, chances are we’re carrying quite a few germs (but not those kind of germs!) Needless to say, Tim has lots of fun with the little `uns, even getting to use one of them as a pillow. And rest assured that the keepers are always close by, never leaving you alone with them.

Next I go in with the small tigers and have a blast. There are four of them in the enclosure, two girls and two boys, all siblings. They are extremely playful and constantly fighting with each other and rushing around. The keeper has to take them to one side and calm them down to get the required photos for the tourists. Things are going great until all four tigers pile onto each other and the mass of black and orange limbs spills out over the side of their playpen and crashes down around my legs. Then I realise that these playful little cuties have the potential to bite off the very legs they have fallen onto. I remain rooted to the spot until they chase each other off to the other side of the enclosure. Great fun!

Finally it’s time for the big ones! We both go in together and are told not to approach them face on, only from behind. Again there are four of them in the enclosure. The keepers have small sticks, which unfortunately they use, though it’s in the form of a gentle deterrent rather than to inflict any pain. Even so, to gently deter a 400 pound tiger, you need to do more than tickle it on the nose. Anyway, the usual way I make banter with the locals is to ask them if they like English football (they invariably do) and this time it was no exception, the only bad thing being they all liked M*n Un*ted. I’m sure it was just a joke and the first tiger we had our picture taken with was not actually called “Van Persie”! 

[See the fear in his eyes as Tim strokes his back!]

["Tee hee - I loved making those Grayboys feel uneasy!"]

There was a potentially scary time for Tim when he almost put his head against the electric fence, plus a nervous couple of moments when the tigers we were sitting by suddenly jumped up and ran over to give their mate / relative a playful swipe to the side of the face with a gigantic paw. It was strange find oneself become at ease with such large and majestic creatures, then suddenly realising that one haven’t been checking behind oneself for the past 30 minutes! But it all ended well and Tim got to cross another thing off his bucket list. Me? I don’t have a bucket list, I just had a great time.

Like good chauffeurs, Longtip and Winn were waiting for us when we came out. They hadn’t been anywhere, just hung around for the two or so hours while we were with the tigers – customer service, Thailand-style! After they dropped us off at Tawan Court we had a shower, shave and sh…indig, then took a walk to the Night Bazaar, essentially a nocturnal market with plenty of inexpensive places to eat. We tucked into the local delicacy of “cow soy” [probably SIC]. One thing I cannot get enough of is strolling around the various stalls with a full belly on a balmy warm night. During the day the climate here is just as harsh as the south, but once that sun sets it’s much more manageable.

For an after dinner drink we found ourselves on the outskirts of the Night Bazaar. Here the central courtyard is surrounded by lots of small bars, some so tiny they consist of barely a couple of stools. Some of the larger ones had pool tables and most of the tables had the game Connect 4 upon them. A bar for kids? Nope, I’d been briefed on this one – the story goes that when a certain type of bloke is looking for a certain type of lass, they often break the ice with a game of some sort, and Connect 4 is a favourite. So, you could say it’s Connect FOREPLAY – bwahahahar! Sorry, I’ll go now, and we went soon after, not having had any offers for a game from the girls in tight dresses and high heels that were hanging around. And, at some point before heading back to the hotel one last time today, my ear came around and I could hear properly again, but even with restored audio I still didn’t get any requests for Monopoly Thailand-style.