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...?

Into The Valley

Landed in L.A., drove some, ate properly, established that I have no inherent skill at guitar hero, didn't lose any sleep over it, in fact slept log-like, awoke feeling trunk-headed for an hour or so, drove to the desert, drove past some outlet stores - accidently spent $250 on clothes I don't need but would have been foolish to not buy - drove again, ended up here.






***k me! What a place.

I've only ever seen places like this in Westerns or that bit at the end of Thelma and Louise. Above is the view from Keyes Point (although it looks like that place in Morocco in Babel, doesn't it? Where the kids were shooting their rifle from). Looking down on Indio (and therefore the Coachella site somewhere--hmmm, maybe the rifle shooting thing would have been a good idea). Breathtaking. I love that in America you can drive up to the top of the mountains near LA. In England a) the land doesn't really go this high--not often & b) if it did the only way up would be on foot, grumbling all the bloody way.

The view was breathtaking.

In the Joshua Tree National Park (below) I felt like I was in a theme park - I didn't really think it would look so much like it did on TV. Sad, isn't it? ( I remember my ex-nephew once, upon being shown a photo of the castle in Spain that was the model for the Disney Castle, complaining that the Disney castle look more realistic). There was hardly anyone around and the space was amazing. I felt very alone. But it wasn't spooky, as much as it was calm. I wanted to camp out there.

We visited the rock where Gram Parsons was semi-cremated by his friend. I don't know that I'd do that for my friends. Apart from the fact that it's a long drive there's a $15 charge to get into the park these days. If I'm taking you there for a good secret cremating it's not as though you'd be able to pay the $15 back later, is it? So if we are close, don't be expecting me to do a Gram Parsons on you when go (unless you leave me the money in an envelope or something. If you want to be left by the side of the freeway, which could be a romantic gesture, or cobbed brusquely into a canal, I'd definitely be up for that. Assuming you didn't want me to drive too far, not with the cost of petrol these days).

In the spot where the attempted burning took place there was, I'm told, once, a lot of graffiti. I was glad there wasn't any there really. If you've been to see Jim Morrisson's grave in Paris it's obvious why. All those tossers writing pointless garbage over all the surrounding graves and for what? For Jim Morrisson? No. For themselves. Who cares? No respect for the other families. Simpering wankers. And don't get me started on The Doors; the Lizard King, my todger!

The small pile of rocks in the picture below is about sixty feet high. The rocks and boulders in the valley look like they were dropped there in prehistoric times, which doesn't make any sense as everyone knows that dinosaurs only had little arms and would not have been able to move them. Some rocks' positions kind of defied comprehending.



The joshua trees went on for miles and miles. I felt for U2, poor buggers, trying to pick some good ones to stand next to. Each one had it's own charm; much like U2, one would imagine.



We drove back into LA without hitting any traffic. That was a first and, I suspect, a last.

Life's A Gas


Quite literally, at my dentist's office. Went in to get a sharp random pain checked-out. Turns out I had a fracture way down in the tooth. Have to get a cap (I'm going for Gold, btw).

I am very clean living now so when I got the laughing gas I sucked that stuff up and tried to breath deeply, like you're supposed to. I was high as a kite in seconds. Then I got the Novocaine, which is such a specific feeling it made me laugh out loud. How do you explain to your dentist that the reason you're laughing is because the injection he just gave you reminds you of a night out in London in 1996? Or that your tongue is so numb it feels like someone else's and you're kind of french-kissing yourself (it was the gas...it made giggly sense at the time)? You don't, not if you want to get any more of the good stuff out of him. I have to compliment his needle skills. I recently went for a blood test at another clinic and the girl taking the samples had all the finesse of a thumbless elephant prodding my arm with a staple-gun, but with my dentist I barely noticed.

But oh, the drill, the smell of burning tooth....the pressure on the nerve as he found the fracture (which felt exactly like the original pain that had sent me in there in the first place). He gave me more novocaine. I was still guzzling the nitrous oxide and smiling, too.
"You like that gas, don't you Richard?" he said.
I giggled. Hell yeah. What's not to like?

When he really got into it, and he and the nurse had their hands in my mouth and were hollowing-out my molar, my entire head felt numb. It was pretty good actually. I was so drugged I was able to let my mind wander in exactly the same manner as it does when I'm drowsy in my bunk on a bus, or when I'm not quite asleep on a plane: I ended up thinking about sex. Quelle surprise.

Then I started to wonder, if going to the dentist and having someone carving up my teeth has me thinking about sex, am I creating a monster? Will I develop a fetish? Could I find myself saying in the small hours, "I'm sorry love, this just isn't working. How about you shine that flashlight into my eyes and dig around on lower-right-seven with a fork?" just to be able to get it on in the future?

I'll be sure to let you know...

Absolutely Nothing At All:

That's a line from one of my friend's band songs from about 1986. It has no bearing to anything other than it makes me happy to think of them. They were good, but they were from Coventry so they kept pulling the rug out from under their own feet; that and the singer, who copied Bowie shamelessly but made it a taboo subject to mention, went a bit barmy, which is a shame. There but for the grace of God... I saw some friends from the UK last weekend at gig. What a difference an hour or so of belly-laughing with your mates makes to your week.

I've been at home. There is so little to blog about when I'm at home it's pitiful. The things I like to do at home (don't get ahead of yourselves here...) aren't so interesting for me to write about, never mind for anyone else to read about. But I have this blog and it keeps pouting at me from the internets while I'm surfing travel websites.

I did read this interesting article on the disappearance of comedy from the modern novel. Flawed but interesting, if you like reading about novels.

I also saw an inspiring interview with Geoffry Canada, whom I think is one of the most important and inspiring New Yorkers I've ever encountered. He runs an organization called Harlem Children's Zone, which is an initiative to develop educational opportunituies in Harlem; addressing the families and the children's needs from an early age to give them an alternative to the less aspirational routes that the kids would be exposed to in Harlem. They do amazing work and it's a relief to hear a positive black voice that isn't running some tired faux-gansta' bullshit or working a solely political agenda (Which I'm always sceptical of, whether from a white, black or 'other' standpoint). There's not a lot of airtime given to straight-edged, pragmatic, hard-working black leaders in the media talking about strengthening their communities one child at a time - I guess it's not such a compelling subject (as far as I can see; I'll admit, it's not something I'm policing closely, I'd be hapy to be wrong) - and I imagine the squeaky wheels get all the oil, right? But it's inspiring to know that while there are duplicitous bastards like Reverend Ike syphoning cash out of the community and Snoops pontificating on misogyny in every media outlet after the Imus incident while making as much money as they can from pimping the people they claim to represent; there are also people doing the right thing, quietly, without fanfare, and trying to have a positive effect on the next generation, and one that isn't based on getting their disposable income from them at some indeterminate point. Check out the Harlem Children's Zone and give them some tax-deductible money if you're so inclined.

Aside from this, I've been writing non-stop (but not on the blog). I'm on page 295 out of 353 of a rewrite today. Got a deadline to meet before I go away but I'm not kidding myself. I'm taking an old laptop to Asia (one I don't care if I lose) so that I can work out there too. Like I can't write for three weeks; who am I kidding?

Recommended Reads:
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lional Shriver. Astute, affecting and horribly timely.
The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene - Simply a master writer.

Thanks to St. Hubbins...

....For favours received.

I got the upgrades to and from Hong Kong when booking today. Thank you, St. Hubbins, patron saint of airline upgrades.

Off on my travels again in a few weeks: Hong Kong, Guangzhou / Guilin, Hanoi, Halong and Ho Chi Minh City and not one pop concert in any of them.

That's May done, then. Have to figure out June now....

It's quiet; almost too quiet...


I love Couch:


A week off tour. I feel normal, or as normal as I ever get to feel (I'm still talking to myself and spitting like a pissy camel behind slow-walking people on Broadway but, hey....). I've written a lot and am feeling faintly encouraged on that count and, quelle surprise, I'm close to booking a vacation in Hong Kong and Vietnam because that's just what I like doing on my off-time. But I've a few things to take care of here first, the least of which is figuring out how I'm paying the bills over the summer.

Small moments of happiness this week included seeing Elvis Costello crossing Broadway with his family (gots to love New York for random understated celeb' sightings) and finally getting my legs to run 5 miles continuously (on Tuesday they argued at doing 2. A month of 5 mile runs and I won't be considering amputating a limb as a way of getting rid of the excess tour weight). I've seen tons of movies, read continuously, and have been eating heathily. It's the simple things I'm loving right now. It's amazing how few of them being on tour allows.

The only bummer in the past week (apart from the nausea at mile 2 last Tuesday...)* is that The Jam / Paul Weller allowed Start! to be used in a car commercial. A part of my youth shrivelled when I saw it, but I guess it's how things are now. I'm sure Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler can use the money and I wouldn't begrudge them that, although Weller's got to be minted already....

So, as hoped for, being at home is mellow and relaxing. I miss the travel (and the laughs) but not the relentless responsibility of touring. At the rate I'm going I'll be in South East Asia again by the middle of next month. Who knows, I might even move there...? But for now I'm happy tour managing my own vacation. It's like a busman's holiday; tour managing is such a particular skill-set, it's a strange feeling to be able to use it outside of work. And it's a pleasant surprise too, to find booking and researching a vacation so much fun and such a breeze to do (Thank you the internets...and a shout-out to St. Hubbins too - I'll be calling on you soon....). Once I decide the route it will be booked inside 30 minutes. All I have to decide now is how long I stay in Ho Chi Minh City and where I'm going to eat in Kowloon....Bummer, eh?

*Kurt Vonnegut dying is obviously in a class of global bummerdom, and not to be trivialised with my petty complaints.

The End Has No End.


Not true.

The tour finished yesterday when Albert played on Late Night With Conan O' Brien. Ironically for a show that airs at 12:30AM we loaded in at 7AM. JOy of the deepest kind. Brian and I (who'd both had about 1 hour's sleep the night before after getting back from DC) both loaded in and then fell asleep on the sofas in the dressing room for a couple of hours. Like two crispy, grizzled bears.



After the show all the gear went back to various rehearsal studios / houses and we all met up to watch Conan air at 12:30AM. It was a fitting way to finish the tour.

Then I slept like a drugged pig. Mmmmmmm.

Today I'm finalising the tour accounts, which is easy enough even if it's boring. But trying to deal with this:




Isn't so easy when this





is on TV.

I've really got into Walker, Texas Ranger. Or rather, compared to processing piles of receipts, I've really got into Walker, Texas Ranger. It's the very best of crappy TV. TV you can watch without watching. And there are seemingly hundreds of episodes on TV all the time.


Back home and my apartment is clean, which is a small blessing. And I can eat properly again, rather than feeding on crap like this:



This is a Philly cheese steak. I ate two on Tuesday. Wrongness in a sandwich. They taste as good as they look bad.

Thursday, when we were in DC, would have been my 10th Wedding Anniversary, had we not divorced. Today the tour finishes. It's a strangely timed week. The phone isn't ringing with minutae anymore, and the email questions and arrangements have stopped, and personally I have nothing at all planned for the rest of my life and no one to plan it with. I feel kind of light. It's a strange feeling. Not a bad one, but strange. It's quite exciting to feel that the future is so open. And not a little scary.

It will pass. Everything does. That's what's great about being alive.

Waiting At The Lights, Know What I Mean?

I rented a van to get everyone to and from the United Palace show with Bloc Party. This is the traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel at 11:10PM on Friday. It was taking over 10 minutes to go forward one block at one point. Like a good, snotty Manhattanite, I blamed all the Bridge and Tunnel traffic but I was told later that a bus had crashed over in Jersey so I guess one can't entirely blame all the B&T people.




And then this was Saturday afternoon near the same location.





I didn't really care, I'm so glad to be back here. I love New York. It's home and it's one of the most amazing cities in the world. And the women are so beautiful, like few other places on the planet. I spent most of the weekend sighing wistfully and feeling like I'd been punched in the chest.

Thing is, once I've got rid of Chazz Michael Michael's body (which I acquired on tour) and been here a couple of weeks I'll be itchy to travel again. I've already been looking at the Cathay Pacific website - 23 Asian cities in 21 days.....hmmm.....

And how can you not love a city where you can buy a life-size figurine of an adolescent wizard balancing on a broomstick that looks strangely like a flat-ended tail?



Spent Sunday morning on the phone with my mate Mick from London. He told me about a reissued version of Young Americans with a bonus DVD. After a (typical for us) couple of hours talking about Bowie in the 70's trans-atlantically I had to go to Virgin to buy a load of CDs & DVDs. Spent the rest of the day watching them. Even when he's being a ponce Bowie's still Dave and the Greatest Living Englishman as far as I'm concerned (And I'm happy to admit that he gets it wrong often but to my mind he's still trying and he made all those LPs from Man Who Sold The World through to Scary Monsters {and okay, Let's Dance} so like McCartney he should be allowed to make any records he likes forever. He's earned it). Like Lennon he's from the (maybe extinct?) strain of working class English who aspire to something better both intellectually and artistically. Maybe Jarv's the last one in that line that I can think of..? I'd love to be wrong here.

One week of shows left. It's a gentle re-entry into life doing shows while being at home. Maybe by Saturday (when we finish properly) I'll have adjusted to being back and I won't sit in my apartment wondering why my phone doesn't ring and buzz with incoming emails. Maybe...

Still, if I feel weird I can always walk around and look at girls for a bit. That usually helps.

Uptown Top Ranking


Once our very clean bus dropped us on 4th Ave & 13th Street we all piled off with our luggage (I had seven bags and an old printer to get home) and took cabs home.

Waking up in my apartment felt luxurious. So did going to Whole Foods to spend $90 on fruit and salads. I've f***ed my back up somehow so I'm limping around like Charles Laughton in the Hunchback of Notre Dame but I'm home so it doesn't matter really. But I'm a gimp, that's for sure.

The two shows this weekend were way uptown near the George Washington Bridge. At the end of the street the venue is on you could see the sunset over Jersey and the river.



...and the GWB itself. Normally I only ever see its faint, strung lights from 6 miles downriver or so.



The shows were at the United Palace Theatre on 175th St and Broadway. It's an amazing place, one of the 5 "Wonder Loews" that Loews Movie Theatres built, one in each borough of New York City. It opened in 1930 and it's garish in its opulence inside.



Here's the foyer. It would have been an amazing movie theatre in its heyday, and could make one now...



This was the first rock show at the venue. The building is used as a church by Reverend Ike who, as far as I can see, offers to pray for poor people if they send him money. (Quote: "Make sure that you enclose your Faith Offering for the Church Ministry, whe you write. Don't ask for "something for nothing." That could bring "bad luck." Let me Pray for YOU, and YOURS, for Good Health, Healing, Joy, Love, Success, Prosperity, Good Fortune, and More Money." In his 16 page full color magazine he asks for money for prayerts on each page and also promises prosperity in return. Reminds me of the old Popes and thier long held practice of simony.... And as anyone who's read the New Testament knows, Jesus was always about the money... I'd go as far as to say the Reverened Ike is a thieving charlatan. Reverend my cock. Didn't Jesus throw the money-lenders out of the temple about this time of year...?)

I think being raised a Catholic and then growing out of that faith has made me sensitive to this kind of tartuffery and bullshit. Click on the photo below to read the "letters" in the parish magazine. I can't do them justice.

Check out the standard advertising 'call to action' underneath the letter "signed" P.W. The whole magazine is full of these faux-handwritten-font asides reminding you to pay....



The whole magazine is full of this shit. Titles like "Even her DOG became a millionaire!" Why would a spiritual organisation have to hard sell the cash benefits of faith? Isn't the reward supposed to be in the afterlife? Isn't living a good life reward enough?

It pisses me off to see people exploited so callously. And while a cold judge could say anyone who buys into this bollocks gets what they deserve maybe isn't appreciating the desparation that people live with and the faith that people hang on to to get them through hard and otherwise hopeless lives. Being middle class makes me forget that not everyone has the choices I have. Shame there isn't a hell for Reverened Ike to rot in. I wouldn't have his thoughts.

We're definitely back in New York. Even God is a graft.

Coming Home.


If you look under your seat at the Spectrum Theatre in Montreal this is what you'll see. This is the route under the venue. It looks like a set out of Doctor Who? Note the TV buried into the earth. I felt like the venue and 2000 Canadians were going to crash onto my head when I walked through. Of course, it's always all about me...



Marc watches the bus get washed at 1:30AM. We should have been nearly home. We weren't. We didn't get back to Manhattan until 4:30AM, even crossing the north of the Island at 4AM to go around and enter the West Side via the Lincoln Tunnel. I remember watching midtown rise on the horizon and then I realised we were on the George Washington Bridge heading towards Jersey with Manhattan slipping away behind us. If I'd got out and taken a cab I'd have been home in 15 minutes, instead it took another hour. I was so wired when I got back that I spent another hour on the phone calling friends overseas until I'd simmered down some.

Of course, I can laugh about it now....



Ha. Ha Ha.