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Published: August 6th 2007
Chinese Traveler Conundrum Number One: Did I Say Something Wrong?
The scene is the Cavern club on Hong Kong island, it’s late and Paul is making out with the girl that I’ve been trying to impress all evening. I’m dancing (I guess that indicates my level of desperation), I’m surrounded by dancing girls, we’ve already sung along to “Land Downunder” at least once this evening. Events unfold:
Tall, blonde, previously unknown, western girl enters from stage left, starts playing with my necklace immediately.
Girl: I like this, it’s cute.
Me: Thanks.
Girl starts suggestively dancing right in front of me, I look to my mates for a thumbs up (getting a second opinion is the best way to avoid beer goggle induced issues), I start dancing with her.
Girl: So who are you?
Me: I’m Matty, and who are you?
Girl: I’m Brandy. Where are you from? What are you doing in Hong Kong?
Me: I’m Australian, I’m bumming around the world and trying to avoid working at all costs while justifying it to myself as an educational experience.
Sorry, there is an editorial mistake there, I actually said some lame line that made it sound as though
I actually had a purpose for being in Hong Kong and wouldn’t be leaving in the immediate future. For some reason I thought that would go down better.
Me: So where are you from?
Brandy: Two guesses.
Curses, I hate that game! It gave me the opportunity to suggest she was from the USA; greatly offensive seing as she was Canadian.
Brandy: How old are you?
Me: 23, and you?
Brandy: 25. You’re a baby.
Me: Hardly.
Dancing continues for a few minutes. Bewildered, I try my best not to look like an electrified monkey.
I’ll be back in a minute, don’t leave.
I didn’t, she clearly did.
Me (to Adrian): Was that a hooker?
I’m not sure I can handle this town, girls here are both incredibly forward and incredibly hard to please.
Catch up With Matty, Where Am I?
Returning to chronology, I was last heard of in an eating binge in Chengdu, a place that is a long way from Hong Kong which I as yet haven’t really told you about.
I arrived in Chengdu after a four day journey through northern China (from Yushu
I bused to Xining, Lanzhou and Hezou in a single 36 hour hop) which was highlighted by the moment where I nearly passed out due to altitude while running from my untouched dinner to the adjacent toilet (5200m and food poisoning, a winning combination!), I arrived in the small town of Langmusi. Well, I arrived at the turnoff to Langmusi and had to hitch a ride into town on the back of a motorcycle which had been converted into a small rock carrying tuk-tuk thingy, what I consider to be the classiest method of transport yet enjoyed by myself, but it was close enough.
Langmusi is a well touristed Tibetan town in the north-east of Sichuan and has become a bit of a backpacker haunt as evidenced by the signed T-shirts, postcards, rambling notes and other random junk strewn on every wall of every restaurant/guesthouse. Despite this, the town still remains a sleepy place, much like what I expected of a secluded Tibetan town (it didn’t match the towns that I’d visited further west but it was still authentic). The best part of the town however, other than the Yak burgers, was the surrounding scenery. Bare rock faces and
Pedro Can Dance
Sort of. (photo courtesy Paul)outcrops abounded, some red, some grey, as I found out they are deceptively high (and therefore strenuous to climb). One of the peaks, the closest and most easily accessible reminded me of photographs from Western Australia: successive red rocks sticking up in rows acorss the landscape; I put Mr. Bungle onto my MP3, it was the closest I could get to appropriate music.
From Langmusi I continued south the following morning, through a snowed-in wonderland, towards Songpan. This town is famed for two reasons, or I suspect it is. The first is horse trekking, everyone comes to Songpan so that they can endure the pleasure of crushing a two foot tall pony over 12 straight days of mountain climbing. The second is the old walled town which appears to me to be somewhere between 100 and 200 days old. I really didn’t feel like causing grievous bodily harm to a pony which walks slower than I do, and I was keen to get back to a city, so I headed straight out to Chengdu.
Now, Chengdu is pretty much my ideal Chinese city. It’s got everything: great food, a cool guesthouse, the best looking Chinese women in the
Paul and Matty
Meeting over tea and Dim Sum. world, Pandas, the world’s largest Buddha; what more could you want? Ory, my Israeli friend from Xisuangbanna (see journals from two months ago) met me almost as soon as I arrived and we spent the next five days doing our best to prove the disgusting, inconsiderate westerner stereotype true. We ate, we shopped, we ogled girls in clubs (and then got given free Scotch by their boyfriends for paying them such a compliment), we ate again. While in Chengdu we really didn’t act like proper tourists, unless you count a Tex-Mex restaurant as a cultural experience. That isn’t to say that we were bored or lazy, we just needed to relax, to do normal things for a change.
Well, we did see some great stuff as well as Chengdu is surrounded by innumerable sites worth visiting. First stop was Leshan, site of a very large Buddha, apparently the largest in the world, but I’ve seen bigger. Oh sorry, that’s right, I haven’t. I don’t think anything bigger could actually exist, the thing was huge! To see it properly you have to get in a boat and sit 50m offshore looking in at it! The statue was carved out of
a cliff opposite the city of Leshan and it literally is the cliff now. Why is it that religious types always have to make things this big? What are they making up for? Around the Buddha there are also a number of small gardens and temples, places that I’m sure would be great to explore, but given the tropical heat and humidity we instead opted for lunch.
Two days later (the morning after the Day Dedicated to Food for those playing at home) we visited the Panda reserve just outside of Chengdu. For some reason the Pandas haven’t figured out that they’re living in luxury and can sleep in if they want to, hence our hateful comments relating to Panda eating habits in my previous journal, so we had to arrive really early. Despite our moaning, it was a good thing in the end as the previous night’s rain had resulted in a fine mist covering throughout the park. It really looked as though the Pandas were living in the native habitat as we wandered through the Bamboo groves, trying desperately to spot the elusive animals. In hindsight I don’t think we needed to try that desperately, they are
ABC and Lesley
Our local contacts who showed us "a good time". (photo courtesy Paul) cute, fuzzy, black and white things after all; they stick out like sore thumbs. Especially when they’re eating as they sort of just lie on their backs looking like Al Bundy. I’d like to hear Darwin explain away the Panda, did he really expect us to believe that a cute, lazy, white thing that’s only discernible talent is peeling Bamboo (they strip the outer layers off with dexterity that they consistently fail to demonstrate during any other activity) is the best suited creature for its environment? I don’t think so, the correct answer is Tiger. Or Sky-Shark.
As I mentioned earlier, I really felt like doing normal things for a change; instead of pushing myself to see all the sights and enjoy the cultural oddities (read: local brews) of a city, I just wanted to sit in cafes or ice-cream restaurants. So, just to be normal and with no other motives in mind, I had a perfectly normal date. That is, I visited a small local park/gardens place, went to dinner, and saw a movie with a girl that I’d met, and then I went home alone. See, just how I usually do. The reason I mention this is
Paul, Jacqueline and I
Three Townsville kids out in the big world. (photo courtesy Paul) two-fold, firstly I have to say that I out-chillied the girl (she was a local Sichuan girl and all, but I won!), and secondly, Spiderman 3 is just as entertaining when you can’t understand the speech. In fact, I think it was more entertaining as I got to make up all the words for myself.
Eventually I had to leave Chengdu, I really liked it there and will probably return, but my visa was expiring and I had someone to meet in Hong Kong. I hopped on a train and hightailed it across this massive country until I reached this manic cauldron of insanity at the mouth of the Pearl River.
Hong Kong and the Subsequent Attempts to Keep to a Budget
Hong Kong has a lot going for it, it's beautiful, cosmopolitan, thriving, exciting, full of good restaurants, host to an addictive night-life like no other, great for shopping (so I'm told by numerous women, my opinion is less verbose), and just generally fun to walk around in. I quite enjoy wandering the streets of the island, staring upwards and backwards more often than forwards, taking in the scale of the beautiful buildings there. What
Floor Dancing
Some guys in Leiderhosen decided that we all needed to sit down and rest on the dance floor. Why not? (photo courtesy Paul) make this activity all the more remarkable is that all of the massive buildings visible today have sprung up very recently. Pictures of the island from the '70s are virtually unconnected with the present views thanks to the meteoric rise of the region.
Not to be outdone, China has produced an even more impressive collection of new buildings (the fact that Hong Kong is now a part of China can be ignored for now, you do after all have to go through both Immigrations and customs to cross the border) in Shenzhen, the city immediately facing Hong Kong north of the New Territories. The city is said to have been granted "the equivalent of winning the national lottery" when it became a special economic zone in the early 1980s, as what was then farmland and a fishing village suddenly became the hottest property in China, however, I think the lottery winnings were utilised about as wisely as those of a gambling addict. Think of your local shopping center, then make it bigger, much bigger again, flashier and generally more aesthetically pleasing, and then remember that no matter how good and big it looks, the products are all exactly how
Matty Is Happy
Very happy. (photo courtesy Paul) they used to be only now it's harder to find them amongst the oversized stacks of Spam. That's what I think of Shenzhen, it looks good on the outside but there is absolutely no reason to visit. Hong Kong on the other hand has an arresting personality, mixed between the westernised CBD and the eastern market streets, that makes it exciting just to be there.
My primary reason to be in Hong Kong was to meet my friend Paul (
PedroElPedro) who was dropping through on his way home from Europe. To facilitate maximum madness we organised to stay nearby each other in Causeway Bay. This was a great idea until I saw the price of rooms on the island. The option were: A, stay where I said I would and incur a lodging fee equivalent to half my daily budget, or B, stay in the "Hong Kong Illegal Immigration Detention Center", also known as Chungking Mansions (this is a good and cheap place to stay if you don't mind being surrounded by seedy men from Guinea who have knife scars over their faces and drug sellers, not to mention all the tailors who try to sell you junk). I
Doughnuts
No, we didn't eat them all. Not at once anyway. (photo courtesy Paul) chose to stay on the island and increase my budget, extensively. Now I have no choice but to starve because I am broke, oh well.
My first days were spent doing those things most important to travelers: searching for a real steak and a dark, cold beer. Once these necessities were out of the way I was able to explore the microcosmic (oh yeah, what a big word) world of Hong Kong. In hindsight I must admit that the most thrilling moments of my time in Hong Kong did not occur at designated tourist sights. Sure, the park and zoo were great (I saw a flamingo and other assorted freaks of evolution, really, going back to my Panda point, how do Flamingos avoid the Sky Sharks? They are bright pink), the Man Mo Temple was also good (they were filming a video clip there and Chinese dancing girls were everywhere), the views across the Harbour and from the Star Ferry were unbeatable as always (I'll never get over the 8pm laser show's soundtrack), Dim Sum, Choi Sum, Burmese Food, Indian currys, these were all great to eat as well, the night at the Happy Valley races (Sophie, an English
girl, and I won three times that night. All by choosing funny names of course), but none of these are the highlight. What made Hong Kong fun was the crazy, random, insane night out with Paul.
Paul and I are great friends from way back so it was fantastic to catch up after five months on the road, we shared lots of stories over lunch and drinks, and more drinks. I think we were pretty well ready to retire by 6pm but we powered on through dinner until we found ourselves at a Karaoke bar on a street known as Lan Kwai Fong. This particular street is renowned for it's bars and adjacent restaurants (the curry crab is great so long as it doesn't explode all over you) so that was the scene for the evening. Strangely enough, despite the fact that we were a good 10,000km away, we had collected about ten people from our home town at that bar. Through our friends and family, and their friends, we somehow must have found every ex-Townsvillian in Hong Kong, remarkable in itself. The young crowd amongst us, seven in all, decided that Karaoke was dangerously close to both being
Langmusi
Viewed from the hill. the most unbearable thing imaginable, and involving us, so we left it to the oldies and headed to a place called Cavern. This is where the story at the start of this journal unfolded, after about three hours of crazy. Thanks to a magic shirt that I had borrowed from Paul I was having a marvelous evening, admittedly he was having a slightly better one; three live bands that covered songs better than CD's do (more visuals) and two guys wearing Leiderhosen and chalk masks made it one of those nights never to be forgotten. By the end of it all there were only three of us left, sitting in a random club playing that most admirable of games: "guess which girls are working tonight". The answer was the one with braces.
The following day was designated as a recovery. That entailed movies, Krispy Kremes and being lazy. Until 10pm of course, at which point it all started again, only this time Paul had to leave and catch a plane and thus couldn't be present. Thinking that the city had given its best the previous night and had nothing new to offer I was shocked to find that Saturday
Prayer Tower
Near Langmusi. equals fancy dress hens nights. "Oh Officer, please arrest me, I've been bad!" Note: that line doesn't work.
After six days of this crazy town I've got to escape, I miss China. Not just because it's cheap there, but mostly so. I also miss the fact that the Mandarin language sounds good and is understandable to me. Cantonese drives me mental and is possibly less appropriate for seduction than Russian. The only catch is that I have absolutely no idea where in China I'm going, south to the beaches of Hainan, north to the seaside villages of Fujian, or west to the hilltribes and mountains of Guizhou, I'll find out tomorrow.
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PedroElPedro
Paul Rubin
Dancing and Donuts
Mmmm . . . those were some good donuts. And just to clarify, Pedro can definitely dance . . .