Anyone here good at charades

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Before we came on the trip we debated on whether or not to bring a laptop with us. The consensus was no as we assumed that there would be plenty of internet cafes available to check mails etc.

Most hotels we used in China had business centres attached and we were able to use their computers and printers. However, outside of these hotels it was often hard to find an internet cafe and when we did there was another problem. Printing. Or the lack thereof.

This happened to us while staying in Yangshuo. Our hotel had a PC but no printer but we assumed this would not be a problem as we had spotted a couple of fancy looking internet cafes. They had swivel leather chairs etc and one even had a large sign outside advertising printing. The sign must have been out of date as the girl at the counter told us no, they had no printers. We went to the second cafe but ran into a problem. The girl at the counter had no English, nor did a couple of other people standing around.

What were we to do. We desperately needed to print our some airline reservations as we were due to fly the next day. Speaking louder in English was doing no good. So I resorted to that universal language, charades. I stood in front of her PC and mimed reading something on the screen, pressing a button while making chattering and beeping noises, and mimed picking up a piece of paper and reading it while comparing it to the screen. Yes, she knew what we wanted. No, they had no printer.

However, she drew a rough diagram of the town and indicated by sign language as to where there was a printer. When we got to the location it was a busy road and nothing that looked like an internet cafe. There was a small hole in the wall shop which had photocopiers, stacks of paper etc. So we plucked up our courage and went inside. There were a couple of staff there, none of whom spoke English. Whoever, charades came to the rescue and yes they knew what we wanted and yes we could do it there. We were directed to a PC covered in cigarette ash, papers etc but eventually we had our plane tickets.

It seems that this is the situation in China because paper and printer ink is so expensive.

Regarding internet cafes we have a little piece of advice. Before you use the last PC in one, look at the keyboard first. It happened to us on a couple of occasions where we did not do this and we ended up with keyboards where most of the letters had worn off the keys. You have been warned.

The problems in Vietnam were different. These were mainly slow connection speeds, a single page sometimes taking minutes to open.

Things have improved markedly in Cambodia and Thailand but we still feel that it would have been worthwhile bringing a ultralight laptop. Maybe next time?.

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