Another Brick in the Wall....Part 2

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hey there

hope everyone is coping ok in the post charlie blue phase. for grievance
techniques consult lisa simpson...

Last i wrote i was cooling in the mountainous climbs of dalat. after a day
of rest to recover from bicycling around waterfalls it was outta there and
off to nha trang - the beach capital and costa del sol of vietnam - in a
word (or two) - well i wouldnt bother if i were you - so it was a quick
overnight to enjoy the happy hour and burgers of the irish bar that didnt
serve guinness of any sort though there were ads all over the joint
proclaiming it for the next generation...

The next day i got an overnight to hoi an - the tailoring capital of the
region. what a cool place. i cycled around for days visting the old quarter
of town and unwittingly the far outreaches of the town - note to self -
install GPS IV style.... Anyway i succumbed to the pressure and got a few
suits made - check out www.getjealous/com/brianb for photos and a detailed
itinerary of the trip so far. actually having purchased a camera today (more
crumbling to peer pressure...)i may even blog out like a mofo...

i happily whiled away a week or so in Hoi An and then the rush was on to get
to the chinese embassy in hanoi before their weekend close.
so it was up at 7am thursday morning, bus to hue arrive at 1230 - have some
grub, drink and then some, get growled at by immigration police (we were
looking into the possibility of getting a re-entry visa to Nam, henceforth
the itinerary changed...naturally... so it was beneficial that they were so
unhelpful though that was probably due to the fact that i turned up dressed
like a complete bum in a white tshirt that was so minging & discoloured that
it was practically disintergrating from my frame. thankfully we didnt see
the interior of any cells) and reclined to the sare surrounds of the bar for
more food & drink.
Roll on 1730 and another overnight journey - destination Hanoi, arrival at
0630.

the next day having got minimal disrupted rest on the bus we darted around
the city making full use of the cheap cabs and early opening hours of
everywhere. Route: hotel - airline - immigration - chinese embassy - hotel -
airline - embassy - breakfast - liquid lunch - airline - airline - embassy -
dinner - drink - bed!!
this repetitive sojourn was due to the fact that we wanted to get the visas
asap though didnt want to encounter unnecessary tolls through express
service. so having checked availability with the airline (hanoi-beijing) we
arrive at the embassy only to realise they dont accept local currenecy and
only USD; secondly weve left our passport photos at the hotel. oh bother!!!
we scramble to an english speaking cab to plan the recovery route. first
international ATM where our cards will be accepted and we can withdraw dong.
sorted! Next bank which will exchange for USD. ANZ inform us they only buy
USD and dont sell it!!!! you're f**king kidding me, right! it transpires
that they will give us USD if we Visa cash advance. (the alternative is get
to the airport and they will exchange VNDUSD....)
Next: hotel for the photos. Then we head to the airline to book flights - we
had read that we'd need airline confirmation to get visa. turns out this is
completely false though there's no english sites to give you the correct
info and such.... airline informs us that the flights which were available
an hr ago are gone - at this stage were not happy campers however this fact
proves to be be rather fortunate as it transpires...

on to the embassy where the cab driver decides its out of town completely
ignoring our protests. we get to the embassy minutes before it stops
accepting applications, more than two hours after we initially turned up
there. sorry that the above passage is so exhaustive to read though it was
the most panicked / exciting time - all on pure adrenalin which was to carry
us through for another 12 hrs having not slept the night before...
we discover another airline that evening which flies to our destination. all
systems go. we decide to sleep on it and book the next day. on the way to
booking it, i remember that it occured to me the other day that we should
infact fly to HK, traverse china by train instead of just flying in & out of
beijing; cross the border into Laos which would negate the pointless and
bucreacratic bother of returning to Vietnam - so we check out the map & the
train schedule - all is totally doable so we end up booking a flight to Hong
Kong rather than Beijing! Perfect!!

After which we hapened upon a fatal RTA. The deceased was lying on the
ground, partially covered by an outstretched cardboard box - very disturbing
- the stats of 40 dying daily (some guide said this, sounded incredulous) on
the streets was just that till you see this and the fragility of existence
strikes you mercilessly...

My personal Vietnam highlight arrived the following day as we set sail for
Halong Bay, a paradise of thousands of islands of greenery & karsts.
Majestic spectular scenery! Trip highlight, of course that was until the
Great Wall of China - in a word - doublewow!!!

so having set sail for the bay and overnighting on the boat it was time to
get the f*ck out of Nam Man. Having gone for some going away booze/pizza -
the group of five, not so much famous, i think infamy describes it best go
their seperate ways. So on the way to the airport we release that we've left
our passports in the hotel - for this inconvience the taximan slaps an extra
$2 on the fare!!! close call. We arrive in hong kong and are tasted by the
ubiquitious mccafe (naturally in western society) - having not had a capo in
like 5 weeks, it was all very O'Carroll Kelly! like OMG - totally!!! HK
rocks - a strange hybrid of east meets west - its own little archipelago
brimming with majestic skyscrapers, in parts surounded by mountains - a
strange oxymoron for the eye!

& onward to the east - Beijing - the destination & the 24hr HK-BEI express
train will cargo us there.
For somewhere with such global investment (i'm reading The World Is Flat by
Thomas Friedman at the mo - a very interesting book on globalisation - China
is featuring prominently...) the absence of westerners here is quite
phenemonal. Whereas Cambodia & Vietnam were teeming with tourists, we are
conspicious by our absence here and as we alighted our onward transportation
the inquistive glares of the locals is quite overwhelming. Their absolute
lack of anything other than Chinese is amazing & quite frustating at times -
especially when our trying to deal with reception at an internatioal hostel
- the city is fascinating - Tiananmen Square perplexing - the largest square
in the world has not one bench to sit on - nowhere to hide from the glare of
the midday sun, the CCTVs & the abundance of police poised to crackdown on
the first sniff of dissent. The Forbidden City is awe inspiring (& houses a
Starbucks!!!) as is China's biggest buddha 24m high (8m underground; 16m to
the ceiling) housed in the groovy Lama Temple. We checked out the work in
progress that is the Olympic Village. They have gone construction crazy here
and on a personal level I can not but agree with the studies unmasking the
city as THE most populated on the planet. The smog envelops your environs &
overwhelms your senses, carbon monoxide billowing out of all city orifices -
pack the solpadeine!!
So to escape all this best undertake the sparsely traversed Great Wall from
Jinshanling to Simatai... The majority of tourists just check out another
area of the wall which is all reconstructed & pure tourist tack.... the wall
is completely awe inspiring - very overwhelming & breathtaking.

Having chilled for the day though we did manage to take a metro for the
express purpose of sinking a coffee, its off to Xi'an overnight to battle
the Terracotta Warriors. The plan then is to Panda out in Chengdu, then take
the not yet launched train to Tibet (T-4 days!!!) Looks like we'll be
wrapped for time so may skip Laos & fly Kunming to Bangkok where we let go
one intrepid traveller, call collect another & trip down Thailand & Malaysia
before flying Singapore to Brisbane for a music festival - still searching
fruitlessly for accom in Byron for that w/e so I may be sleeping on the
beach soaking up the moonbeams...

Till next time kids - ye dont need no thought control.

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