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Published: April 30th 2010
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British passports are touted as being 32 pages but in reality you only get 24 for visas and stamps.So its my fault that weve had to come to Hong Kong to get a replacement for my full document but im gonna blame the govenment anyway.
Flew into Shenzhen thus avioding international airfares and made our way through this SEZ (special economic zone) by local bus and metro.
Chungking mansions was the only accommadation option open to us within our price range.A huge crumbling scar of a building right in the heart of downtown Kowloon on the busy Nathan road,it has as many guesthouses within its rotting walls as there are copy watch sales men out on the neon streets.After a brief look about we ended up(as usual) on the 16th and top floor staying with Mr Chan at the travellers hostel,tempted by the sticky kitchen and the bigger than normal room that offered a harbour view(if you stuck your head out far enough.
Theres two types of tenents in a place like this.Firstly theres people like us who are here for a while either sightseeing or getting paperwork done.Then theres the ones you give names too,strange silent
folk who suffle around(mostly at night)that came here to sight see and get paperwork done about 15 years ago.Inmates like Mumbles,who hated the short termers,always bickering about the kettle or the bloody fridge.Then there was Chopsticks,Chungking's veryown wannabe serial killer.An odd ball english bloke who had a bandaged hand with chopsticks incorparated into the plastercast.He became known to me as Robochop before we departed.Not forgetting the real locals ,a group of about five old Cantonese women who hated our foreign ways of cooking and talking and other off putting behavior.Mumbles hated Chopsticks and Chopsticks hated everyone,the Cantonese women talked about everyone but non of us could phathom out why Chopsticks had bloody chopsticks in his plastercast.Forgetfull maybe?
Out in the world of reality we met my old mate James and his Hong Kong girlfriend Sabrina who were here visiting family at the same time of our stopover.Good to catch up and good to get a few supplies we arranged beforehand.A couple of maps for the stans ,a welcome new tent pole and two books were well recieved as was the dinner that Sabrina's folks took us out for that evening.A Cantonese feast of fish guts,eyes,innards,teeth,toes ,brains and rice.......uuurgh rice.We
passed the test,actually it all tasted great,although I now realise that what I took for being a quails egg in the roast quails head was in fact its brain.I cant use chopsticks either but i'll put away more fish gut pie than most.This sort of made up for my missing out on a penis restaurant(a bet that got out of hand some months back).Got to try snake though,not really like chicken,more like eel or frog,very reptilley anyhow(more chinese verbs).
Tati's friend Trine was also in town from Denmark on work trip dealing with her fashion counterparts,we met up and took in the cheaper side of life and had beers outdoors at Temple street market.Oh yeah a treat for the ladies!
My passport will take 15 days to re issue,no dramas at the embassy,payed the money handed over the cash,a whopping 1400HK dollars (130 pounds)Tati signed the back of one of my mug shots and we were away.Would of been quicker but seen as its easter it will take longer.I blame the romans!
So our time here in the concrete jungle was taken up by strolling the network of streets in Kowloon and crossing the harbour on the
old star ferries to Hong Kong islands soaring financial skyline.Trying to spread things out a bit and save some money on the freebies like library internet , museums on wednesdays and lots of free art galleries.Money doesnt go far here and were very thankfull for a bale out by my folks and Tati's dad as our funds were pouring away rapidly but we still found time for the odd blow out,like Tati's 30th where we gathered with some of the saner inmates at the asylum to drink into the early hours ,ending up somehow on the roof overlooking Nathan roads neon glare.
It was good to have a break from the bikes,weve hammered through China so far but as the week became two we were longing to get back to the relative peace of the open road.It can get a bit hectic in downtown Kowloon especially at rushhour.People walk at all angles,veering here and there.Have they one leg shorter than the other?I had visions of making a million ,opening a brand of fashion orthapedic shoes,getting Hong Kongers to march on together in a straight line.And instead of bike lanes(there aren't any)we could have mobile phone lanes.They would be packed ,leaving the pavements empty for us to singlehandedly fight off the Indian tailors and fake watch salesmen.I must admit I was tempted to add to my growing pannier collection of Armani and Gucci suits but I think i'll be sticking to the paint stained ripped bike shorts for the time being.
Leathargy has set in so much though that weve failed to research our visa situation properly.This is why weve ended up with one month visas from the official chinese resource building and not at the less official Foreverbright travel,where you can get a three month one in five hours ,no problems at all.Wasnt nice finding that out the day our passports went in.Damn it!
Kazakh visas on the otherhand can be issued quickly(3 days) trouble is they start the day they are issued,no good to us then,they'd finish before we'd even get there.Nothing for it now ,we have to assault the minefield that is the consulate in Urumqi where the visa can take upto 3 weeks.AND we need this stupid LOI(letter of invitation) for a 2 month stint with double entry in Kazakhstan.Ive heard that the door has finally opened to travel in Kazakhstan,how about the doors been unbolted but theyve left a chair under the handle.Its our mess and we have to get out of it.Not much we can do about it right now.One thing is for sure though,theres no way we can get across to Lanzhou from Chengdu AND cross the Gobi in a month,there is talk of two visa extensions,but only rumours.Sadly(and we mean that) we will take a train to Lanzhou and continue from there.We miss the mountains to the north west of Chengdu but we will have the Silk road and Gobi desert pretty much to ourselves.About time we ate a bit more sand!
Weve learn't a couple of things since being here in Hong Kong , as a place ive always wanted to visit I dont think I could live here,far too hectic.Secondly Winnie the Pooh wears a red boob tube.
What a queen!
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Lazy
non-member comment
No penis?
Can't believe that you got out of the penis bet. Couldn't you have yak penis or something in the stans?