Oh, Superman.

I saw Laurie Anderson in Starbucks in Union Square just before I left for Vietnam. She smiled at me. I smiled back because she looked familiar and I’m friendly like that. But, I digress…

In Asia, and I suppose any poor country, being a Westerner is similar to being famous; people are always vying for your attention. Admitedly when your famous they want you and your attention, and when you’re rich in a poor country they want (usually) your money, but ultimately, the effect is similar. Wherever you go you're not short of attention, be it a street hawker trying to sell you some tat or some kids who call out "Hello" as you walk by. Wherever you go, you're comparatively very rich - even if you're a lowly backpacker.

I think some men develop a strange arrogance that they’d never pull-off, or even attempt, in their own countries; a kind of Superman Complex. I suspect it's the lamest gits who do it because back home they're the people with the least power--kind of like poor-quality TSA officials who get ignored when they're out of uniform but who get to wield a small amount of power at work and consequently milk it. In Asia these guys are easy to spot and seemed more common than they should be.

It does get a bit tiring constantly saying “No” to Motorbike Taxis, Cyclos, Restaurant Hawkers and the like, but it’s not like they’re bugging you for any other reason than they want to make a living; it’s certainly not because any of us whiteys are so special. And over there we are very rich in comparison, pretending we're not is kind of silly and pointless. (I didn't see any Vietnamese take a year off to go find themselves after college or to--slaps back of hand to forehead--get away from their cruel and gruelling music-business jobs for some r n' r traveling around for three weeks). But like the newly famous, there’s a tendency for some to be gauche and arrogant – waving away the pesky little natives with a regal flick of the wrist, as though the attention means anything in the first place, and the dismissive air correspondingly means whitey is just too above it all, too over this shit.

At it’s most obvious it’s the plug ugly bastard with the cute yellow girl--like the French bloke on the plane from Hue to Saigon. He looked like one of the baddie collaborators in a WWII war movie or maybe Quasimodo's ugly mate, she looked like she danced and she was showing way too much skin in her tight Bebe sequinned top and short denim skirt. That doesn’t take much to work out, and it’s more common than I thought it would be. On the plane he was showing her the map in the magazine and what the sick-bag was for (well, not an actual physical demonstration....) as if it were her first time in the air. To their credit (I know, judgemental bastard that I am) she seemed affectionate with him but at some level and to casual eye the reationship seemed uneven. I don't bemoan anyone finding love anywhere, but there's something unsavoury about picking up country girls overseas. Or am I saying that just because I couldn't?

I saw another guy trying to pick up a stunning but very demure Vietnamese girl at Hanoi Airport. She gave off no signs of interest that I could see, but this twat—who looked like he’d not only been hit by one ugly stick but had been beaten daily since he was a child by a whole forest of ugly sticks – was coming onto her. If she’d been in the west she would have been out his league, completely - and maybe he's one of those guys who always plays out of his league? - but the fact he was traveling alone to a resort town in a developing country and dressed like a muppet told me that he probably wasn't. He was simpering and smarmy. If she'd come from New York she would have told him to F*** Off, that much was clear. But she was a nice Vietnamese lady and (probably) wouldn't do that.

There’s a cockiness to some numptys who are plain rude and you know these people wouldn’t dream of behaving this way at home. One geezer walked into the Catholic Cathedral in Hanoi, walked up the aisle, started taking photos during the service, and then walked around again, stepping through groups of praying Vietnamese catholics without so much as an excuse me. Can’t imagine him doing this in a church in the West. I think it’s because that in some way some Westerners can find Asians not quite people because of little perceived commonality between the races and because to a degree, at least in the Cities, you know you're not going to get messed with by anyone as a rule and can float above the local society if you want to. (I know this works the other way too – a quick walk as a Westerner through Ho Chi Minh City or Shanghai will tell you that much - or even smaller towns in China where they’ll shout “Laowai!” as you walk past – it means Foreigner).

The sales tactics are sometimes extreme and persistent but I’ve found calm ignorance works as well as sanctimonious indignation (hawkers leave you alone if they get no reaction-they ain't got time to waste). Whitey walks through the poor areas looking regally at the poor and maybe hoping to pay peanuts for tat to take home ("I got this G.I. Zippo lighter for less than the locals pay for it!"--"Great, do the locals buy fake G.I. Zippo lighters then?"). The Asians see Whitey and start hustling so they can feed their kids. They know you've got money - how else do you fly to the other side of the world and not work for a few weeks? One can’t really complain about being hustled if you walk through a street market as whichever way you cut it, you're waving your wealth around, whether you mean to or not–-if you want solicitous and subtle service go to Bergdorfs where they're calmer about trying to get your cash. I suspect some people get off on the attention and of the dubious power it gives them to be dismissive. In fact, I'd put money on it.

This isn't true of everyone, not by a long shot, but it's true of many. You can see it after a while; the haughtiness, the affected superiority, the lack of respect or interaction. And you know that these tossers back home would be the emasculated cretins who have no power or dignity in their own lives; the guy no one listens to in the office, the bloke who can't get on the packed train. I guess the extreme example of this are the sex-tourists. I didn't see any obvious prostitution while I was there, except for the motorbike taxi guys in Saigon who, after I'd told them several times I didn't want a motorbike taxi ride anywhere, would offer to get me women - the logic of such a sales trail I couldn't quite fathom: don't want a taxi? How about a shag with a whore then? There were a few dodgy looking Karaoke bars and massage places I guess, but the Vietnamese don't seem like an overt people in whatever they do - unless they're motorbike taxi drivers.

And to be fair, as far as dubious-looking relationships go who am I to judge? Ten years ago in New York when I went for my green card interview the Immigration Official thought I was the American marrying my ex-wife into the country as she’s ABC. Now that I think of it, was he saying I'm plug ugly and white and she was cute?

Hue:

Hue is in Central Vietnam, about 700Km south of Hanoi. My flight from Hanoi was delayed by 5 hours, which was a nice bonus. The good thing about flying in Vietnam is that the service is like old school Western flying, with polite staff (even when you’re not in business) and little meals, even a sandwich on very short flights. It seems like a long time ago that there was any real service on flights, although it was probably only pre-2001. I was half-expecting them to have a smoking section….

Hue was once the capital of Vietnam and in its centre is a still a huge ancient Citadel with a 10Km walled circumference and a lilly covered moat.



Inside is the tallest flagpole in Vietnam, allegedly. I looked everywhere I went but I saw none more taller although it was election week / Ho Chi Minh's Birthday and there were lots of flags out for the lads.




Inside the vast Citadel area was an even more exclusive former Emporer's Palace, with its own 2 1/2Km long wall and moat.





This is the East Gate. It's ornate but in comparison to the main entrance it looks like the back door....



I took a motorbike tour around the city which I was initially wary of and had asked about a helmet. Thu, the proprietress of the business running the tour, waved me off; her brothers (of which she had 9) were the drivers – we were safe. Turns out she was right and I was being a wuss. (She also asked where I was from and then spat out a series of quick British punchlines / TV Star Catchphrases / regional comments such as "fancy a pint, love?" and "Awright my darlin'?" It was weird, like a performance she'd learnt from and for tourists. It made me feel uncomfortable for a reason I still don't understand clearly. I guess she was trying to be hospitable - she had comments for Americans and Australians too, but it felt like an unecessary performance...it made other people laugh but to me it felt like; look, the cute little Vietnamese lady can say "Booyaka!" too, just like Ali G. Isn't that funny? I feel like I might be being too harsh here, and the woman was busting her balls running her business and taking care of her large family so fair play to her, but you can't help how you feel. She could have been friendly and Vietnamese and that would have been fine for me. I'm digressing, more on backpacking culture later, though...) On the motorbikes we zipped around Hue for 5 hours from pagoda to temple to ancient tomb. By 10AM it was 38 degrees – even on the back of a motorbike the air felt less like a breeze and more like a hairdryer. It was ace. (after 10 minutes zipping around I was thinking I should have bought Jamie's motorbike....)

It was the rice harvest - in different parts of Vietnam there are 1, 2 or 3 harvests a year, depending upon how far south you live. The work is all by hand and is excruciating, bent over in 100 degree heat up to your shins in water all day picking rice, or carrying 80Kg bundles of the stuff. They earn about US$0.30 per kilo. Out in the countryside, the cattle and sometimes water buffalo wander freely onto quite major roads.



Just 10 minutes from "downtown" Hue is the Japanese Bridge, a gift from a noblewoman to the little people. It's exquisite and in the middle of nowhere. It's 300 years old or so and still in its original condition. During the midday heat the locals come and lie down in it.



When the rice is picked it is dried on the ground or on sheets laid along the roadside (which explains why there's occasionally pieces of grit in rice...) and the farmers rake it over to dry it before bagging it.



I took this as we passed a woman with a load of live ducks on her motorbike. I saw all manner of things carted around on motorbikes - live ducks, live pigs, large panes of glass, machine tools, everything....



This is the famous Bunker Hill and one of the said Bunkers. They were first used during the French war in Vietnam.



Runing below Bunker Hill is the The Perfume River, so named after the flowers that bloom briefly on it when the weather is right. The small boats in the distance house families of up to 6 who live and work in the tiny covered areas. God knows how....




On the second day in Hue I took a trip to the old DMZ near the 17th Parallel between North and South Vietnam. The history was interesting to hear but it was strange to imagine what had happened there now that it was once again productive farmland and lush mountain forests. There were photo’s at the former Khe Shan military base museum showing mountains cleared of foliage by Agent Orange and Napalm. These days it looks like a tropical version of Scotland without all the fighting. At one point our bus was stopped on the road by some kid. A minute later there was an explosion on the hillside and as shower of gravel as a mining crew blew a hole in a quarry. It was a kind of Vietnam War reality moment.

This is one of the exhibits at the former Khe Shan military base. At most museums I went to they had a display of American shells and bombs. Khe Shan was an important point in the war, the NVA faked a build-up of troops around it in the mountains and the Americans correspondingly over-defended the base, drawing troops away from other areas so that when the NVA launched the TET Offensive the US had soldiers in the wrong places. Khe Shan is a deserted, overgrown base by a small town now - the photo's in the exhibit show it as a huge military installation.




Nice Chopper.



Here's the overgrown landing-strip out back...




We stopped by this bridge which was once on one of the 5 Ho Chi Minh trails that led from North Vietnam down to the South to supply the Viet Cong with arms and supplies. part of the reason the US used Agent Orange was to cut a swathe (the Macnamara Line which was never completed) through the forests right across the country from the ocean to Laos to make it impossible for the NVA to continue the trails. The US stopped all but one of the trails.



While we were there some local kids went batshit crazy begging (under the tutelage of their father / uncle) for this woman's water bottle. They pestered her and pestered her and were just like kids anywhere with their excitement and their clamouring. When she gave it to them they shared it amongst themselves as they walked away. When they'd had enough (and before they'd finished the water) they chucked the bottle casually over the railing of the bridge into the river below and immediately ran across the road to another Westerner to beg them for their water, as if the real fun was in trying to see if they could get it in the first place, even if they didn't really want it.



The ongoing entertainment on our hot and sweaty bus ride (It was again 100 degrees in the shade) was hearing the Canadian guy behind me try to get inside the tee-shirt of the girl from San Francisco. A man shouldn’t ever listen to another man trying to shag a girl, there’s no dignity to it, and it’s too easy to hear when he’s lying, like this guy was most of the time.** At one point I thought she was going for it too. If she did then they'd probably have deserved each other, they were elite backpackers (you can see them both in the bridge photo - she's taking pictures in the middle, he'd changed into a tight tank-top during one of the stops and he was "casually" following her along the bridge. And yes, I was watching both of them. That's what gets me off....). But you know when someone has a slightly better experience than you one minute after you’ve said something, regardless of what you say? He did that – he’d taught here; bungee-ed there; and gone mine-clearing everywhere (or been attacked by machete weilding africans somewhere else). It wasn't possible for the guy to just be impressed or to say I don't know. Whatever this girl said to him he could top, which I guess is why he’d been traveling alone for 10 years because who wants to hang out with a knobhead like that? He wasn’t a bad looking guy either, but he did keep pulling Blue Steel every chance he could, which was funny after a while. it kind of looked like he'd just been slapped around the face for most of the day. Bless. Free fun for me though, small man that I am.


The North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese were once separated by this river. One side would build a tower and a flagpole and then the other side would build a tower slightly higher and erect a bigger flagpole. One side would blast speakers with music and propaganda then the other side would get more speakers and do the same thing only louder.



This is the 230 metre high (755 ft) Rockpile that the US used as a lookout in the DMZ. After the whole area had been treated with Agent Orange and Napalmed it was nothing more than a big pile of rocks, funnily enough. The US soldiers used to have to be airlifted onto it by helicopters.



We also visited the Vinh Moc tunnels. People lived in these for 5 years under heavy US shelling. Even holes made by US bombs dropped from B52s had been converted into air shafts. 17 babies were born down here, and strangely, 6 of the tunnel exits came out onto this beach. See what I mean about the war seeming incongruous in the face of such beauty?



Inside one of the tunnels: I'm 6ft tall and if walked with a hunched back and my head bowed I could get through most of these. There were three levels connected by stairs and trapdoors, the lowest level was excavated to 23 meters. It seems impossible when you're down there that anyone could have dug them as the complex is so vast and involved. There were rooms dug out in the side for people to sleep in (they were tiny) and even a room they used for baby deliveries near one of the exits....



This is the main meeting room at 15 meters underground. 40 people could fit in here - 40 Vietnamese, that is; not 40 porky westerners. They used to show movies down here as well as hold concerts and meetings.



Back in Hue it was sunset.



And I got back to my room and my little mate. I liked having a lizard in the room - even if he did hide beind the headboard on the bed. The greedy little bastard ate 5 moths for dinner one night when I came in and turned the light on. I was impressed with him to be honest. He was quick. And I guess moths are good for you as there wasn't an ounce of fat on him.



** I, on the other hand, have never sounded like a twat when I've been trying to chat-up a woman. Nor have I ever lied, ever.

Orange Crush

On our way to Halong Bay the bus stopped, both there and back, at the half-way point so we could all go to the bathroom and buy some souveneirs from a store that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

Inside the store was a large warehouse space where they sold soft drinks, biscuits, crisps, ice-creams, postcards, clothing, hats, laquerware, embroidery and the like. There was even a factory with a few dozen people working on sewing machines putting all the stuff together. There were signs outside saying "No Photos" which I initially, and wrongheadedly, put down to the evil sweatshop bosses not wanting to be caught in the act of exploiting all the piece-workers who were doubtless working 19 hour days and sleeping under their sewing machines.

Wrong; so, so wrong.

The store was an outlet for - and I'm paraphrasing the sign on the wall here: "The survivors and families who were affected by Agent Orange in the American War. The sale of these goods helps support these victims and their families."

The guy who took my money for the bottle of water and peanut brittle I bought had no arms below the elbows. So many of the people working there were doing so quite happily with missing limbs and distorted features. On the return journey we stopped at the sister store across the road and I noticed the girl behind the book counter because she was beautiful with long dark hair and a smooth round face. When she turned her head her other eye was completely disfigured, as though part of her skull had melted beneath the surface and both eyes looked in differen directions.

I've seen a couple of beggars here who worked their disfigurement with aplomb. There was a woman by the main lake in Old Town Hanoi who walked around with a small hand-held placard in Vietnamese showing before and after pictures of herself - she'd been pretty, but then something had happened whereby her face had melted away and she'd lost her right breast - she had a topless photo to prove it that she showed to validate her story. There was also a guy by the hospital who waved his stumped thigh at me as he balanced on crutches and shook his bowl.

In the case of the woman by the lake, my initial and shameful response was to give her some money to make her go away so I didn't have to confront her ugliness (Her lower left eye lid drooped to reveal a red gash of inner eye flesh, her top lip was partly missing to show her skeletal teeth and gums). But I waited while she tried to explain her story to me in Vietnamese. I thought I could do her the courtesy of not throwing money at her and running away. Obviously she'd dealt with her disfigurement and her ego and had, in some way I still can't quite appreciate, learned to make it work for her. I guess from her point of view, if she can earn fat sums begging from rich westerners what does she care for our motives? But it struck me that in the west I'd never see begging like that. I know there are guys with no legs outside subways in New York but I can't recall any being so brazen and in your face with it. No bare stumps brandished to get the revulsion dollars; precious little burn-scarred skin shown on the #1 train at Times Square. I think it would maybe result in open hostility and disgust.

I'm not sure what my point is here, other than in a poor country a symbol of the poverty might be how little room there can be for sentimentality or middle-class niceties when it comes to trying to get by. Beggars can't just beg - they have to parade their afflictions and wounds to compete. What else do they have? Or maybe it's just a technique that works on sensitive Westerners - the same protocol as the street hawkers use when they ask you over and over if you'll buy something: if we could bear to be impolite from the get-go then they'd get the point, but somehow, we can be bullied through our own softness into a sale. How many times do people get caught after initially saying no only to tell the motorbike hawker their destination when he asks where they're going, and then to get drawn into a negotiation? How many times do we get into conversations with the guy selling crap postcards and become engaged instead of just ignoring him? It's an interesting social comparison that those who need the small amounts they earn from us to survive have obviously understood on some level. I've noticed since I've just started saying no and ignoring the hawkers they leave me alone immediately (whistling Queen songs seems to help, too). But when I've been polite and said "No thank you, I don't want a motorbike, thanks." and been less offhand and dismissive they've badgered me endlessly.

I also realised my pity is worthless to anyone except me. It's no use to a woman who's been disfigured unless I get my hand in my pocket. Pity is such a self-aggrandising, impotent feeling. It does nothing except for the person who feels it - and who wants to be pitied? (Btw, in the West the beggars I do resent are the ones who try to illicit pity and who display an affected simper and snivel. Not that I'm one to advise on the marketing of beggars but really, pity isn't a good angle, it's the whinging of begging and the flip side of pity for me is contempt, which is why I maybe don't like feeling pity myself, it's a dirty feeling--that may sound callous but if you've encountered the beggars I mean then you'll know what I'm talking about and if you haven't you'll just be thinking I'm a heartless wanker; which of course I am).

I'm trying to work out if there is a dignified way to visit poor countries as a rich westerner (and we are all filthy, stinking rich, every one of us, in comparison) without the trip being a twenty-first century version of Victorian "Slumming it." I was fascinated walking around Hanoi because, as I've said, people live on the streets. It's the culture. But it's not the culture for the rich Vietnamese - they're not sitting on small plastic stools and eating from a plate on the sidewalk only a few feet from the traffic like most of the people I've seen here. And I'm trying to work out which things are culturally viable differences (and therefore photographable), and which things are just a product of being poor - which is a universal indignity that doesn't need plump, rich white people pointing cameras at and digitising to show their friends over $5 lattes on their $2500 laptops. From what I understand the average Vietnamese person earns around $50-60 per month. Maybe the line of demarcation is hazy and vague, like the line between porn and erotica? I know it when I see it.

But back to the Agent Orange. The American War (as it's called over here) ended 30 years ago. It's a sin that people are still suffering and are living off in their own community outside of Hanoi (or that's how it appeared to me - maybe that's not the case). It's a timely reminder with the Iraq Invasion still in effect. Governments don't win or lose wars - people do. And Vietnam and the Vietnamese won theirs - it's a Communist country, which is what America was trying to prevent - and still there are young people with melted faces or who's every step twists their spine in awkward spasms a generation on.

But not on our streets. Is that just because we're richer?

I bought a book from the pretty girl. She was cute and I'm a dreaful flirt: A People's History of the War - printed and badly typeset in Vietnam. They were also selling some US Account of the tunnel warfare a Chu Chi and the blurb on the back went something like: "A Story about the brave US soldiers who climbed into tunnels so dangerous it was like crawling into Hell." I wonder if the girl with the melted face saw the irony that she should be making a living selling some jingoistic US account of a war that left her so scarred? I hope she was selling marked-up, pirated versions of those books.

I'm going to the DMZ zone in Central Veitnam next. I want to be a respectful witness to a terrible human event rather than a voyuer.

I'm genuinely not sure how to go about it.

Halong Bay:

Halong Bay is north east of Hanoi, and eventually borders Southern China. I took a two-day boat trip there this week. I'll post photo's when I'm not being oppressed by the pinko-commie regime, but until then I have to say those pinko-commies do a jolly good sightseeing tour.

There were eleven of us on the boat - brits, aussies and a couple of young republican americans. We lucked-out with the people as apart from the muted republican sentiments there weren't any fuckwits (unless maybe I was the fuckwit and they weren't telling me - kind of like if you're playing poker and you don't know who the loser is at the table then it's you). We cruised through the islands, went to see an amazing cave which was surprisingly amazing, and then went swimming near an oyster farm. I got stung by a jellyfish, which wasn't quite what I'd asked for (I didn't do the wee-on-the-sting remedy for the sting that someone I know did in France last year...funny as it was, it didn't work) but I doused it in vinegar and one of the Aussies had some anti-histamines, which was lucky as about 1/2 hour later I could feel the poison spike in the gland under my arm, tingle in my lips, and ache across my back. That wasn't painful so much as creepy. Still, I got lots of attention so what did I care? In two years the story will be that I was wrestling with a giant squid to save a boat full of women from certain death (death by squid? Hmmm...?).

We slept on the boat, replacing the Vietnamese techno music the staff wanted to play (Why is that music so ubiquitous? I don't know anyone who likes it....and you can hear it in western China, northern Vietnam, I-fucking-biza, London, LA....) with some indie-rock and folk. Then one of the American guys tried hitting on the English girls by explaining how to play blues harmonica and I went to bed instead of sniggering behind his back and pointing. I'm maturing, see?

I'll post photo's of Halong Bay when I can. And I won't attempt to describe it, except to say Bond Villains definitely live there. Actually the Vietnamese Government refused permission for a Bond film to be shot there so they went to Thailand instead. Blofeld probably has a souveneir stall in one of the caves by now. It would be more lucrative selling badly photoshopped postcards and overpriced cola than trying to take over the world these days I reckon.

I'm heading south tomorrow. Everyone who'd been south had horror stories of the south - horrible locals, tons touristy of rip-offs and muggings and I wondered why I'd spent my money on a flight to Saigon when I could have just gone down to the East Village on the #1 train.

Arf.

I did hear about a company that arranges "cultural" tours where, for a fee, you go to teach English in China or work at the Terracotta Warriors museum as a guide in Xi'an. That sounds like fun. Here, on the South China Sea, a long way from New York and any responsibilities and any practicalities (like bills...), it's easy to imagine never really going back.

Commie Girls are Cute:


Hanoi: I wasn't quite expecting Vietnam to look so much like, well, Vietnam as it did when we drove in from the airport; rice fields, people wearing conical hats, lots of mopeds - some with crates of piglets on the back - all of it just like a photo from a travel book. As we got closer to Hanoi there were huge warehouses for Yamaha and Canon too. I guess that makes it a developing country.

Hanoi is manic - it makes New York look quiet. I was overwhelmed at first, simple things like walking down the street became mildly stressful. The sidewalks, when there are any, are full of parked motorbikes which means you have to walk in the road, which are full of fast-moving motorbikes. Crossing the road is another adventure - I've done it about three times on a red stop light where the traffic is stopped (mostly) but usually you have to walk across the street as though playing a game of frogger while legions of motorbikes carrying one, two or even three people bear down on you. To everyone's cedit, I've not seen any accidents so far and on the afternoon of my second day I've acquired a certain nonchalence in wandering through the traffic.

People are friendly although I started to feel guilty taking photo's of them. People live out on the streets here - they cook on the streets, nurse babies on the street, hawk their wares on the street - there are countless little street kitchens and stalls selling food (and those which I've tried - little fried pastries and meaty spring rolls--have been amazing). I keep thinking "photo op" and then I realise I'm being a clumsy rich westerner photographing poor people while they're busy being poor. So I've stopped now. By far the funniest people I've met are the girls selling pineapple slices and bananas. They wander the streets with two baskets balanced at either end of a plank that they balance on their shoulder and they try to pose for photos and get you to hold their fruit so that you'll buy some. So cheeky, so cute. I wonder if I could smuggle some home with me.....

There was this kid waiter too, who was very friendly but who had the most fecund nasal hair I've seen in a long time. There were bushels of it. It looked out of place on him as he looked so young but it was there, like something you'd see peeking around the corner in a German Swimwear catalogue in 1974. It was hard work not talking to it instead of him.

Btw the way, Mosquitos about 25: Priest Nil. I was doing fine until I went to see the Water Puppet theatre which takes place in a standing pond of water. They were all over me like a buffet, to paraphrase Rob Dryden.

I can't post pictures or access the main page of this blog from Hanoi (or any blogs for that matter). The man won't allow it.

Stanley Market

The best thing about the Coastal Defence Museum was the view. Which looks like this.

Afterwards, I went to Stanley Market on the South Side of Hong Kong Island. Stanley Bay looks like this.

Stanley market is geared for tourists and I'm sure there are bargains there although I couldn't see anything I wanted - except maybe a cashmere sweater - but who wants to buy a cashmere sweater in 28 degree weather and chimp it around Vietnam for a fortnight? Not I....

On the bus home across the aisle from me were a young English couple. They complained and bickered the whole way back to Hong Kong Central bus station. After a while they sounded like the third day of rain on your tent during a camping holiday. I'd like to apologise to the rest of the world if we all sound like this. Once, when we were taking over the world and stealing from places like China and India, the British were quite good at things like urban infrastructure and engineering. Hong Kong's kind of a testament to that, in some ways, I think. Nowadays, because everyone can travel, our world contribution is two dopey twats comparing Repulse Bay (sapphire coloured water and beautiful sand on the South China Sea) to Weymouth (tired Georgian sewage outlet on the English Channel) and a selection of adjectives that ran to one word: shit. Your camera is shit. What kind of shit point are you going to make now? This bus is taking the shit route. Etc.

One of the advantages of Britain being an island used to be that fuckwits like this couldn't get off it easily. I am so, so sorry.

Symphony of Light:

I didn't expect to like this. I wandered out to the water's edge looking north towards China at 8PM just in time to catch the nightly 15 minute-long symphony of light. From speakers somewhere around the convention centre I could hear the music and the narrative - in English and Chinese. The music was pretty naff, it started like some cheesy Canto-Pop and then morphed into something you'd expect to be playing during a Chinese documentary showing lots of landscapes. But that aside, the symphony of light is a light show utilising dozens of the buildings on Hong Kong Island and on Kowloon across the water. It was genius; whole sides of skyscrapers and museums lit up in perfect timing to the music - parts of one skyscraper here, a strobing hotel-front on the Penninsula Hotel there, a sparkling building facade hundreds of feet high somewhere else. I was mesmerised. Here are some stills to try to convey the scale of the light show. Anything with a spotlight on the roof, or any building with any distinctive coloured light was involved. The only thing I wished when I saw it was that either Lucas or Dave Byars could have programmed it to some decent music, but really, for the scale of it, it was pretty amazing.

The Hong Kong Island side....

And the Kowloon side...both sides worked in concert with one another too...

Big Buddha:

Friday was a nice day. So I took a nice boat ride across to Lantau Island, 15KM away from Hong Kong Island by ferry. On Lantau there are some beaches, which I generously spared the locals and tourists by avoiding, a few prisons, and a giant Buddha on top of a big hill.

The Buddha at Ngong Ping looks like this.

If you pay HK$60 (US$8?) you get a vegetarian meal in the monastery and admission to the Big Buddha Museum. The flags along the pathways are in preparation for the Buddha's birthday celebrations later this month. It was very windy and they looked great, so vivid, and so noisy, snapping in the wind.

The view down to the monastery.

You can't really see the sea from the mountain as it's hidden in the haze. That's a reservoir that's perched above the Shek Pik prison to the bottom right.

The meal was terrible. Is it churlish to not like the monk food? Actually I hardly saw any monks there at all. I did see a ton of official monastery souvenier stands selling bundles of incense for offerings, and all manner of giant buddha tat - bookmarks, buddha fridge-magnets, etc. etc.... I always find that sort of hawking off-putting at anywhere that's supposed to be religious. I know it probably pays for the upkeep but.....

The Curse of the Golden Flower.

Today's adolescent photo: Out the back of the kitchens the turtles were at it. It was like Sodom and Gomorrah in that cage....this is what happens when they work out they're not going to be eaten because the monks are vegetarian; they party like Wyckyd Sceptyr....

And the VIP Hospitality left something to be desired. Then again, it was in keeping with the food....

Still, the best was yet to come. I was on top of a windy mountain. I didn't fancy getting a bus back to the ferry and then another hour on the boat so I decided to take the new 5.7Km cable-car back down the other side towards HK Airport and the subway station.

I tried to get a car to myself but got lumped in with a miserable German girl. We tried not to talk to each other but finally gave in when the cars stopped for 10 minutes and we were swinging (quite literally) in the wind from side to side. Imminent death didn't pep her up either. I mean, it's bad enough entertaining thoughts of your own demise never mind having to share those moments with some random sourpuss. Oh well, she was probably thinking something similar about me.

When we got going again and we crested a hill the view was this. It's hard to explain how breathtaking it was. The HUGE Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok airport looks like a toy below.

And then there was the water jump....

This photo is slightly tilted to the right, that's the angle the wind was blowing the car at....

But the best thing is that the cable car connects to the subway line and I was back in my hotel 45 minutes later where the evil jet-lag caught up with me and sent me to sleep until 9:30PM.

Last Nite:

Up on a hill....

Okay, enough with the lyrics.

This is the view at night (of Admiralty) from Victoria Peak. The photo's can't do it justice. I took the tram up this time - it crawls up the hillside at a 45 degree angle (ie: very steep). The floor is scalloped so that if you're standing you can get some purchase and you don't slip backwards. It takes only 7 minutes to get to the top.

Along with Rio de Janiero, Hong Kong has to be the most spectacular looking city I've ever been too. I just have to work out how I can afford the quarter of a million dollars it costs for a 350 square foot apartment here now. That's a lot of rider writing and day-sheet typing....

This is Central and behind that Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon). My hotel is next to the Orange Stripey building.

I also went to Temple Street night market where I imagine once one could find a bargain. These days it was full of tat - cheap souvenier stalls selling key fobs and fake wallets and comically fake watches, the usual..... I did get my fortune told, which was interesting. I'll be sure to let you know how accurate it is if he's right. Of course, if he's wrong, I'll never mention it again. I can tell you this: I have stubborn ears. In England we would say Pig Headed, but I never thought is was meant quite so literally.

I ate at this crap food place. It got busted for hawking while I was eating. I was listening to the cops argue with the owner and they kept saying "Europeans" in Chinese which made me a little paranoid. Still, one has to try these things. I thought that because there were plenty of Chinese eating there that it was a good bet...that and the fact that they had a soap opera playing on TV that you could watch. The old bloke serving automatically got the hump with me when he brought me an opened bottle of beer and I sent it back (I don't drink). Not to worry though, he sold it to the next couple who sat down 10 minutes later.

And here's today's adolescent picture. I'm confused, I tried to translate the Chinese quickly and it seems to be all about food and banquets and drinking. I guess this is tailored to the man who thinks with his belly.

Weirdo.

Hong Kong


The fifteen hour-long flight was extended by a late arriving inbound aircraft from Hong Kong and then by a painfully slow departure. All in all, we were on the plane for about 16 1/2 hours. My ipod died too, just for fun, right at the start of the flight. The best thing was the bloke sitting next to me and I didn't speak once to each other at all. I should have got his number to find out when he was flying again. The perfect traveling companion. Mind you, when I was married it was also possible to go 16 hours without speaking to each other too so I guess it's not so unremarkable.


Hong Kong is one of the most efficient airports around, so much so that the only delay was waiting to go through immigration because of the lines - even then, when you got to the desk the had a little tray of gummy candies for you to try while the nice man stamped your passport. I was in my hotel room 1 hour and 20 minutes after landing. Whoever runs JFK should come here and take notes. Scratch that; whoever runs JFK probably can't write so what would be the point?



I dropped my bags off in my room and wandered down to the Star Ferry Terminal before my jet-lag kicked in (I slept about seven hours on the flight, but I've learned not to trust that as a rule of thumb). Sure enough, by the time I was walking on the promenade at Tsim Sha Tsui and staring boggle-eyed across the harbour, I felt very tired. Got back just in time to crash out.



I love Hong Kong. It's one of my happy places (along with New York, LA (sometimes), Berlin, Beijing, Hawaii, Sydney, Beijing & Beijing). Something about the place makes perfect sense even though it's a chaotic cross between New York, San Francisco, London and China all at once. It's truly international. It's a working city too, so the harbour is always busy, and the whole place is a jumble of commerce and industry, from cheap hawkers in the markets to the huge International Finance Tower that dominates the island skyline.


The IFC tower and Victoria Peak from the ferry.






The air in Asia smells different - the air when you land in London smells damp and fresh, in New York it smells dry, metallic and carbonised, in LA it smells warm, like hot blacktop, and sometimes musky; in Asia it smells steamy and ripe, like there's a different kind of tropical pollen in the air, and like there are unfamiliar vegetables cooking somewhere that you can't see. I love it. It's the same in Xi'an and Tokyo and Hong Kong. For some reason since I've arrived I've been noticing smells, whether it be the ripe, steamy air, or the diesel for the ferries, or the green seaweed smell of the seawater by the ferry dock pilings, or the cooking Pork in the restaurants near my hotel, or the cigarette smoke of the old geezers who've walked up the Peak which rises 1200 feet behind my hotel.












This morning I climbed Victoria Peak for my daily exercise. It's a sheer path up the hill and it took me nearly 50 minutes of uphill walking to get there. It's so steep! Sweat beaded on my arms and hands and ran down my face, I was thirsty and sweat-soaked at the same time, kind of like being in a sauna (only I was wearing more than a towel and my speedos). When I got to the top for good measure I ran the 3KM loop around the Peak. It's the best running track in the world with the best views (I'll take my camera tomorrow) but by the time I'd finished I was beat. The sun was getting too hot for me. It was 7:52AM. It took over half an hour to get down. I cheated for the last few metres by using the commuter escalator.













This escalator is 800 metres long and in the morning between 6am-10am it runs downhill to take people to thier offices in Central. After that, it runs uphill until Midnight. Considering that some of the streets are sheer climbs and taxis are permanently gridlocked this was a genius idea. Also, because of the tropical sun, the escalator connects to the covered walkways that inter-connect buildings in the Central area allowing pedestrians to walk over the traffic and in the shade. I've got to think that whoever designed the infrastructure of Central Hong Kong was German or Japanese, as it makes so much sense. The road layout is undoubtedly English (it feels like Central London somehow) but the logic of the connected walkways most definitely isn't English, not in the least.

Below is a street near my hotel, which looks like every other backstreet in Hong Kong. Now imagine the smell of barbequing pork over an industrial-sized kettle full of endless boiling water.....

On Thursday, I've since learned, all the museums are closed, so I took a bus up to the Kowloon Walled City . This is now a park (see photo below) but up until the 1990's it was a lawless labyrinth of drug dens and crime, which, to be honest, is what I went for. Instead of getting boosted for my trainers by some skag-smoking 8 year olds I had a nice walk through the park and said hello to some old grandads, which was probably better for me in the long run. Although, when I asked them to tell me some stories about what it was like when they lived here, back in the day when they were all impoverished and high on British Imported Opium (something you don't learn in History classes in the UK) they got all cantankerous and started caterwauling. I thought old people liked talking about the good old days? Some people, they've got no respect for history.

The strange thing is the buses in Hong Kong are all British Double-Decker buses so I was sitting on a bus that was exactly the same as the #36 to Keresley; the bus that I used to take to school. The view was anything but similar as it meandered through Mong Kok. I was especially pleased to be able to use my Mandarin on the bus driver too, it seems slightly more useful now than it did two years ago. Then, when I was here, people refused to answer me but now I'm hearing a lot of Mandarin spoken. I have to say I didn't have a clue what he said when he answered me though.

And they have trams too; just like Manchester, but without all the thieves, guns, crap fashions, acid-cut drugs and unwarranted sense of self.

Finally, an adolescent moment. How could I not take a photo...?