It may have been a mistake....

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but where to start.....

I think the first mistake was not writing a blog for over a month!!
The other issue is the 300 additional photo's I now have to upload !!!

On the assumption that it takes 5 minutes a photo... that's almost the rest of my trip spent sitting at a PC.... I used to have a job doing that, why would I want to do that again!!!!!!!

Other issues, in no particular order....

1. Standing on rusty nails while walking home...
2. Expensive Drs bills to confirm you have 2 large holes in your foot
3. China taxi drivers who take you to the middle of nowhere while insisting it's the airport
4. Swedish men who want to have a quiet beer before they fly home
5. Chinese Tour group... matching hats, tee-shirt and loud hailers

Amnyway I supose I should try and explain the last month... while trying not to bore the hell out of you... Apologies, if I fail in this task !!!!

spent a few more days in Beijing doing more of the touristy stuff... found myself a chinese guide to show me around the Forbidden Palace.. he was of course called Malcolm !!! Funny thing, all the Chinese now have an english name !!!

Seems they've decided that we can't be trusted to learn a chinese name without butchering it beyond belief... and in truth they probably have a point !!!

So if you come to China... you're unlikely to meet a Mr Wong or Mr Wing... but you may meet a Julie (very nice chinese student who saved me from Chinese tour group hell... thanks Julie), Ray, Malcolm, John and Dave !! if you ask for their Chinese name.. they'll let you have a go and then explain that perhaps it's best if we stick to Dave!!!

Malcolms sales pitch included the boast of being able to introduce me to the nephew of the last Emperor of China... you can't say NO to that kind of offer !!!!!

Now what Malcolm should have said it is that I would be able to see the Nephew of the Last Emperor from a gift shop, as the nephew of the last Emperor ate his lunch !!!

Still it was quite a moment from me and the nephew of the Last Emperor of China and how many people can match this claim to fame ????

From Beijing to Xi-An and the Terracotta Army... which is very impressive, awesome undertaking, but for me speaks mostly of the insanity of people with too much power!!!

Some bloke decided that after he died, he's need at least 6000 life size statues, with horses and full weaponry to guard him... he also decided that he'd need to kill his brother and sister and numerous concubines to keep him company... really.... can you imagine being at the meeting when he first announced this !!!!! How would you not have him committed on the spot !!

Another high point of Xi-An.. the worlds most painful massage !!!! I decided that 6 weeks of walking around Russia, Mongolia and China and my feet could do with a little pampering (gotta look after your feet) !!!

So I manage to find the only respectable massage parlour in China (can you imagine my disappointment) and agree that for 108 yuan (6 pounds).. I will have 8 different types of massage !!! This massage would last 2 hours but they seemed recultant to explain what these 8 massages would be ... but after a quick count of my limbs... decided this would probably be fine!!!

the first 20 minutes were all good.. as it was only my feet being attacked.. then another women appeared and she has a slightly grumpy look in her eye.... all i can really say is that the following 80 minutes.. involved me silently screaming into a table, while flighting the urge to beat this women to death !!! Whatever training she'd received was clearly not intended to be used on living people !!!! She seemed to think that her elbows had magic powers if they were used to separate my ribs or driven into perviously untouched and uninjured places!!!

However the feeling of wonder and euphoria that came when she finished was amazing !!! A new found love of life and desire to not waste another second.. as you never know when your next masaage is!!

From Xi-An to Chengdu... Chengdu was going to be the jumping off point to Tibet.. but issues with Visa's to Tibet and a 15 days wait for train ticket kinda killed that plan...

so plan B... involved me (obviously) and Austrian girl called Dani and the world largest sitting Budda !!

Now before I go on, I should explain that within China there is an unspoken competition to have the Worlds largest Budda that's doing something that no Budda other is doing... so you get sitting, standing, kneeling, hopping, caually leaning to the left and so on !!

there should be a game to get the whole set... first one to get all of them wins a free massage maybe .... I know a good place !!!

Another idea.... make your own Budda doing something really outlandish (standing on one leg, wearing an eye patch and holding a beer perhaps) and open it as a Tourist attraction.. the Chinese will come running I tell !!!!

Anyway this Budda is 72meters high and carved into the face of a mountain at the meeting point of two large rivers... it look 50 years to build and probably 3 generations of Chinese carftmen.... again.. who has these ideas !!!!! How do they get to be in charge ???

It makes some of my previous bosses seem positivily sensible and I know that can't be true !!!! Huddle boards... really -- Mr Millar take a bow!!!!

from there myself and Dani (or Dani and I) travelled to Chongqing and then on to a boat for a 4 day leisurely cruise down the yantze river.... what they failed to explain was that we were booked onto the Chinese Tour Boat.. which means there are 500 people, 6 of them Foreigners (like me) and 494 karaoke singing, beer drinking, chain smoking lunatics on their annual holiday !!!!

Other then Dani & I, there were 3 Austrailians amd a slightly drunk german. . One of the australians was living and working in China and is in the tiny percentage of non-chinese people who actually speak chinese!! This makes him you're new best friend ever ever ever!!!

The 3 Gorges are amazing and we got really lucky with the weather.. photo's are in the gallery !!!

Another high point of the trip is that there's a table tennis table on board !!! Now most of you will not know that at the age of 12 I once won a table tennis competition at the local Youth Centre... no mean feet i can tell !! the table was next to the dart board and getting a dart stuck in your leg was an inherit risk of playing !!!

but anyway... I'm walking past the table one day and there's a 12 year old girl and 2 of her school friends playing !! I stop to watch... another mistake!!!

before I know it a bat is thrust in my hand and the games on.... she's pretty good and I am no longer 12 !!! But she's being nice and not making me look really silly, which is good cos the white man being beaten by a 12 year girl is begining to draw a crowd !!!

After awhile her teachers arrives... a she wants a go at beating the white man (this could almost be a national sport)!!! As she stands 5 feet back from the table and serves a curling turning bullet across the table I begin to think this may not end well !!!!

The crowd has now swelled to 50 plus people and they haven't come to see a game or a match... they smell humiliation and that smells pretty good !!!

But it's Ok, she decided that rather than just humiliate me, she just going to use my chest as taget practise and in the event that I have the cheek to return a shot, it is immediately punished !!!

But I'm saved.. from the bar area stumbles the slightly drunk german (god bless him).. he sees the crowd and annouced that he hasn't played for 30 years!!!! Now who am I to stand between a man and 30 year old memory... i generously offer my place at the beating table, sorry, table tennis table and then take my place in the crowd... the new sport of beating the white man is really taking off !!!

Off the Boat at Yichang and then a 4 hours bus ride to Wu Han.. or so they say!!! It's acually a 8 hours ride on a local bus with some of the 450 lunatics you thought's your lost from the boat !!!! Still we arrived in Wu Han and after a nites sleep on the World Thinest Mattress ( I think this is a new catagory... maybe they're running out of Budda positions??), we catch a flight to Shenzen.

From there we travel to Hong Kong... again this sounds easy but if not for the help of local chinese girl who wants to practise here english and takes pity on 2 lost westoners.. this could take days !!

but it's Ok, cos at the end of this journey, no matter how hard or perilous.. how ever fraught with fear and general mad chineseness ... the pot of gold that is Hong Kong await !!!!

Now i'd never been before but it's image in my mind hasd grown and grown in the last few days... you see the one great thing about Hong Kong.. is that it's not MAINLAND china !!! and after 5 weeks in mainland china.. the last place you wanna be is MAINLAND CHINA !!!

now don't get me wrong it's been amazing and i've met some very cool people and seen some very very cool things.. but it's a constant uphill battle !!! It's a mixture of customs and practises that make little or no sense and a language that's so strange it resembles nothing you know !!!

but Hong Kong.... ahhhh Hong Kong. Ex-British colony.... I'm convinced that they will all be very happy to see me and will happily speak english to me !! They will have pubs.. yes normal pubs!! There will be toilets that don't smell so bad that flies will not go near them, it will be place of great joy and happiness !!!!

And it is... all that and more !!!!!

I had a rule earlier in the trip... do not spend more that 3 days in anyone place !! Keep moving,. don't get bored.. meet people !!! So that was 2 weeks ago I came to Hong Kong...

I left for a few days and went to Macau... Las Vagas of Asia !! Tiny island.. 20sq km and now has more casino's than people!!! They are reclaiming land from the sea to make the island bigger so they can build more casinos !!!

One nite after perfecting the art of Losing at blackjack with every hand... I'm waking back to the hotel past a building site !!! Now I'll admit I'd had a beer and was carrying my new set of shoes that I'd been forced to buy before i was allowed to enter the Worlds Worst NiteClub..... it's a long story!!!

but on passing the building site, I manage to step on a piece of wood with a 2 large rusty nails sticking out... I'm not ashamed to say that I didn't casually remove the wood from my foot.. ohhh no I went for the hop around screaming option for a bit and then decided that this wasn't helping and pulled the wood out of my foot !!!!

Following a trip to the Doctors, back in Hong Kong and after much tutting and unhappy looks.... they've decided they need to amputate!!!

Kidding ... they did blood test and everythings fine and I get to leave Hong Kong on Thursday.. 3 days hence !!!

I'm heading back into China for 2 weeks and then off to Laos... and then onwards !!!!

If you read all of this... I thank you and wonder if your boss is aware how much time you just wasted.. but good work !!!

I will try and do this more often, to save you as much as me!!!

speak soon....

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Comments

[Fred]

Blame the swedes
About time you updated this thing - doesn't that feel goood :-) I shoud also like to point out that the beers WERE quiet. It was after the beers it all went pear-shaped.