Paradise overrated

Evening flag waving
Originally uploaded by Big Trippy Nathan.

It was a relief to get out of Bangkok, a singularly unimpressive place to me. I wasn't interested in the smut, I wasn't out on the beers like the two young welsh lads I met in the youth hostel that made me feel like an old fart, and I think I'm still 'templed out' after India, even if the temples do look different, so I wasn't up for seeing them. Thailand and me got off on the wrong foot, but we haven't found the right one yet, even though Thai people so far have been very friendly and easy-going.

I decided, on the suggestion of a friend from India, to come down to Koh Chang, an island in the National Marine Park of Trat province, near the border with Cambodia. Koh Chang is the second largest island in Thailand, home to lots of wildlife and 70% undisturbed rainforest, and not yet overdeveloped beyond all recognition, so seemed like a good bet to get away from Bangkok, and hassle in general. I wasn't interested in the Hat Rin full-moon party scene I'd heard about around Ko Pan Ngan which would just make me feel like more of an old fart, because I wasn't really up for drinking cocktails out of sand-castle buckets, jumping through hoops of fire, and dancing until my knees fell off. Well, maybe, but I'm quite temperamental about all that and I don't want to feel like I'm in a nightclub on a beach.

After a six-hour bus ride to Trat, I caught an overpriced taxi to Laem Ngop to catch an overpriced ferry to Koh Chang. Laem Ngop, the jumping-off point for Koh Chang, had a feel of Clacton in October about it - off-season, desolate, dead. I was getting seriously concerned by the company as well. On the bus there were three Westerners - myself, a friendly bloke from Portsmouth spending a few days island hopping, and a man who may have been English, but this wasn't confirmed as he didn't say a word the whole way, and wore the haircut and facial expression of a man who was into guns, and enjoyed torturing small animals and grannies. On the boat was a German family with a daughter that had the facial expression of someone who was being sent to a penal colony, not a beautiful island.

So eventually I got to Koh Chang, and was highly relieved to get on an overpriced taxi with a young couple who looked neither into torturing small animals nor seeking young Thai women for deviant acts or marriage. We drove round to Lonely Beach on the South-West coast of the Island. It's an easy-going place, but not the most sociable I've ever been to, in fact it's one of the least sociable I've ever been to, just short of Palolem in Goa, but worse than the Townhouse in Leeds. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that I have been in a foul mood since I got to Thailand so may appear to be unapproachable, but I'm sure it's not just me, and I'd like to think I have a friendly face. In Northern India, conversation with people coming to Sky Pie was as easy as falling off a log - even catching people's eye here is about as easy as it is on London Underground.

I said Koh Chang wasn't overdeveloped, but having said that there is a Seven Eleven with an ATM up the road. Does that mean it's overdeveloped?

At the moment, I'm looking into escape strategies - possibilities include going back to China, going straight into Cambodia, or cancelling Asia altogether and going to Australia early. Being on your own and not being able to rely on easy conversation and company when you need it is an immensely frustrating thing, which Pete McCarthy is currently describing experiencing in Tasmania - I might try one of his tactics and talk to myself for a while.

Pete and me

My definitive travel tip no.3 - if travelling solo, ensure you have a personal stereo stocked up with several thousand songs, and a good book, at all times.

I was about to spend my second night in the hostel on my own, and wasn't happy about this, but created the situation for myself in the first place by deciding I didn't like Bangkok and hiding in my room. The choice was made easier by powerful air conditioning that made the room the most comfortable place to be in the heat.

Anyway, just when I'm about to settle in for a night of feeling sorry for myself, and a bit homesick, I'm reading The Road to McCarthy, where Pete McCarthy is describing a trip to New York for a recital of his writing in front of a bar full of paralytic Glasgow Celtic supporters. I realised that all of Pete's excellent stories so far had been based on encounters he'd had on his own, meeting people along the way. At this point I decided to stop being such a berk and go out for something to eat (I was going to make instant noodles I got from the Seven-Eleven).

After strolling up Salom Road for a while looking for an Indian place, missing Aloo Gobi and chapatis, I settled upon a nice-looking restaurant with an outdoor bit and a mixed menu of Thai and western dishes, so I could decide on impulse whether to eat local or comfort food. The food turned out to be great, a grilled salmon Caesar salad and stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts. Pete kept me entertained with an increasingly amusing account of his time in New York, and the restaurant kept me entertained by playing the Scorpions' greatest hits - I wasn't sure of the band until 'Wind of Change' came on, and then I knew. At one point a family came in, Westerners, where both the teenage daughters had unfortunately inherited their father's bushy eyebrows, one of whom having decided to disguise this by a combination of plucking and heavy eye make-up that ended up making her look like a Maori about to perform the Hakka. She was very pretty and it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but I liked the Maori comparison.

So I came back to the hostel just now to write this much happier than when I left, to find the staff all laughing their asses off as they've been on the Bacardi Breezers. Also, a funny thing happened - a photo I took of Hong Kong on Flickr has been commented on by the chap who played Gary Coleman's best friend Dudley on Diff'rent Strokes. You couldn't make it up.

Bangkok more of a whimper

I got into Bangkok yesterday, and have mostly been hiding in the hostel since. I've not warmed to it, though it's plenty warm enough. It's the kind of warmth that forces you to accept that you will be drenched with sweat for your entire stay, and means you can't apply sunblock to your forehead as it will inevitably be sweated down into your eyes and sting like buggery (learnt that one in India). I'm feeling a bit like a kid who keeps throwing his toys out of the pram because he's bored of the beach and just wants to go home and watch cartoons - there's very little about Bangkok that appeals to me.

I'm staying just off Silom Road in the south east of the city, near the once infamous Patpong area where American GIs would come for some 'R&R' during the Vietnam War. While it's nowhere near as seedy as it used to be, there are still lots of floor shows featuring such acts as girls who can fire ping pong balls from between their legs (no prizes for guessing how), sex shows of various kinds, and massage parlours offering massage, and the rest. When I got into the airport, and ever since, I've been seeing lots of shifty-looking single white men in their forties and older, and as much as I don't like to make assumptions or generalise, I've been muttering 'sex tourist' to myself under my breath on a regular basis.

Bangkok actually smells like India, a combination of hundreds of individual scents that puts you in a particular place and a state of mind - exhaust fumes, sweat, spices, fried food, cigarettes... who knows what else. It's like trying to analyse kryptonite to find out what it is that makes Superman go all feeble. There is only one other smell I can think of that is so evocative of a place and time - the smell of the Lower Fifth corridor of my old school - socks, sweat, deodorant and cheap aftershave that has me breaking out in spots and reaching for the nearest Cure CD.

I spent most of my evening yesterday reading Pete McCarthy, who kept me company with The Road to McCarthy, a book swapped with Simon in Shanghai, about his travels to Tangiers and further afield in search of some tenuous family connections. It was full of beautiful little observations on life on the road that had me laughing out loud - not good in a small hostel room with thin walls, where I'm likely to appear to the other residents to have some sort of mental illness. I was gutted to find out this morning that Pete McCarthy died of cancer last year at the age of 51.

Anyway, it's time to get out of Bangkok, as soon as possible. At the moment, I have the urge to skip the rest of South East Asia altogether and get to Australia early to work on a farm for a while, but I'm not doing it just yet - if I'd have got into India through Delhi, I might well have done the same thing, and lots of people do - and I would have missed out on three of the most amazing months of my life - so with that in mind, I'm heading for Trat and the Ko Chang National Marine Park near the Cambodian border - a stunning looking group of Islands with exotic wildlife and deep blue waters (I'm told). If it's great I can stay for a while, if I don't like it, escape is at hand with Cambodia just next door.

Craic in Hong Kong

I'm in PJ Murphy's, an identikit Irish pub under the Imperial Hotel in Kowloon - aside from all the staff being Asian, you could be anywhere in the world here, but they have Internet access so I can blog while I drink my Guiness and watch the repeat of Tim Henman getting knocked out of Wimbledon on the telly. The drawback of this place is that, aside from not partaking in the authentic Hong Kong cultural experience (and if anyone knows what that is that'd be a start), every other song is U2. Using the Internet here at least makes a change from the little Internet kiosk in Chungking mansions - a seedy place if ever you saw one, but host to a variety of colourful characters, including glamorously dressed African ladies in dresses that suit sunshine, not the downpour that's flooding the streets and gets your shoes wet in seconds flat, and Indian men peddling counterfiet watches and tailormade suits and shirts. I broke my own land speed record yesterday on board the Shanghai Meglev train to Pudong Airport - the Maglev reaches over 430 kph, only for a short time, and shoots past the cars driving to the airport at full speed. Strange to be going that fast and feeling really quite safe, when Cookie and I did 120 mph coming off the Orwell Bridge in Ipswich once, and we were both terrified. This was a long time ago and we're more sensible now so obviously that sort of thing wouldn't happen again. The journey in to Hong Kong yesterday was tortuous - I got the A21 airport bus from the airport into Kowloon, and had to hold my nose under my T-shirt the whole way because of the stench of BO on the bus, brought on by my fellow passengers. It was so bad, I felt a lump in the back of my throat and my eyes watering, and I'm sure it was seeping in through my skin. What with that and the woman sat next to me sucking her teeth the whole way, I was in a foul mood by the time I got to the hotel. People can be intensly irritating without even realising it, and airplanes seem to bring the worst out in them. The other passengers on my flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong didn't seem to have heard of queuing, talking below the shouty level, or even sitting down when the plane was taking off. It's no wonder air stewardesses have a sort of doe-like rictus fixing their facial expressions - they must have to conceal murderous rage at all the cretins they have to deal with.

I haven't learnt much, but...

Surfacing
Originally uploaded by Natmandu.

...one thing I have learnt so far is that e-mail is a pain in the neck. Hotmail never worked in India so I relied on Gmail, and now Gmail never works in China, so I have to rely on Hotmail - this is a real pain in the neck as Hotmail isn't a patch on Gmail.

So, Nathan's definitive travel tip no.2 - before going travelling, get more than one e-mail account, and set at least one to forward to another. There's nothing worse than knowing you have e-mail but not being able to get at it. Well, there is quite a lot worse, such as being forced to listen to Celine Dion singing 'My Heart Will Go On' again and again everywhere you go in China, or buying what sounded like tasty red bean soup with crab meat and it turning out to be wobbly fishy snot.

Back in Shanghai

After a week in Yunnan with Simon, I'm now safely ensconced back in Shanghai at Simon and Charlotte's place, freshly showered, cup of coffee on the go, with their cleaning lady Ayi buzzing around me. This is a different world from where we've been for the last seven days.

I've been going on about how before last year I had never been on an airplane before - as of yesterday, I've taken eleven flights and I'm starting to feel like a veteran. Sitting on the plane from Kunming back to Shanghai yesterday, full with Shanghai Airlines' finest noodles and packet of salty nuts, and cleansed and fragranced to perfection by their moist towel, numerous thoughts went through my head:

• How much energy could be saved by turning off the no smoking lights on all planes everywhere, and just putting up no smoking stickers, now that you can't smoke on planes? They're on all the time, this must be a drain of energy.
• When fossil fuels are depleted and planes can no longer fly, necessitating some new form of mass transport for people, will the guy behind me still be able to piss me off by kicking the back of my seat?
• If there's the old question about whether planes could be made of the same thing as black box recorders, if they're made of the same thing as seat-back tables, should we not really worry?
• What percentage of airplane seats refuse to recline, or alternatively recline when they feel like it? I'm estimating 30%.
  
• Should air stewards be given tranquilizer darts to use on the people that ignore the seat-belt lights or use their mobiles when you're taking off?
• What do mobile phones do to affect the plane when you're taking off? If enough people are using them, does the plane just keep rolling off the end of the runway or do the wings fall off?
  
• When the guy with halitosis sits next to me and I have a window seat, and he keeps leaning over me to look out of the window and breath his acrid stench directly up my nostrils, is it fair to tell him to brush his teeth and get out of my lap?

Yes, the romance has gone from flying for me now.

Anyway, back to Yunnan. Si and I got into Lijiang after a hop and a skip from Shanghai. Lijiang is the tourism capital of Yunnan province, the high province of China bordering Tibet. Lijiang was made famous by the 1994 Channel 4 series 'Beyond the Clouds', which as I recall painted Lijiang in a very romantic light, and has been revisited recently by Michael Palin in his series 'Himalaya'. Palin describes Lijiang as a 'tale of two cities', and he's not wrong - a modern, bustling town with new buildings backs onto an immaculately tidy old town of traditional style buildings, so tidy you could almost eat your noodles off the cobbled streets. Lijiang is in an earthquake zone being on a tectonic fault line, and a large earthquake in 1996 killed 300 people and injured thousands, destroying many of Lijiang's newer buildings.

Old Lijiang felt like a bit like ChinaWorld theme park, not that such a place exists, but it could here. The narrow streets wind around each other and over narrow canals, and every fifth shop is almost exactly the same. Chinese tourists trawl around the old town wearing wicker Marlboro cowboy hats, following loud tour leaders with yellow flags, or more often than not, not following them at all, and leaving them to walk around the streets waving their flags and shouting in complete solitude. Shops sell pashminas by the dozen, dried sea cucumbers and other snack foods I still can't help but find disgusting, carved figures, hand-painted T-shirts, and of course, wicker Marlboro cowboy hats. Shopkeepers stay open until midnight in many cases, many looking bored to tears.

One of the biggest surprises of Lijiang was walking along Xinhua Jie late at night and seeing hundreds of Chinese people sitting around, eating popcorn or full meals, drinking beer and spirits, and singing noisily. This scene, reminiscent of Hou Hai in Beijing, was one of young Chinese who have money to burn. Simon remarked that the Chinese didn't usually eat late - they did here. Some say that the Chinese don't drink much - they do here. This was a million miles away from the people of the Beijing Hutong or paddy-field workers in the countryside.

After a night or so in Lijiang we headed to Qiaotou for the highlight of our stay in Yunnan, a hike along the high trail of Tiger Leaping Gorge to Walnut Grove. We spent the night in the shabby village of Qiaotou before an early start the next morning along the trail. Qiaotou is a bit of an ugly place, with lots of hotels being built or having just been built for guests that don't appear to have come yet. Most travelers flock to the Gorged Tiger Cafe to be fed, advised, and stocked up on Snickers bars by Margo, an aussie who married a local guy some years back. Margo cooked for us and mothered us, and got to looking slightly flustered whenever more than about five people were in the cafe. It's a slightly incongruous picture to say the least, when surrounded by swarthy looking locals in the middle of nowhere in China, to see a short aussie lady in what looked like a negligee, sprinting around like a blue-arsed fly shouting at hikers - but she's great, and she looked after our bags.

Simon and I started the high trail at 7:30 a.m - and it was the hardest physical exercise I have ever done, though in the most stunning natural scenery I have ever seen. The whole walk was about 25km in length - with the most difficult part being the 28 bends, a zig-zag path leading steeply up the side of the gorge to a summit of over 2600 meters. Simon and I were rather put out when, having done what we thought were the 28 bends, we found out that we hadn't actually started them at all - we'd walked 28 or so curves, but they weren't the bends. The maps handed out by locals are mostly pretty hopeless, so we took them with a pinch of salt after this. We had good pace-setters for the walk - a Dutch girl Carla and her brother Michael - who I think may be part mountain goat, and I mean that in the nicest way. Michael probably would have done the trail in four hours flat if Simon and I weren't moving a bit more slowly. Aside from a hair-raising deviation from the path into decidedly unsafe territory up the side of a hill of scrub and rocks, we kept a good pace.

At the Tea Horse, where we stopped for lunch halfway along the trail, I found a toilet even more basic than the standard Indian/ eastern squatter. This basically involved squatting over an open channel, your squatting area divided off from the next by a short wall. With a gentle breeze blowing in from outside and a charming view of the mountains at the opposite side of the gorge, it was an almost spiritual experience to commune with nature in such a way.

So after about ten hours of walking over rock, through alpine woodland, over waterfalls, in the rain, utterly knackered, with knees and ankles about to shatter, we arrived at Walnut Grove and the shelter and warm food of Sean's Guest house - Sean is Margo's hubby, and between them they have this hiking route all stitched up. I snored that night and woke everyone in the dorm up - this is why I don't like dorms. There aren't that many Chinese tourists doing the high trail at Tiger Leaping Gorge, probably because most of them smoke like chimneys and would be shagged out after climbing twenty steps - the Chinese take buses along a low road of the gorge to stop and look at the water before getting back on the bus and heading back to Lijiang. It was this low road that we took a bus along to get back to Qiaotou and pick up our bags from Margo, and the bus ride back was practically hairier than any of the hike - it's never a good sign when the driver is peering upwards out of the window of the bus to look for falling rocks the size of family cars.

From Lijiang, after an abortive attempt to cycle to Baisha where my back, legs and spirit weren't up to the task after the previous day's hike, Si and I did some sightseeing around Lijiang, including Spruce Meadow, Baisha (by taxi this time) and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Spruce Meadow's highlight is a fantastic mountain view that wasn't there due to cloud, and Baisha felt like an annex of ChinaWorld, replete with Chinese tourists and a bunch of women in traditional dress that started singing and dancing when Simon and I made the mistake of wandering into their yard. In the queue to take the ski lift up Spruce Meadow, one woman said in Chinese in Simon's direction, "You're too fat to go on this - I wander if he understands me?" to which Simon replied in excellent Mandarin "I do understand, and no I'm not!". Simon's Chinese is very impressive - enough to negotiate good rates on hotel rooms and pashminas, and enough to make a rude tourist eat her words.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain felt like a place people should not be - nevertheless the Chinese have built a cable car that takes tourists up to over 4500 meters, to walk around a beautiful glacial plateau. Women totter around after their husbands over snow and rock in high heels, and chain-smoking old men hold cans of oxygen to their faces - the air here is very thin. Only ropes and signs that say "Do not play past this point" stand in the way of oblivion in the shape of a hundred-foot drop onto rocks below. One of the most insane features is a taboggan ride that, if taken fast enough, would surely launch you clear over the side of a cliff.

It was a good change to get away from Lijiang to Dali, two hours south on a bus designed for people with short legs, not for Si and me - we had to sit sort of 'buckled' through the journey. Dali is a bit rougher around the edges than Lijiang, arguably more charming, but certainly aimed more at the Western traveler. We stayed in the Old Dali Inn, a youth hostel hosting a group of Israelis with portable trance music, one of whom looked exactly like Dave Gorman, and a rabbit warren of rooms and restaurant tables, in a place that never felt quite dry. There are drug dealers in Dali, many of them - and they're women in their fifties in traditional dress. Walking around certain areas we were bombarded with offers of something to smoke by these grannies, under the pretence of going to look at their range of pashminas in their locked shop. How do I know? Because Si decided to go and look at their range of pashminas. I followed him in something of a daze to the courtyard of one of these women, and was happily sat reading Lonely Planet when the curtains were drawn, the door locked, and Simon, upon seeing the woman's full range of narcotics, said to me "Nathan, we're leaving.". It's the first time I ever nearly scored drugs without even realising it.

The Chinese have a range of reactions to the sight of a laowai - you say hello to someone, and they:

1. Say hello back in a very friendly fashion
2. Stare at you very, very hard until you look away because your eyes are watering with all the staring
3. Laugh, and laugh, and laugh (perhaps the most disturbing one)
4. Grumble and spit

I have a theory as to why this last one happens - fortunately not too often. Many Chinese must be grumpy because of lack of sleep or noise. When many Chinese people use mobile phones, it seems necessary to shout so loud down them that using the phone is almost redundant - Simon's comment on a recent shouter was that the age of the cup and string was over but no-one had told him. I was in Starbucks earlier when I thought two Chinese men were having a fight - I turned round to see they were both just on the phone. Also, a street sweeper moved past our youth hostel at Dali playing a tune so loud at six in the morning, it was like an ice cream van doing a meter an hour, and a solitary man stood outside our room in Lijiang at three in the morning shouting at the top of his voice for no apparent reason - he may have been cabbie trying to wake up a customer, serenading his love with the most tuneless song ever, or just drunk. Coupled with him shouting, a car alarm was going off, playing so many different tunes it was like someone playing with their mobile to find the most annoying ringtone.

We left Dali yesterday after some more walking, including a rainy walk through paddy fields to Lake Erhai, and got back to Shanghai yesterday night to warm showers that actually spray water out of all of the nozzles, a washing machine, and a bed that isn't just damp enough to foster mushroom growth. It's luxury.

Ayi just handed me a bowl of something hot, black and soupy. I've no idea what it is but it's tasty so it's time for lunch.

Next stop Hong Kong and on to Bangkok.

Yunnan say potato

Fishy feeding frenzy
Originally uploaded by Natmandu.

I have no idea what that means.

Simon and I are heading to Yunnan province today, to see Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lijiang, and hopefully some of the more remote minority villages. Shanghai has been good fun, the highlights of which were the most amusing haircut I ever had, and an excellent facial yesterday. I say if you really want to get to know a foreign nation you should try its beauty treatments.

"It sure is a Great Wall"

Old poser
Originally uploaded by Natmandu.

That's what Richard Nixon apparently said when he saw the Great Wall. Well done Dick.

There was no need to worry about whether the Great Wall would be any good - it was fantastic. A small group of us walked between Jinshanling and Simatai, a beautiful quiet stretch of wall, on a perfect clear day. The wall is in varying states of repair, from the completely deteriorated to the recently rebuilt. What keeps a lot of the tourists away is the difficulty in walking this stretch - I was quite happy that ten kilometres would be an easy walk, but stupidly forgot that it's ten kilometres up and down the whole way, sometimes up and down seventy degree slopes of slippery rocks, where the steps have crumbled away. Before too long I was utterly knackered - what also didn't help was wearing a thirty litre day pack containing far too much crap I didn't need, which added a load of extra weight. Never doing that again, and take note Rob who's doing a sponsored Great Wall walk later this month.

After a couple of kilometres I was very nearly ready to give up and take a shortcut back to Simatai to wait at the minibus for the others with my tail between my legs - I'm so glad I didn't. I had the help of a local guide, a very sweet lady, who was despite being considerably shorter than me, as strong as an ox. She literally hauled me up some of the slopes.

The Chinese on the wall took the biscuit - we'd be puffing and panting and they'd be mooching up a slope towards you in the opposite direction, smoking a fag. For the Chinese, apparently any time is a good time to smoke a fag.

Finally, I am still not certain whether it is possible to see the Great Wall from space, but I have been reliably informed that it is possible to see Walthamstow Market from space, so I'm sure you can.

Now I'm in Shanghai, and staying at Simon and Charlotte's place. Shanghai is absolutely massive. I went up into the Pearl radio and TV tower yesterday and saw high-rises and skyscrapers stretching away to the horizon, or at least what looked like it could have been the horizon through the smog. It is huge. Shanghai is more Western in feel than Beijing, there's a little more English used to make things a tad easier, and the place feels a bit less quaint or museum-like than Beijing did in parts. I've been exploring on foot and using the subway.

I finally got to see Star Wars Episode III yesterday, fortunately in English - thank goodness George, you finally redeemed yourself and didn't give Jar Jar Binks a line.

Challenging food

What a strange time to be in Beijing - yesterday was the sixteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Passing by Tiananmen Square, hundreds of tourists packed the square, many probably unaware of the relevance of the date, but with more police and army than usual in case of demonstrations, and with no mention of the anniversary in the media.

Caroline is in Beijing for work, and we've been out seeing the sights. On Friday night we went out for some hip Beijing dining in the Houhai area, a sprawl of bars and restaurants surrounding a lake north of Tiananmen Square. Boats meander and candles float on the lake while, after getting through dozens of people offering massages and cigarettes, you walk along a busy, buzzing avenue packed with locals, ex-pats and tourists, trying to get a seat in any one of the packed-out eateries.

The Chinese enjoy eating offal - it's just when you see some menus you realise that the only part of a duck you can't eat is the quack, as they say. We checked out several menus, and some of the food on offer was, for a westerner, or at least me, challenging. Examples include duck jaw, barbecued duck tongue, goose intestines, barbecued bunch of chicken feet, beef muscle bunch and dog in jelly. Described in very clinical terms, and in often confusing Chinglish, this wasn't helping my appetite. I'm not criticising, I've got no right - while I can't see myself going for goose intestines, at least people make full use of animals here, and know what they're eating, when in the UK we get identically shaped lumps of reformed, mechanically recovered meat in cardboard boxes. I did find it strange that dog was on the menu when pet dalmations and terriers were playing with their owners around the lake.

I was told that the Chinese aren't too friendly, and aside from being grunted at by a few locals, so far I've not generally found it to be the case. Speak Chinese, or at least make the effort, smile, and you get a smile back. It is now compulsory to learn English in Chinese schools, so students and school kids approach you with anything from a hello-how-are-you to a long chat about what you do, where you're from and what they do - usually the people that approach you, as was the case in India, have a 'line' - they want you to buy their calligraphy or use them as a tour guide - but I've spoken with a couple of students and doctors who are just curious and friendly.

'Tourist attractions' are frustrating places. I went to the Forbidden City but didn't go in because it was hot and crowded, and I got into a foul mood and lost interest. Today, the Temple of Heaven was covered in scaffolding and it was raining - and there were crowds of tourists and touts offering fake watches and umbrellas. Major tourist attractions are like nightclubs to me - I pay to get in, and almost as soon as I get in I'm pissed off and itching to get back out - the Taj Mahal was exactly the same. Tomorrow I'm walking the Great Wall of China between Jinshanling and Simatai, so I'm hoping for sunshine and fewer people.

Old grumpy guts signing out!

Learning Chinese

Line up, look straight
Originally uploaded by Natmandu.

Repeat after me... "Ching gay wor yee-pying shwee". That is the way you say "Please give me a bottle of water". Useful if you're sweating your bits off walking around Tiananmen Square like I was today. Mandarin is becoming slowly less scary the more I'm using it, and the better I get with intonations, the less Chinese people are looking at me like I've just put a really hot bit of food in my mouth and I'm just trying to cool it down.

Beijing just got a whole lot better since I moved to the Far East International Youth Hostel, a very pleasant place in a HuTong area south of Tiananmen Square. It's clean, chilled-out, and the staff are lovely. The place has a bit more atmosphere than the Taiwan Hotel, my first stop, and the canned music there was starting to give me the willies.

Tiananmen Square is famous in the West for pretty much one thing, and it was odd to walk around the place today and see tourists from all over mingling with soldiers in a very relaxed atmosphere. I walked down the road I was fairly sure the student stood in front of the tank, and felt an odd sense of, for the want of a better word, history. The tanks aren't there now, China has moved on a fair way, but some images are burned into your memory, and standing in the place was an interesting experience.

So it's Beijing for a few more days, then I'm off down to Shanghai. Still to do, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall... I had to pinch myself today in Tiananmen Square, I couldn't quite believe I was here!

Different world

Hong Kong Island
Originally uploaded by Natmandu.

What was that I said about getting the hang of things travelling-wise? Pah. Spoke too soon. I still feel like an idiot tourist stumbling his way through a different culture hoping his clumsy English foppery and winning smile will get him through. China so far is attempting to humour me but it can only do so much, and it certainly doesn't understand my attempts at speaking Mandarin.

Hong Kong was great fun, but after a while, you notice how Westernised it really is. All the signs carry English translations of the Cantonese, most people speak English, and all kinds of food, all kinds of everything, are available. Hong Kong sometimes seems like one giant shopping mall, there are so many malls. As for the MTR, the Hong Kong Metro - it's brilliantly intuitive, simple, efficient and clean, kind of like London Underground might be in thirty-odd years. Ex-pats float around the place with something of an air of detached superiority, and go to ex-pat bars where they listen to cheesy Western music, and the older men mix with childlike Filipino girls with unfeasibly short skirts.

I had a great time in Hong Kong, but it was all down to Iris, my buddy from the India Aidcamp back in February. We went to some great places to eat, had a some great nights out, saw Hong Kong from the Peak, and her sister even had me round for dinner with the family. Iris is sadly not taking bookings for further tours.

Now, I'm in Beijing, after a twenty-four hour train ride from Hong Kong, and it seems like a different world. I got into Beijing without a place to stay, a foolish thing to do, but have found a hotel, though it's pricy, and am moving on to a youth hostel tomorrow. I'll be following Janet's recommendations, trying out more Mandarin, and probably getting ripped off by taxi drivers who can see me coming a mile off.

See Flickr for more pics as I post them...