After arriving in Hong Kong, I quickly realised that I must be one of the tallest people in the world: not one of the locals could beat me, not even with headgear. There seemed to be a low ethnic mix. I counted very few white people, virtually no none oriental Asians and the only Africans were the looky-looky men in Kowloon. When I did see a western face I felt compelled to give a little nod and smile, a sad attempt to latch onto anything that might give me a feeling of familiarity. However, I was happy to note that many of the women of Hong Kong could make a claim to count themselves among the best looking in the world.
Amid the swarms of people, I happened upon an upsetting scene where a street beggar lay morbidly in the middle of the street. His selling point was to put on display his left leg that seemed to be covered in a combination of gangrene and leprosy topped off with a gaping wound. He was the only beggar that I encountered – I considered that maybe I was wrong and he was actually some sort of street performer, though I doubted he would have stood up to do a little dance had I given him some money.
I was taking my first ventures around the city, delirious from the jetlag and the excitement of being in a strange place. I’d dumped my bags at the guesthouse where I was staying in Mong-Kok and headed straight out into the crowds, walking toward the waterfront to the south.
The busy streets with huge signs in Cantonese running along them endlessly were familiar from pictures and television images of Hong Kong but it was still disorientating being there. Scaffolding made from bamboo climbed the sides of buildings and the smells of cooking were unavoidable and not always pleasant.
It amazed me to see the local people’s reluctance to cross any road without the green man flashing even when the road was so obviously clear. Patience must be built into the psyche when living in one of the most densely populated places on Earth. I quickly ran into a bit of a language barrier, a problem I hadn’t fully anticipated with Hong Kong being a former British colony. I caught the eye of a cute young looking girl who smiled at me. Being male and heterosexual, I smiled back. This seemed to be enough to invite her to walk in a direction that crossed my path. We were in Kowloon near to the infamous Chungking Mansions and I was well aware of the place’s reputation. The large building resembles any other downtrodden high rise from the outside and the surrounding area is safe enough with just the irritation of those looky-looky men trying to sell tourists fake watches. But to venture inside Chungking Mansions would be to run the gauntlet of drug dealers and prostitutes that lurk in the shadows, eager to accost those unfortunates staying in one of the buildings budget guesthouses.
"Pasha!" the girl said as she drew up closer to me. I guessed she was saying either ‘passion’ – though she looked too cute to be a prostitute - or ‘hash’ - though she looked too cute to be a drug dealer. She must have seen my western face coming over the tops of the heads of the crowd and thought it was worth a try venturing out onto the street to intercept me. "Er what?" I replied, slowing my stride. "Pasha!" she repeated, a little more loudly. "Sorry, I don't understand you," I said. She tried once more, even more loudly. “PASHA!!” I couldn’t offer her an oral response, instead giving her a lost, baffled look. She quickly came to the conclusion that she was wasting her time and walked off with a huff.
I continued my march, crossing the main road that separated Kowloon from the main tourist centre. It hosts a science and space museum, the Avenue of Stars - the Hong Kong equivalent to the Los Angeles Walk of Fame - and the view over to Hong Kong Island with what must be one of the world’s most recognisable and pleasing skylines. The late evening air was clear, leaving me to gawk at the lights of the huge distant buildings in awe. After several minutes I began to head back, I hadn’t really slept on the flight and it was a long walk back to the guesthouse. Maybe I’d find out the meaning of ‘Pasha’ on the way.
I was staying in the Budget Hostel on the 15th floor in one of the many nondescript towering buildings that have entrances that were very hard to find. I’d made the selection simply for the fact it was run by one Jackie Chan. It had been disappointing to be greeted by a very young, slight man who I reckoned even I could have beaten up in a fight. But the main thing was that I had managed to find somewhere cheap that wasn’t in Chungking Mansions. I even had my own room, Jackie upgrading me to a double, from the single I’d booked over the internet as he juggled with the fluctuating demand. Though, how more then one person could manage to live in the cramped room without tearing each other’s eyes out was beyond me. The proverbial cat would have had to stay outside; there wouldn’t even be the consideration of an attempt at a swinging inside the room. An adjoining bathroom consisted of a toilet cubicle with a showerhead attachment that ran into the plumbing along lines that were worryingly close to those of the toilet. When a shower was to be had, the little room would simply be flooded. There really would be nowhere for that cat to hide. There were no windows in the whole of the place and so lights were needed during all hours of the day.
I went to bed, exhaustion over-riding my excitement, sleeping for what felt like for far too long as I was eager not to waste the new day. I jumped out of bed and switched on the light in a state of wakefulness, my stomach more then ready for breakfast. I checked my travel clock. 03:23, it read. Could I have really slept that late into the afternoon? I knew I had set the clock to local time and so I began getting myself together for what was left of the day, cursing my laziness. But something in my subconscious nagged at me, I looked at the travel clock once more. It was set to display in 24hour mode, it was actually the early hours and I’d been asleep for just four hours. I settled back into a broken, fitful sleep.
After breakfasting on some delights from a bakery I found around the corner from the guesthouse in the morning, I decided to visit the tourist information centre to help with my orientation. I was met by a stern looking fellow as I arrived at the first floor of the building where it was situated.
"Ping-pong ga ga ladida la," he said (or something similar). "Erm...sorry, do you speak English?" I asked. He repeated himself, a little louder. "Oh right," I said, pretending to understand. I figured out that you collect a ticket and wait to be called like when buying something from Argos. "Do-do, nick nack paddy wak" (or something like that) said the woman when it was my turn. "Sorry, do you speak English?" I asked. She repeated herself a little louder. I looked at her blankly. Was she taking the piss? She passed me on to one of her colleagues who spoke some English, though didn't seem to be particularly interested in the finer details of the sentences I was saying to him.
I’d scheduled three weeks in Hong Kong with a vague plan of going into China during this time. “I want to go to the mainland. I know I need a visa, but do you know of any organised excursions or tours that will take me there?” I asked.
“You want visa? Fill in this form.”
“No wait, I want to know if you can help organise a trip into China.”
“You need to fill in form for visa.”
“Yes, I know I need a visa. But listen, before I apply, I want to know about trips into China.”
He hesitated a moment. “You want visa or not?” I didn't seem to be getting anywhere and so took my leave.
Later, I took the MTR, the city’s underground train system, for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised with the ease of use, the trains, running frequently and fast had announcements of stops in both Chinese and English. I headed over to Hong Kong Island with the idea of taking the tram up to Victoria Peak, the highest point on the island.
It didn't take long but I encountered the first rude place name on what was only my first full day in Hong Kong. ‘Wanko’ stood proudly near to where I exited the subway amongst the other retail outlets. Maybe the name is an indication of the type of people who buy their clothes from there.
There was a mile or so to walk to get to the tram station, away from the shopping area across some greener spaces. As I made my way further from the financial centre the terrain gradually became steeper as I ventured closer to the peak. Set into the walls along some of the pathways were signs telling me the registration numbers of the slopes. I wasn’t sure what was the most odd; the need to register a slope or the apparent pride of the signs. Though I didn’t manage to work out how much of an incline was needed for the need for registration or whether the requirement was just limited to pathways.
As I walked I came across signs for the Hong Kong botanical gardens and zoo and decided to take a quick look. The day was still young and more importantly, it was free to walk around the grounds. It was a charming area, the gardens providing a welcome respite from the crowds and traffic. I hadn’t been to a zoo in years, the attraction for me missing since childhood. But it was a fun couple of hours, one of the highlights being a small rodent like animal covered in spikes. On the information plaque, a forgettable Latin name identified the creature, but it looked like a hedgehog to me. ‘This small creature comes out at night and eats worms and ants giving it it's nickname of 'little ant-eater', ‘ read the description. Or a hedgehog. There was a reptile house, though reptile bedsit would have been a far more appropriate name. It contained one python and a small feature containing a group of half a dozen or so terrapins. And, well… that was it. I made sure I got around to see the leopard, where a solitary animal lay sleepily on the ground in it’s cage, a Japanese man waving his arms and calling out in an attempt to get some movement from it.
As I left the gardens and zoo, I remembered the promises I'd made to take pictures of Bendyman, a small, blue office stress reliever doll with bendable limbs and a stupid grin on its face. As I was manoeuvring him into position on the gate at the perimeter of the gardens, out popped a security guard from the nearby guardhouse. "I'm just taking a picture of my Bendyman," I tried to explain. He looked at me disapprovingly. I guess something was lost in the translation. I finally made it to the tram station, the journey up to Victoria Peak on what was reported to be the steepest railway line in the world. The views at the top were terrific, overlooking the skyline and harbour from the opposite direction from what I had seen on the previous evening. The area was heavily crowded with tourists and the tacky attractions took away from the area for me. The smog meant that the visibility was limited. I decided to get away from the chaos and head all the way to the actual summit, up roads that passed exclusive looking housing to a pathway to the top, slope registration number 11SW-A/C694 for the record.
When I got there, all I was rewarded with after a hard walk, was a small empty field and a reservoir. I went back to the tourist hell to look out over the city as the sun set.
The next day I went to the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, a Taoist temple dedicated to a god of healing. It felt a little strange being there as if I was intruding - the locals seemed to be taking it all very seriously. They would grab a handful of bamboo sticks and, sometimes after lighting them, sometimes not, shake them toward one of the alters. Each stick had a number and when one drops it was to be taken to a fortune-teller for interpretation. Others were using the fire sticks to heat up clam shaped blocks of wood that they would then drop to the ground. A yes or no question is asked by the dropper with the answer revealed depending on how the blocks land.
It was fascinating to see the delight or distress in the faces of those doing it. It seemed a shame to me that there were Japanese tourists in the background taking pictures of each other. One particular Japanese girl loved it when one Taoist girl dropped all her sticks by mistake. She dashed over with her camera for a few shots. Then she saw me and pointed her camera in my direction and snapped away. I guess she was near the end of her film and wanted to use it up. Within the temple grounds were small booths of fortune-tellers. I thought I'd give one a go. It was not like I thought it would be. No dark lair and ‘cross my palm with silver’ as I sat at something that resembled a stall in a trade craft fair. Sat across from me, the fortune-teller was fairly young, no more than early forties, and dressed appropriately enough so that she could easily walk out of the temple and merge into the crowd, no gypsy glad-rags there. Her English wasn't the best and I found upon checking later that my year of birth got lost in translation - she said my birth year made me a monkey but after a google search I found I should have been a horse. She must misheard ’78 for ’68. Surely I didn’t look that old? It's just as well that she got most of her stuff from reading the face and palms.
She started off positively. She said in the next year or two my life would have a big change for the better. I would meet ‘a good girlfriend,’ with the chances of me having met anyone in the last two years virtually zero. Maybe she could tell that by the way I walked. She went on to say we would get married and have a couple of children, though we should do this before I get to the age of 42, otherwise they will be born in the wrong year for us to have a good relationship. The second child would be exceptionally bright, maybe even a genius.
I would also have great career success in the next couple of years, and would make a lot of money and should be encouraged to start my own business in something like carpentry. She obviously hadn’t seen the hideous mess that was my GCSE art and design project.
But then things went a little sour, she warned that when I am 49 or 50, ‘bad people’ will come and threaten my wealth. After this period when I am 51-57 my business life will grow day by day, but I need to be careful at 58 with my health and should start to exercise more. At 73 I will start to have liver problems but should still have a long life, at least up to 78, maybe even up to 88 if I looked after my liver. I guess I should have pointed out that I was jet-lagged and not hungover at that point.
I asked her about travelling. She drew a x and y axis with the UK in the centre and labelled the axis north, south, east and west. She went around the graph ticking each quadrant until she came to the one that represented the south. Here she placed a cross.
“The south is no good for you, especially Australia and New Zealand.” Shit.
“What about if I only visit, is that OK?” I asked hopefully.
"You can travel there. But you mustn't stay. It’s a bad place to do business for you. Hong Kong: good, Europe: good, America: good, Australia: no!" She also commented that I had a great dragon finger as she fondled my middle digit and also complemented me on my strong jaw line which all meant good things. Maybe she had accepted that I wasn’t bad looking for such an old man and she had decided that she fancied me.
Drawing the reading to a close, she tried to sell me a dragon pendant for luck. Now I'm as cynical as the next man, but throughout my visit, I truly got the impression that the people at the temple believed in what they were doing. There was no commercialisation at all and no hard sell. I'm not saying I believed all the stuff the fortune-teller told me and all the goings on at the temple, but it would be nice to be financially successful, have a genius child, find true love and live a long life. I bought the pendant.
The Hong Kong authorities can be rather strict. All around were signs such as ‘No Eating or drinking - $2000 fine’, or ‘No Spitting - $1000 fine.’ I did wonder what would happen should you eat something you didn't like and spat it out. Would that mean a fine of $3000? My favourite though was on a bridge crossing Argyle street in Mong-Kok near the market - and I'm not making this up – ‘No Farting’. It is joined by the picture of an arse with wind blowing out of it in one of those red circles and cross similar to a no smoking sign. But why was farting not allowed? Was the bridge that unstable? Was it how SARS is spread?
On the way back to the Budget Hostel, I saw the gangrene/leper man. He actually was a street performer, lying on the pavement applying his very realistic looking make-up to his leg. I still didn't understand his act.
Getting back to my room, I attacked the treats that I’d picked up. I snacked on a box of something called colon, bought entirely for the amusing name. There was a chocolate variety but I went for the cream. What I assumed was the nutritional information revealed that there was 57% of something in them and I wasn’t sure if I should have attempted to cook them first. I did have a packet of something called ‘Potato Chips’ to fall back on though.I wasn’t feeling tired, still living off of the hyperactive high that the jet-lag had given me that I was sure I’d be paying for later on. I continued to wake up in the middle of the night with the hunger that had deserted me during the day, but I had no motivation to be able to get up and do anything about it. Those first couple of nights consisted of lying in a fit-full state of slumber dreaming of fresh bakery goods.
Fast Pace
‘I Feel Good’ read the sign in front of me. I was sitting in Victoria Park, a haven of tranquillity away from the busy streets adjacent to a children’s playground. I'd come to the end of the time of my original booking in the Budget Hostel and Jackie had a full house, so I had made my way to Causeway Bay and the Wang Fat Hostel on Honk Kong Island. The journey was a struggle with my backpack – I had committed the common backpacker mistake of having brought far too much stuff. In retrospect, it did seem silly to have two towels and three varieties of footwear and more T-shirts then underwear. It was far too much weight to be carrying especially with the humidity. A quiet day was needed, resting in the park and considering what could be dumped.
The Wang Fat Hostel was run by a guy called Sam with the assistance of some helper girls. On first instance, he appeared to be somewhat of an unconventional fellow.
“How much you pay?” he asked me as I was booking in for my initial few nights. It was nice of him to give me the option but I was slightly taken aback by being given the choice. I quoted the price of $150HK per night that appeared in my travel guide and he seemed quite pleased with that. He beckoned one of his poor little helper girls who struggled with my backpack down the stairs to the room. She seemed eager enough to carry it despite my protests that I should do it. I’d asked to be put into a dormitory to save a few dollars, but with few hostels around and demand growing by the day it was a single room with a shared bathroom or else a trip to Chungking Mansions. The helper girl who by now I realised knew almost no English showed me around the threadbare converted apartment, largely by pointing at the important features. It didn’t take long.
Later on I bumped into my bathroom mate, who was of oriental origin, and I attempted to strike up a conversation with her. "Are you on your own?" I asked after we exchanged hellos. She thought for a moment and then held up two fingers in a peace gesture. She must mean that she was in a room with a companion in the room next door to mine. "Do you speak much English" I tried. She looked at me blankly. I tried again - a little more loudly, but got no response. Then a thought occurred to me. "Pasha?" I said as timidly as I could muster with a stupid grin. A look of alarm came over her face. After a moment of us staring at each other, she said "No, no!" and waved her hands in dismissal. I took my leave before she could call the police to have my hands chopped off. On the next day I was moved into a three bed dormitory room. The helper girl took me up another two stories to the apartment made up of three such dormitories with a shared bathroom. There was kitchen area that was devoid of any thing useful for food preparation or storage and a fold out camp bed I was later to learn was the sleeping quarters of one of Sam’s other helper girls.
My dormitory mates turned out to be Travis, a tall slender young man from Brisbane who couldn't work door locks, me finding him struggling and cursing at the thing as I arrived, and an American named Ricky who was to be a bigger sleeper then even I was. Of average height and dark complexion, his thick jet-black hair curled behind his ears at a stage of growth that suggested a significant time spent on the road.
We made our introductions and arranged to meet later for drinks. I hoped I would bump into the two charming Scottish girls that I’d got talking to on the previous night after they took an interest in the dragon pendant I was wearing on my wrist and invite them to come along. They were at the age where they would talk endlessly about getting drunk, but I found them to be good fun. Life did indeed feel good.
After the relaxing day in the park I decided it was time I began to experience some of the local cuisine. The noodle soup I bought at the small café in the park didn’t really seem to count as it tasted like any cheap Chinese food found in the UK dumped into a bowl of water. I walked around the Causeway Bay area in the evening, looking for something suitable. Along one street I passed windows with puppies in small glass tanks on display. I really hoped it was a pet shop sitting in amongst the restaurants. There were stalls with people selling treats such as silkworm and snake skin. I wasn’t feeling that adventurous.
I eventually came across a restaurant that looked respectable enough to get a good meal from and yet had a menu with prices that didn’t cause a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth. I ventured in and played it safe, ordering pork with egg fried rice. I was pleased with the tea that was made with coconut milk, which was delicious. But then the food arrived.
Within one bowl was the pork, chunky strips of the meat marinated in a dark reddish sauce. I had no problem with that. In another bowl sat a portion of rice, of generous proportions. I didn’t have a problem with that. But sitting on top of the rice was the egg, the feature that made the boiled rice into the egg fried rice that I’d ordered. I did have a problem with that.
The egg was a green colour with faint white colouring showing through like the effect that marble has. I cut into it revealing the centre, the yolk, long since hardened into a sickly powdery dark orange colour that looked like it could have been dug out of someone’s ear. The smell wasn’t as pungent as I thought it would it be, but it was still pretty nauseous inducing. I remembered reading my guidebook, a passage in the food section coming to mind. It mentioned that one of the delicacies was the 1000-year-old egg, a normal everyday egg that’s been buried in the ground, pickled for in fact just 100 years. I guess after that amount of time you’d give up waiting and be more then ready for supper. The Hong Kong version of Ready Steady Cook must be rubbish with those sorts of preparation times. One can only guess at how and why this delicacy was discovered.
I didn’t want to appear rude or ignorant. The pork looked good and went down nicely with the perfectly fluffy rice. But I do like some flavour with my rice. And how many times would I get the chance to try something as unusual? I cut off a corner of the yolk of the egg, making sure to add a good helping of the rice and shovelled it into my mouth. It tasted of, well, egg fried rice, just without the grease and a much stronger sense of egg. How disappointing it must have been for the chefs to wait 100 years when 3 minutes and a second egg could have had the same effect. It wasn’t too bad at all, though I only picked at the remains, the egg’s appearance making me reluctant to eat more of it the more I looked at it.
* * *
Roughly half an hours train ride from Kowloon is Lo Wu and the border with main land China. Over the border is Shenzhan, a Special Economic Zone which - as far as I could tell when I visited a few days later - was basically there to fleece money out of people coming from Hong Kong by fair means or foul. I eventually got a visa for China by going direct to the visa office and at first it seemed a shame I only had the bottle for a day trip, as being British, the cost of a visa was much higher then for other nationalities for some reason. Bizarrely, only Brazilians pay more as far as I could see. Maybe they fart more or something. After my experience at the tourist information office and a subsequent failure to uncover any other means, I was left with little option but to turn up at the border and see what was there. Within a few moments of crossing, the few white faces that I had shared the train with had disappeared. After walking barely a couple of hundred metres, I was approached by a scruffy looking woman who was offering god knows what, the bombardment of syllables that she was delivering being utterly meaningless to me. She produced a slip of paper and wrote down $200. I managed to haggle her down to $150 and then to $100 though for what I had no idea. It still didn’t sound like a good enough deal though, so I continued walking. I supposed that appearing so obviously as a tourist, being hassled was to be expected, but just a few moments later a man came up to me and offered to shine my shoes for $1 in very passable English. I was wearing suede boots. After I said no, his mate ran up and threw something that worryingly resembled bird shit over my left boot while the first bloke crouched down and grabbed hold of my laces, saying “I clean that for you, one dollar!” I had to physically push him to the ground to get rid of him. They clearly hadn’t got around to learning the word ‘no’. I hastened away from the streets that were in proximity of the border, the thinking being that this would be the hotbed of these hard sellers. I followed the crowds and arrived at what was the retail area and began to feel more at ease as I browsed around the exclusive looking retail outlets selling incredibly cheap goods.
I found a public square with people dressed casually enjoying the sunshine alongside workers dressed in suites having their lunch. It looked like a good spot for people watching, so I found a bench and dug out the ham and cheese sandwich that I had bought in Hong Kong on the way. Fears of the spread of disease obviously wasn’t an issue, the locals happily spitting away all over the pavement like it was the national sport. It was enough to put me off my last triangle of sandwich. Many of the people just did their own thing, but I was also intensely aware of the many pairs of eyes staring at me. There was also the occasional bit of finger pointing and the sharing of whispered jokes as I felt every bit the outsider. It was intimidating though I didn’t fear for my safety at that point. I continued wandering around, trying to decide if I could actually fit anything more into my backpack let alone carry it, when I acquired my very own stalker. I'd inadvertently walked into a super market. Walking around the basement floor, there didn't seem to be an obvious way back out. I walked around the floor three times but still couldn't find an escalator back up to street level. On the floor were green arrows with Chinese writing, one of which I followed to a door. It looked like a staff door but with all the green arrows pointing to it and my growing sense of desperation I gave it a little shove believing it would be the exit that would lead me to freedom.
The alarm that went off didn't attract as much attention as I thought it would, only a few faces glanced up to look at the dick head Brit. I quickly closed the door, the alarm stopping straight away. I started to move sheepishly away. However, I'd done enough to gain the attention of what appeared to be a respectable man in his white shirt, black trousers and shiny shoes. He was a good few inches shorter then me and looked like he was in his early twenties. I assumed he worked at the supermarket as he weaved his way around the fruit stands toward me. He began gobbing off in his native tongue and it sounded friendly enough. He seemed to want me to follow him - he must have seen my predicament and was going to lead me out of the store. I followed him.
We moved through the crowds, around parts of the store that I hadn't even noticed were there before. I attempted some small talk about how hard it was to find your way out of the place while he just grinned away at me. Suddenly the upward escalator presented itself. He rode with me to the exit of the store and the street. I exited but he continued to follow. I said my thanks and turned to walk off. At that point I concluded that he mustn't have been a worker at the store after all as he walked off in the opposite direction.
I continued my explorations, stopping to browse in the odd shop when I noticed the white shirt of my new best friend whilst in a sports store. I was standing over what seemed to be a bargain bin and looked up to see him standing on the opposite side. I wasn’t 100% sure if it was him until he gave me one of those grins and then distracted himself with a stand of replica football shirts. I wasn't convinced he was a Man Utd supporter. I left the store and went straight into the adjacent one, heading straight to the back of the place that was selling more casual wear. I watched the entrance and sure enough in he came looking around, clearly at the people and not the knitwear.
This was getting spooky - what did he want from me? I had to get rid of him. I waited for him to move up into one of the aisles and then I was off. Straight back out and across the street and into a mall entrance taking a few turns to give him more options should he have seen me heading into the mall. I found a side exit and took it, heading across the street again. I looked around and I saw the white shirt amongst the crowd moving at the fast pace that I had taken up. I turned down one street and then again at the next so as to be coming back on myself on a parallel course. Another mall. I went in and then straight back out of the next exit, turning down the next street I came to. Surely that was enough to have lost him? I looked around. He was coming around the corner, smiling as he saw me. He was loving it; the grin that a few minutes before had seemed so innocent was now taking on a sinister look. I carried on down the street that was leading away from the main hub and back toward the border with Hong Kong, it was time for plan B.
The crowds eventually thinned but I kept to the main roads in case Mr Smiley was fancying his chances at taking my Hong Kong dollars and left over sandwich. I took a few deep breaths and then whirled around to confront him with my best snarling nasty face.
"What do you want?! Why the fuck are you following me?!" I shouted. He didn't break his step and continued grinning as I bawled at him. He calmly carried on walking down the street as if I'd just said hello, barely nodding his head in response to my tirade. I stood there and watched him disappear - he didn't even look back. I’d had enough of Shenzhan by that point and continued to head for the border.
Near the border, I ran the gauntlet of the border peddlers again. A little girl of no more than six years old ran up to me shouting "Hello! Hello!" grabbing hold of my hand.
Cute.
That was until she started to try and slide my signet ring off of my finger. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment when I realised what she was trying to do and pulled away. She stood there, swinging her arms with a frustrated grunt, looking over to the woman who I assumed was her guardian. I made straight for the train station, checking I had all my things as I made the crossing back to Hong Kong where I could feel at ease once again.
The Wang Fat Hostel was run by a guy called Sam with the assistance of some helper girls. On first instance, he appeared to be somewhat of an unconventional fellow.
“How much you pay?” he asked me as I was booking in for my initial few nights. It was nice of him to give me the option but I was slightly taken aback by being given the choice. I quoted the price of $150HK per night that appeared in my travel guide and he seemed quite pleased with that. He beckoned one of his poor little helper girls who struggled with my backpack down the stairs to the room. She seemed eager enough to carry it despite my protests that I should do it. I’d asked to be put into a dormitory to save a few dollars, but with few hostels around and demand growing by the day it was a single room with a shared bathroom or else a trip to Chungking Mansions. The helper girl who by now I realised knew almost no English showed me around the threadbare converted apartment, largely by pointing at the important features. It didn’t take long.
Later on I bumped into my bathroom mate, who was of oriental origin, and I attempted to strike up a conversation with her. "Are you on your own?" I asked after we exchanged hellos. She thought for a moment and then held up two fingers in a peace gesture. She must mean that she was in a room with a companion in the room next door to mine. "Do you speak much English" I tried. She looked at me blankly. I tried again - a little more loudly, but got no response. Then a thought occurred to me. "Pasha?" I said as timidly as I could muster with a stupid grin. A look of alarm came over her face. After a moment of us staring at each other, she said "No, no!" and waved her hands in dismissal. I took my leave before she could call the police to have my hands chopped off. On the next day I was moved into a three bed dormitory room. The helper girl took me up another two stories to the apartment made up of three such dormitories with a shared bathroom. There was kitchen area that was devoid of any thing useful for food preparation or storage and a fold out camp bed I was later to learn was the sleeping quarters of one of Sam’s other helper girls.
My dormitory mates turned out to be Travis, a tall slender young man from Brisbane who couldn't work door locks, me finding him struggling and cursing at the thing as I arrived, and an American named Ricky who was to be a bigger sleeper then even I was. Of average height and dark complexion, his thick jet-black hair curled behind his ears at a stage of growth that suggested a significant time spent on the road.
We made our introductions and arranged to meet later for drinks. I hoped I would bump into the two charming Scottish girls that I’d got talking to on the previous night after they took an interest in the dragon pendant I was wearing on my wrist and invite them to come along. They were at the age where they would talk endlessly about getting drunk, but I found them to be good fun. Life did indeed feel good.
After the relaxing day in the park I decided it was time I began to experience some of the local cuisine. The noodle soup I bought at the small café in the park didn’t really seem to count as it tasted like any cheap Chinese food found in the UK dumped into a bowl of water. I walked around the Causeway Bay area in the evening, looking for something suitable. Along one street I passed windows with puppies in small glass tanks on display. I really hoped it was a pet shop sitting in amongst the restaurants. There were stalls with people selling treats such as silkworm and snake skin. I wasn’t feeling that adventurous.
I eventually came across a restaurant that looked respectable enough to get a good meal from and yet had a menu with prices that didn’t cause a sharp intake of breath through gritted teeth. I ventured in and played it safe, ordering pork with egg fried rice. I was pleased with the tea that was made with coconut milk, which was delicious. But then the food arrived.
Within one bowl was the pork, chunky strips of the meat marinated in a dark reddish sauce. I had no problem with that. In another bowl sat a portion of rice, of generous proportions. I didn’t have a problem with that. But sitting on top of the rice was the egg, the feature that made the boiled rice into the egg fried rice that I’d ordered. I did have a problem with that.
The egg was a green colour with faint white colouring showing through like the effect that marble has. I cut into it revealing the centre, the yolk, long since hardened into a sickly powdery dark orange colour that looked like it could have been dug out of someone’s ear. The smell wasn’t as pungent as I thought it would it be, but it was still pretty nauseous inducing. I remembered reading my guidebook, a passage in the food section coming to mind. It mentioned that one of the delicacies was the 1000-year-old egg, a normal everyday egg that’s been buried in the ground, pickled for in fact just 100 years. I guess after that amount of time you’d give up waiting and be more then ready for supper. The Hong Kong version of Ready Steady Cook must be rubbish with those sorts of preparation times. One can only guess at how and why this delicacy was discovered.
I didn’t want to appear rude or ignorant. The pork looked good and went down nicely with the perfectly fluffy rice. But I do like some flavour with my rice. And how many times would I get the chance to try something as unusual? I cut off a corner of the yolk of the egg, making sure to add a good helping of the rice and shovelled it into my mouth. It tasted of, well, egg fried rice, just without the grease and a much stronger sense of egg. How disappointing it must have been for the chefs to wait 100 years when 3 minutes and a second egg could have had the same effect. It wasn’t too bad at all, though I only picked at the remains, the egg’s appearance making me reluctant to eat more of it the more I looked at it.
* * *
Roughly half an hours train ride from Kowloon is Lo Wu and the border with main land China. Over the border is Shenzhan, a Special Economic Zone which - as far as I could tell when I visited a few days later - was basically there to fleece money out of people coming from Hong Kong by fair means or foul. I eventually got a visa for China by going direct to the visa office and at first it seemed a shame I only had the bottle for a day trip, as being British, the cost of a visa was much higher then for other nationalities for some reason. Bizarrely, only Brazilians pay more as far as I could see. Maybe they fart more or something. After my experience at the tourist information office and a subsequent failure to uncover any other means, I was left with little option but to turn up at the border and see what was there. Within a few moments of crossing, the few white faces that I had shared the train with had disappeared. After walking barely a couple of hundred metres, I was approached by a scruffy looking woman who was offering god knows what, the bombardment of syllables that she was delivering being utterly meaningless to me. She produced a slip of paper and wrote down $200. I managed to haggle her down to $150 and then to $100 though for what I had no idea. It still didn’t sound like a good enough deal though, so I continued walking. I supposed that appearing so obviously as a tourist, being hassled was to be expected, but just a few moments later a man came up to me and offered to shine my shoes for $1 in very passable English. I was wearing suede boots. After I said no, his mate ran up and threw something that worryingly resembled bird shit over my left boot while the first bloke crouched down and grabbed hold of my laces, saying “I clean that for you, one dollar!” I had to physically push him to the ground to get rid of him. They clearly hadn’t got around to learning the word ‘no’. I hastened away from the streets that were in proximity of the border, the thinking being that this would be the hotbed of these hard sellers. I followed the crowds and arrived at what was the retail area and began to feel more at ease as I browsed around the exclusive looking retail outlets selling incredibly cheap goods.
I found a public square with people dressed casually enjoying the sunshine alongside workers dressed in suites having their lunch. It looked like a good spot for people watching, so I found a bench and dug out the ham and cheese sandwich that I had bought in Hong Kong on the way. Fears of the spread of disease obviously wasn’t an issue, the locals happily spitting away all over the pavement like it was the national sport. It was enough to put me off my last triangle of sandwich. Many of the people just did their own thing, but I was also intensely aware of the many pairs of eyes staring at me. There was also the occasional bit of finger pointing and the sharing of whispered jokes as I felt every bit the outsider. It was intimidating though I didn’t fear for my safety at that point. I continued wandering around, trying to decide if I could actually fit anything more into my backpack let alone carry it, when I acquired my very own stalker. I'd inadvertently walked into a super market. Walking around the basement floor, there didn't seem to be an obvious way back out. I walked around the floor three times but still couldn't find an escalator back up to street level. On the floor were green arrows with Chinese writing, one of which I followed to a door. It looked like a staff door but with all the green arrows pointing to it and my growing sense of desperation I gave it a little shove believing it would be the exit that would lead me to freedom.
The alarm that went off didn't attract as much attention as I thought it would, only a few faces glanced up to look at the dick head Brit. I quickly closed the door, the alarm stopping straight away. I started to move sheepishly away. However, I'd done enough to gain the attention of what appeared to be a respectable man in his white shirt, black trousers and shiny shoes. He was a good few inches shorter then me and looked like he was in his early twenties. I assumed he worked at the supermarket as he weaved his way around the fruit stands toward me. He began gobbing off in his native tongue and it sounded friendly enough. He seemed to want me to follow him - he must have seen my predicament and was going to lead me out of the store. I followed him.
We moved through the crowds, around parts of the store that I hadn't even noticed were there before. I attempted some small talk about how hard it was to find your way out of the place while he just grinned away at me. Suddenly the upward escalator presented itself. He rode with me to the exit of the store and the street. I exited but he continued to follow. I said my thanks and turned to walk off. At that point I concluded that he mustn't have been a worker at the store after all as he walked off in the opposite direction.
I continued my explorations, stopping to browse in the odd shop when I noticed the white shirt of my new best friend whilst in a sports store. I was standing over what seemed to be a bargain bin and looked up to see him standing on the opposite side. I wasn’t 100% sure if it was him until he gave me one of those grins and then distracted himself with a stand of replica football shirts. I wasn't convinced he was a Man Utd supporter. I left the store and went straight into the adjacent one, heading straight to the back of the place that was selling more casual wear. I watched the entrance and sure enough in he came looking around, clearly at the people and not the knitwear.
This was getting spooky - what did he want from me? I had to get rid of him. I waited for him to move up into one of the aisles and then I was off. Straight back out and across the street and into a mall entrance taking a few turns to give him more options should he have seen me heading into the mall. I found a side exit and took it, heading across the street again. I looked around and I saw the white shirt amongst the crowd moving at the fast pace that I had taken up. I turned down one street and then again at the next so as to be coming back on myself on a parallel course. Another mall. I went in and then straight back out of the next exit, turning down the next street I came to. Surely that was enough to have lost him? I looked around. He was coming around the corner, smiling as he saw me. He was loving it; the grin that a few minutes before had seemed so innocent was now taking on a sinister look. I carried on down the street that was leading away from the main hub and back toward the border with Hong Kong, it was time for plan B.
The crowds eventually thinned but I kept to the main roads in case Mr Smiley was fancying his chances at taking my Hong Kong dollars and left over sandwich. I took a few deep breaths and then whirled around to confront him with my best snarling nasty face.
"What do you want?! Why the fuck are you following me?!" I shouted. He didn't break his step and continued grinning as I bawled at him. He calmly carried on walking down the street as if I'd just said hello, barely nodding his head in response to my tirade. I stood there and watched him disappear - he didn't even look back. I’d had enough of Shenzhan by that point and continued to head for the border.
Near the border, I ran the gauntlet of the border peddlers again. A little girl of no more than six years old ran up to me shouting "Hello! Hello!" grabbing hold of my hand.
Cute.
That was until she started to try and slide my signet ring off of my finger. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment when I realised what she was trying to do and pulled away. She stood there, swinging her arms with a frustrated grunt, looking over to the woman who I assumed was her guardian. I made straight for the train station, checking I had all my things as I made the crossing back to Hong Kong where I could feel at ease once again.
Gaining An Insight
With my jaunt into Southern China falling flat, I had the options of bringing my next flight forward or else taking the massive train journey from Hong Kong up to Shanghai or Beijing, changing my plans to fly onward from one of those. Both of these scenarios would mean unplanned expenditure from the carefully planned budget at such an early stage. The alternative was to wait out the time in Hong Kong until the scheduled flight to Australia as planned. I could ration the stuff I wanted to do by day and with Ricky planning on staying on too, I had a drinking buddy to hit the bars with by night.
Ricky was very well travelled, having covered every continent and some very interesting countries that were too many to count. At the same age as myself, he put me to shame with the places he’d covered. He freely admitted the shortcomings of the U.S., for instance the ignorance of most American people on issues outside of their own country and the damage George W Bush was doing. He worked in a travel agency and had some great examples of stupid things said by his fellow countrymen.
"Did you know the Dutch are from Denmark?"
"Holland is the biggest state in the Netherlands,"
"What part of England is Scotland in?"
And, “I’m going to Shenzhan,”
My personal favourite though was, "When is the millennium?" Tom was another American whom Ricky had previously met at the hostel, enjoying life in Hong Kong, he’d moved from the hostel to an apartment. He took us and a newly arrived young lad – Lorenzo, a fellow Brit from London - to a bar he knew, saying “It’s awesome” as “There's loads of girls, and it's really multicultural." He added, “Today’s Philippine day, there’ll be loads of them out celebrating.” We really didn’t know what Philippine day was, but I excepted it as by that time I figured out that Tom was the type of person whereby pushing such things would probably lead to more confusion.
When we got there, the bar was a dark, dank seedy looking place in a cellar. The place was full of fat sweaty middle-aged white men hooking up with oriental working girls. Poor old Tom innocently hadn't recognised the nature of the place.
“Didn’t I tell you this place was great!” he exclaimed as the other three of us exchanged bemused looks. One of the girls took a shine to me and she came over wrapping her arms around me without taking the trouble of making an introduction. "Erm, guys, I've got something stuck to me," I said, hoping to get some assistance. They all looked away, apart from Tom who was already deep into conversation with another of the girls.
"Where are you from?" asked the bundle clinging to my side.
"I’m from the UK," I answered. She didn't look particularly interested as she held on. I asked her name and where she was from. "I’m called Trixie," she answered. Yeah right. “I’m from the “Philippines.”
“OK. Well, happy Philippine day!” I said. She didn’t look too pleased at my good wishes, I guessed that she probably didn’t know what I was talking about and that Tom had been full of crap. "I have a problem, I don't have a drink," she said looking up at me.
"Oh dear," I said, "Well good luck with that," I replied. She realised she was losing me and so she unravelled herself and, standing in front of me, began treating me to a little dance. I showed more interest in my beer. The girl Tom had been talking to had by now found out the nature of his innocence and given up with him. He came over to watch Trixie’s dance.
“Hi! I’m Tom!“ he beamed to her, extending his hand for a handshake. She looked totally taken aback. Tom got his handshake but didn’t get the hug I was given, his exuberance enough to scare her away a few moments later.
Despite the cost of beer and the occasional Trixie, I was enjoying the Hong Kong nightlife, there were no barriers, with tourists, ex-pats and local guys dressed up in suits drinking their beer and dancing alongside each other in the main nightlife districts. I was having such a good time that I decided I’d be staying on in Hong Kong and went to see Sam to extend my stay at The Wang Fat.
“How much you pay?” he asked me once again. I was ready for him this time and offered the lower price of $100HK a night. He wasn’t happy about that.
“I meet you half way $125” he said. That was good enough for me. He sent me away with a wink adding, “Special deal, don’t tell no-one else.”
I immediately went and asked Ricky what rate he was paying. He just gave me a smile and said, “So you’ve learnt about Uncle Sam’s ways huh?
“Uncle Sam?”
“Yeah. He charges what he feels like depending on how much he likes you.”
“Well, I’ve got him down to $125, is that good?”
“Not bad considering how long you’ve been here,” I’d already found out that poor Lorenzo was still paying $150.
“So you get on well with him?”
“The trick is to book on the Internet. It’s at the cheaper rate so he has to charge you at that price. I don’t think even that will work for much longer though, I saw his computer screen the other day with pages of unopened emails. ‘See these’ he said, ‘I ignore’.”
The hostel did have a lot of character, I was beginning to like Uncle Sam, despite seemingly to be making things up as he went along and my guess that he may well have been in the pocket of the triads. Many of the travellers passing through complained about the hostel, the small rooms and at Sam's way of doing business, but there really isn’t many budget options in Hong Kong. It was safe, the rooms had air conditioning and it was easy to meet people with a small but cosy common room. What more do you need?
Travis had moved on with his travels taking him onward to Europe, though he didn’t really seem too prepared.
“It doesn’t get too cold in London this time of year does it?” he asked me.
“It’s not too bad, maybe averaging about 15 degrees centigrade,”
He looked at me as if I’d slapped him across the face.
“Isn’t it spring time there? It doesn’t get that cold in Brisbane during the winter!” A few days later I received an email from him. It simply read, ‘It’s fucking cold.’
Travis was replaced by a succession of people who Ricky and I labelled as ‘day-trippers’, most of whom were on a stop over and just having a look around the city for a day or two. So we were happy when Mick, a short stocky charismatic Irishman arrived. He walked through the door carrying just one small bag.
“This is pretty good for me,” he said in his cheeky Irish accent, “I left home with a toothbrush and a change of clothes. I knew I’d be headed to Thailand and I knew how cheap everything would be out there so I thought I’d just buy everything I need when I got there. I had a bit of trouble getting through customs though. For some reason, they found it suspicious when an Irishman takes a one way flight without luggage…”
He went on to tell us about his first day in Hong Kong. “Have you guys used a public toilet here?”
“Yeah, why?” I replied.
“Well, I was bursting for the toilet after eating too many Thai curries. I managed to find a public toilet and went into one of the cubicles. All they had, was this hole in the ground. How the hell do you use those when you need a crap? I didn’t want to put my bag on the floor as it looked pretty rank, so I’m there, squatting over this hole, holding onto my bag with one hand and holding onto my jeans so they don’t fall on the floor with the other hand. Then I think, ‘how do I wipe my arse?’ I almost fell over several times and my legs were aching like a bastard in the end. These Chinese people must have strong legs.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, had he checked the other stalls, he would have found a normal toilet for dealing with a number two.
We were lucky enough to have a television set in our dormitory, which made for an interesting insight into the culture. There was one main English speaking channel but even then, many of the programs were still in Chinese. A large proportion of the English programming was aimed at children with very little information of what was going on at home. It was the run up to a general election in the UK but I couldn’t find any coverage and there was much more coverage of the Spanish, Dutch and Italian football leagues then the English Premiership. I was seeing very little evidence of the former British rule, as if the Hong Kong people were rejecting any traces of British influence on their culture. The language barriers I was still generally experiencing continued to surprise me.
The succession of celebratory days in the UK drove me mad, but at least we don't have the 'Secretary's Day' as I saw advertised in Hong Kong. Presumably, it would never take off in Britain as the bosses would send their secretaries out to buy the cards that the bosses would give back to them. There is a pride in the former colony, television adverts reminding the people to be courteous and helpful should they encounter overseas visitors. I could only imagine how such a thing would go down at home.
There are shops and malls everywhere primarily aiming at young women, with endless advertisements for clothing and cosmetics. It seemed odd to see adverts for face whitening masks and to think that on the other side of the world, people were using cosmetics to make their skin darker. In Hong Kong, commercialisation is king and is as much of a religion as in the west.
* * *
I'd like to think that I was pretty fit. In my time I've ran two half marathons and had always tried to involve myself in lots of sports. So I figured that the hike to the Po Lin monastery should have been do-able for me. However I found out the hard way that it should only be attempted by those that are both super-fit and brave. In my case it was ignorance that led me into taking it on, scoffing at the idea of taking the bus.
The map in my travel guide showed a single trail heading to the 500 metre plateau. I arrived at the Lo Hun monastery, the last civilisation before Po Lin, already hot and sweaty after a half an hour walk from the train station in the 30 degree plus temperatures with the humidity approaching 90%. The Lo Hun consisted of a few gardens and a friendly monk whom I was pleased was able to serve me a Coke. On the way I had stopped off at the Thung Chung fort, basically a big brick wall with a few cannons on them. The basketball court in the middle didn't help to give it much of a sense of authenticity. I held out higher hopes for Po Lin as it was the site of the famous giant Tian Tan Buddha and my reason for making the trip out to Lantau Island. I hit a problem early on into the trail. A crossroads. Should I go left or right? A 50-50 chance of guessing correctly. I chose the left one as it seemed to be heading for the higher ground, but why wasn't this trail marked on the map in the guidebook? Nevertheless, I was making good progress considering the toughness of the terrain that climbed steeply into the hills.
Then I came to a second crossroads. Again, I took the one that seemed to be heading upward. It continued upward. And upward. And upward. I kept going all the way into the clouds. I reached the top of the mountain with my water low and my moral seeping away and there was still no sign of the giant Buddha. The trail seemed to have hit its peak, the pathway heading back downward. I guessed that I couldn't have been far off from Lantau peak, at 934 metres above sea level, Hong Kong's second highest point. I decided to press on rather then turn back. The mist became so bad that I could see no more then ten metres. I became concerned that I hadn't seen anybody else hiking for nearly an hour. With no other option, all I could do was continue on, my feet aching, legs sore and everything else drenched in sweat.
I eventually emerged from the vegetation and onto a road. There was a visitor map to the side of the trail and signs warning of the dangers of Dengue Fever and Malaria. It looked like I had walked the Lantau Trail and had indeed passed along the northern face of Lantau peak, having covered just about the entire length of the island passing Po Lin by about 200 metres. I saw that I was on registered slope 13NE-B/C63, at least then I knew I was back in civilisation though angry, frustrated and very tired.
I walked along the road and came to a bus stop and was delighted that the timetable showed one that went to the monastery. I’d never scoff at bus travel again. With luck I’d get to the Buddha with enough time for a look around before last light.
The grounds of the monastery had a couple of temples with a few people shaking fire sticks at them like at the Yuen Wong temple. Having seen that stuff before I decided to head straight for the Buddha hoping that the journey to get there was worth it.
To get up to the platform upon which it sits takes a climb of 250 steps. However, the Buddha had a massive design flaw, they seemed to have built the thing on the inside of a cloud so that, upon arrival, looking up at it on it's 7.6 metre high platform, all that was visible was an eerie silhouette.
I had read that it was the biggest seated, bronze, outdoor Buddha statue in the world and so I was expecting to be impressed. However, I was left with the feeling that somewhere else, tourists were looking at an equally big, indoor, standing, non-bronze statue of a Buddha with much less disappointment then I. I was glad of the little cafe nearby, it sold bottles of San Miguel for $10HK which helped me feel a little less intimidated when I got onto a bus crammed full of Philippine workers for the journey back to the train station.
* * *
I was to discover that every Sunday was unofficially termed as a Philippine Day. Victoria Park would be over run by people from the country but it was not in celebration of some national holiday as I had first assumed. It is the day that the Philippine hired help get their solitary day off. They are literally thrown out of their lodgings for the day when they do not have to wait on their employers, and so they cram the parks and bars to occupy themselves for the day. Some of the women do supplement their modest incomes by turning to prostitution, hence my run in with Trixie the previous week. No wonder she didn't seem to like it when I wished her a happy Philippine day.
In an attempt to escape the crowds I headed out on a ferry to Lamma Island with Lorenzo tagging along. I admired his guts, travelling on his own at the tender age of 19, gaining an insight into the world before he would take up his university studies. On first impressions he came across as a confident young man, but after getting to know him I found the usual insecurities of youth. He was incapable of making a decision without consulting Ricky or me and his hyperactivity was an irritation to deal with. His heart was in the right place though and we had a good day on the Island. We walked along it’s beaches before finding a hidden gem of a bar, the ex-pat owner playing chill-out music as we sipped cool beer, sitting almost horizontally in the big comfy couches in the art-deco surroundings. I couldn’t drag Lorenzo away, happy as he was for me to leave him on the Island as I headed back.
I had been noticing a horrible smell over the last couple of days. Then I realised that it was probably me. I really needed to do some washing.
Ricky was very well travelled, having covered every continent and some very interesting countries that were too many to count. At the same age as myself, he put me to shame with the places he’d covered. He freely admitted the shortcomings of the U.S., for instance the ignorance of most American people on issues outside of their own country and the damage George W Bush was doing. He worked in a travel agency and had some great examples of stupid things said by his fellow countrymen.
"Did you know the Dutch are from Denmark?"
"Holland is the biggest state in the Netherlands,"
"What part of England is Scotland in?"
And, “I’m going to Shenzhan,”
My personal favourite though was, "When is the millennium?" Tom was another American whom Ricky had previously met at the hostel, enjoying life in Hong Kong, he’d moved from the hostel to an apartment. He took us and a newly arrived young lad – Lorenzo, a fellow Brit from London - to a bar he knew, saying “It’s awesome” as “There's loads of girls, and it's really multicultural." He added, “Today’s Philippine day, there’ll be loads of them out celebrating.” We really didn’t know what Philippine day was, but I excepted it as by that time I figured out that Tom was the type of person whereby pushing such things would probably lead to more confusion.
When we got there, the bar was a dark, dank seedy looking place in a cellar. The place was full of fat sweaty middle-aged white men hooking up with oriental working girls. Poor old Tom innocently hadn't recognised the nature of the place.
“Didn’t I tell you this place was great!” he exclaimed as the other three of us exchanged bemused looks. One of the girls took a shine to me and she came over wrapping her arms around me without taking the trouble of making an introduction. "Erm, guys, I've got something stuck to me," I said, hoping to get some assistance. They all looked away, apart from Tom who was already deep into conversation with another of the girls.
"Where are you from?" asked the bundle clinging to my side.
"I’m from the UK," I answered. She didn't look particularly interested as she held on. I asked her name and where she was from. "I’m called Trixie," she answered. Yeah right. “I’m from the “Philippines.”
“OK. Well, happy Philippine day!” I said. She didn’t look too pleased at my good wishes, I guessed that she probably didn’t know what I was talking about and that Tom had been full of crap. "I have a problem, I don't have a drink," she said looking up at me.
"Oh dear," I said, "Well good luck with that," I replied. She realised she was losing me and so she unravelled herself and, standing in front of me, began treating me to a little dance. I showed more interest in my beer. The girl Tom had been talking to had by now found out the nature of his innocence and given up with him. He came over to watch Trixie’s dance.
“Hi! I’m Tom!“ he beamed to her, extending his hand for a handshake. She looked totally taken aback. Tom got his handshake but didn’t get the hug I was given, his exuberance enough to scare her away a few moments later.
Despite the cost of beer and the occasional Trixie, I was enjoying the Hong Kong nightlife, there were no barriers, with tourists, ex-pats and local guys dressed up in suits drinking their beer and dancing alongside each other in the main nightlife districts. I was having such a good time that I decided I’d be staying on in Hong Kong and went to see Sam to extend my stay at The Wang Fat.
“How much you pay?” he asked me once again. I was ready for him this time and offered the lower price of $100HK a night. He wasn’t happy about that.
“I meet you half way $125” he said. That was good enough for me. He sent me away with a wink adding, “Special deal, don’t tell no-one else.”
I immediately went and asked Ricky what rate he was paying. He just gave me a smile and said, “So you’ve learnt about Uncle Sam’s ways huh?
“Uncle Sam?”
“Yeah. He charges what he feels like depending on how much he likes you.”
“Well, I’ve got him down to $125, is that good?”
“Not bad considering how long you’ve been here,” I’d already found out that poor Lorenzo was still paying $150.
“So you get on well with him?”
“The trick is to book on the Internet. It’s at the cheaper rate so he has to charge you at that price. I don’t think even that will work for much longer though, I saw his computer screen the other day with pages of unopened emails. ‘See these’ he said, ‘I ignore’.”
The hostel did have a lot of character, I was beginning to like Uncle Sam, despite seemingly to be making things up as he went along and my guess that he may well have been in the pocket of the triads. Many of the travellers passing through complained about the hostel, the small rooms and at Sam's way of doing business, but there really isn’t many budget options in Hong Kong. It was safe, the rooms had air conditioning and it was easy to meet people with a small but cosy common room. What more do you need?
Travis had moved on with his travels taking him onward to Europe, though he didn’t really seem too prepared.
“It doesn’t get too cold in London this time of year does it?” he asked me.
“It’s not too bad, maybe averaging about 15 degrees centigrade,”
He looked at me as if I’d slapped him across the face.
“Isn’t it spring time there? It doesn’t get that cold in Brisbane during the winter!” A few days later I received an email from him. It simply read, ‘It’s fucking cold.’
Travis was replaced by a succession of people who Ricky and I labelled as ‘day-trippers’, most of whom were on a stop over and just having a look around the city for a day or two. So we were happy when Mick, a short stocky charismatic Irishman arrived. He walked through the door carrying just one small bag.
“This is pretty good for me,” he said in his cheeky Irish accent, “I left home with a toothbrush and a change of clothes. I knew I’d be headed to Thailand and I knew how cheap everything would be out there so I thought I’d just buy everything I need when I got there. I had a bit of trouble getting through customs though. For some reason, they found it suspicious when an Irishman takes a one way flight without luggage…”
He went on to tell us about his first day in Hong Kong. “Have you guys used a public toilet here?”
“Yeah, why?” I replied.
“Well, I was bursting for the toilet after eating too many Thai curries. I managed to find a public toilet and went into one of the cubicles. All they had, was this hole in the ground. How the hell do you use those when you need a crap? I didn’t want to put my bag on the floor as it looked pretty rank, so I’m there, squatting over this hole, holding onto my bag with one hand and holding onto my jeans so they don’t fall on the floor with the other hand. Then I think, ‘how do I wipe my arse?’ I almost fell over several times and my legs were aching like a bastard in the end. These Chinese people must have strong legs.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, had he checked the other stalls, he would have found a normal toilet for dealing with a number two.
We were lucky enough to have a television set in our dormitory, which made for an interesting insight into the culture. There was one main English speaking channel but even then, many of the programs were still in Chinese. A large proportion of the English programming was aimed at children with very little information of what was going on at home. It was the run up to a general election in the UK but I couldn’t find any coverage and there was much more coverage of the Spanish, Dutch and Italian football leagues then the English Premiership. I was seeing very little evidence of the former British rule, as if the Hong Kong people were rejecting any traces of British influence on their culture. The language barriers I was still generally experiencing continued to surprise me.
The succession of celebratory days in the UK drove me mad, but at least we don't have the 'Secretary's Day' as I saw advertised in Hong Kong. Presumably, it would never take off in Britain as the bosses would send their secretaries out to buy the cards that the bosses would give back to them. There is a pride in the former colony, television adverts reminding the people to be courteous and helpful should they encounter overseas visitors. I could only imagine how such a thing would go down at home.
There are shops and malls everywhere primarily aiming at young women, with endless advertisements for clothing and cosmetics. It seemed odd to see adverts for face whitening masks and to think that on the other side of the world, people were using cosmetics to make their skin darker. In Hong Kong, commercialisation is king and is as much of a religion as in the west.
* * *
I'd like to think that I was pretty fit. In my time I've ran two half marathons and had always tried to involve myself in lots of sports. So I figured that the hike to the Po Lin monastery should have been do-able for me. However I found out the hard way that it should only be attempted by those that are both super-fit and brave. In my case it was ignorance that led me into taking it on, scoffing at the idea of taking the bus.
The map in my travel guide showed a single trail heading to the 500 metre plateau. I arrived at the Lo Hun monastery, the last civilisation before Po Lin, already hot and sweaty after a half an hour walk from the train station in the 30 degree plus temperatures with the humidity approaching 90%. The Lo Hun consisted of a few gardens and a friendly monk whom I was pleased was able to serve me a Coke. On the way I had stopped off at the Thung Chung fort, basically a big brick wall with a few cannons on them. The basketball court in the middle didn't help to give it much of a sense of authenticity. I held out higher hopes for Po Lin as it was the site of the famous giant Tian Tan Buddha and my reason for making the trip out to Lantau Island. I hit a problem early on into the trail. A crossroads. Should I go left or right? A 50-50 chance of guessing correctly. I chose the left one as it seemed to be heading for the higher ground, but why wasn't this trail marked on the map in the guidebook? Nevertheless, I was making good progress considering the toughness of the terrain that climbed steeply into the hills.
Then I came to a second crossroads. Again, I took the one that seemed to be heading upward. It continued upward. And upward. And upward. I kept going all the way into the clouds. I reached the top of the mountain with my water low and my moral seeping away and there was still no sign of the giant Buddha. The trail seemed to have hit its peak, the pathway heading back downward. I guessed that I couldn't have been far off from Lantau peak, at 934 metres above sea level, Hong Kong's second highest point. I decided to press on rather then turn back. The mist became so bad that I could see no more then ten metres. I became concerned that I hadn't seen anybody else hiking for nearly an hour. With no other option, all I could do was continue on, my feet aching, legs sore and everything else drenched in sweat.
I eventually emerged from the vegetation and onto a road. There was a visitor map to the side of the trail and signs warning of the dangers of Dengue Fever and Malaria. It looked like I had walked the Lantau Trail and had indeed passed along the northern face of Lantau peak, having covered just about the entire length of the island passing Po Lin by about 200 metres. I saw that I was on registered slope 13NE-B/C63, at least then I knew I was back in civilisation though angry, frustrated and very tired.
I walked along the road and came to a bus stop and was delighted that the timetable showed one that went to the monastery. I’d never scoff at bus travel again. With luck I’d get to the Buddha with enough time for a look around before last light.
The grounds of the monastery had a couple of temples with a few people shaking fire sticks at them like at the Yuen Wong temple. Having seen that stuff before I decided to head straight for the Buddha hoping that the journey to get there was worth it.
To get up to the platform upon which it sits takes a climb of 250 steps. However, the Buddha had a massive design flaw, they seemed to have built the thing on the inside of a cloud so that, upon arrival, looking up at it on it's 7.6 metre high platform, all that was visible was an eerie silhouette.
I had read that it was the biggest seated, bronze, outdoor Buddha statue in the world and so I was expecting to be impressed. However, I was left with the feeling that somewhere else, tourists were looking at an equally big, indoor, standing, non-bronze statue of a Buddha with much less disappointment then I. I was glad of the little cafe nearby, it sold bottles of San Miguel for $10HK which helped me feel a little less intimidated when I got onto a bus crammed full of Philippine workers for the journey back to the train station.
* * *
I was to discover that every Sunday was unofficially termed as a Philippine Day. Victoria Park would be over run by people from the country but it was not in celebration of some national holiday as I had first assumed. It is the day that the Philippine hired help get their solitary day off. They are literally thrown out of their lodgings for the day when they do not have to wait on their employers, and so they cram the parks and bars to occupy themselves for the day. Some of the women do supplement their modest incomes by turning to prostitution, hence my run in with Trixie the previous week. No wonder she didn't seem to like it when I wished her a happy Philippine day.
In an attempt to escape the crowds I headed out on a ferry to Lamma Island with Lorenzo tagging along. I admired his guts, travelling on his own at the tender age of 19, gaining an insight into the world before he would take up his university studies. On first impressions he came across as a confident young man, but after getting to know him I found the usual insecurities of youth. He was incapable of making a decision without consulting Ricky or me and his hyperactivity was an irritation to deal with. His heart was in the right place though and we had a good day on the Island. We walked along it’s beaches before finding a hidden gem of a bar, the ex-pat owner playing chill-out music as we sipped cool beer, sitting almost horizontally in the big comfy couches in the art-deco surroundings. I couldn’t drag Lorenzo away, happy as he was for me to leave him on the Island as I headed back.
I had been noticing a horrible smell over the last couple of days. Then I realised that it was probably me. I really needed to do some washing.
Changing The Meaning
The first thing that hit me as I was getting off of the ferry was the intense heat. I clocked it at 35 degrees on my little thermometer come compass. Together with the high humidity in the region, it made moving about difficult.
A special administration zone, Macau was returned to the Chinese after it had been a Portuguese colony. The small island is famed for it’s casinos and the opportunity this gives the gambling mad people of Hong Kong who otherwise have little outlet for one of their favourite past times.
My first stop was the Macau tower, at 338 metres, the tenth tallest freestanding structure in the world. It doesn't do anything apart from offer fantastic views if the smog isn’t too bad, or for the crazy people of the world that have plenty of money, there are extreme sports. I made do with a trip up to the observation platform as I didn’t really fall into either of the categories. Extreme options included climbing up the mast or zip flying all the way down to the bottom.
As I walked around the island, I observed that as with Hong Kong, it was hard to get a feel of the past rule. The only Portuguese vibe I picked up was the styling of some of the architecture, the odd restaurant and seeing the hundreds of scooters flying about the streets. Finding somewhere to eat was tricky as I'm not a big seafood fan and alternatives on the island were in short supply. And I still couldn’t speak any Chinese.
I walked around what seemed to be the main hub and found a little Indian cafe. I had been missing the chance of having a good curry and so entered the cosy looking establishment.
The food was good for a mere $30HK even though I heard the ping of a microwave just prior to it being served. I was the daredevil, risking the chicken with all the headlines about SARS in the region. But what made it was the friendly owner, a small Indian woman in advancing years, I made her day when I told her how good I thought the food was.
“It’s my own recipe,” she beamed with pride. She was a regular Delia Smith. While I ate, she sat at a nearby table with a young looking woman. She was giving Delia a lesson in Russian.
“I’m fascinated by languages,” Delia said to me later, her lesson completed and the Russian girl leaving to go to her next client.
“So you’re just learning Russian for the fun of it?” I asked.
“Oh yes. I’m learning Cantonese as well, though that’s more as a necessity. It’s much more difficult though.”
“So I hear. What makes it so hard?”
“I think it’s that the same word can be said with several different pitches, each completely changing the meaning. And then there’s all the hundreds of characters in the alphabet. That’s what I’m working on at the moment. Let me show you an example.” She fetched a piece of paper and carefully wrote out a symbol. “Each symbol represents a sound. This one represents ‘woman’.” She then drew a second symbol next to the first. “This one has another sound, but put it together with the first and the pair represent ‘horse’.” My mind boggled at the deeper meanings that lay behind the linkage to the two words.
“Well, you’re obviously a good student with languages, you’re English is very good.” I said.
“Oh no, not really, I only speak English, Spanish, some Russian now, some Cantonese and of course my home language. What languages do you speak?”
I felt embarrassed to admit my ignorance. “Just English, “ I said bowing my head.
“Oh... well I find England is interesting because of all the regional accents.”
“Yeah, thar’s the one from Berminghum, it soonds just liyke thuis,” I added, giving her my best impersonation of the black country accent.
“Are you serious? People don’t really sound like that do they?”
“Oh I’m afraid they do.”
She considered it for a moment and then stood up, “Would you like the bill now?” she asked bluntly. I think she thought I was taking the piss.
Although nowhere near as bad Shenzhan, I found the Chinese of Macau pretty disgusting with the constant spitting everywhere together with all the delightful sound effects. Taking a rest from the strength sapping humidity, I sat on a bench in a small park with an ice cream. Opposite me sat two old geezers. One began snorting away like a particularly unattractive pig. When he had suitably cleared that orifice, he worked his throat, hacking and gagging away like there was a marble caught in his gullet. He then unashamedly spat the produce in a high arc in front of him which landed with a splat on the ground a few feet away between us. I stared straight into his eyes, giving him my best look of contempt. He just smiled back, as if he was proud of his work. His mate just sat there, not bothered at all.
The day was getting older and so I decided to take a walk along the waterfront toward the ferry jetty. I encountered an old man of what appeared to be Portuguese origin with sun damaged wrinkled skin and clothes that suggested a leaning toward the alternative. As I walked past him he called out, giving me a big friendly ‘Hello!’ while he waved at me maniacally as I passed. I returned the greeting and continued on my way.
I ventured up a walkway that jutted out over the water to take in the view of the tower only to notice my new hippy friend standing at the bottom. He was looking unsure as to whether to follow me up, in the manner of a predator who had already eaten but who has just spotted some easy prey. Up he came.
"Hello!" he said again waving at me from barely three feet away. I returned the gesture.
"Baa-baa lollipop Macau Benfica," he said (or something like that) as he pointed to the ground. I guessed he was asking me if I was staying in Macau.
"Oh Yes," I replied to keep things simple. I assumed he might have trouble with the word ‘no’. We then shared several gestures and smiles about how good the view was.
"Ting-tang drivel-drivel Luis Figo blah," he then said (or something similar) making a fist with one hand and inserting his first finger in one end with his other hand. He then pointed at what was either my pockets or my crotch and laughed suggestively.
I was guessing that a) he was asking for money, b) he was a pimp or c) he was a fortune-teller and had followed me to have a good laugh about the fact that the last two years were bad ones for me to have had a girlfriend.
I shook my head, turning down his offer, whatever it was. He repeated himself, a little more loudly but I just kept shaking my head to his suggestions with my hands spread out in front of me to show I wasn’t a threat. Some more people arrived to look at the view. Now that there were witnesses should he of been thinking about throwing me into the sea, he quietened down. After it was clear that the group that arrived would be hanging around a while and that I was going nowhere, the hippy took his leave, giving me another big wave and a thumbs up.
I got back to the ferry and we pulled away with the lights of the tower and the casinos fading into the distance. I made a mental note that I really should do some washing on the following day.
* * *
"You are very lucky," said the huge Indian man. He was smartly dressed in a suit with black tie and came complete with a turban. "Some great fortune is going to happen to you in the next month."
I was sitting on the Kowloon side of the harbour early in the morning and had already waved away two beggars and was now having the attentions of another fortune-teller. I was dubious about his skills, he looked more like he should have been working in airline security. After I told him I had already had my fortune told and had got a lucky charm I think that I worried him that there was another teller on his patch.
"Who was she? What did she look like? When was this?" he asked. I didn't have the grace to tell him that it was on the other side of Hong Kong as I shooed him away.
I was without much of a plan for my last few days in Hong Kong. Ricky and Mick had left and, I had to admit, I needed time out from Lorenzo’s hyperactivity. My new dormitory buddies was made up of a quiet German who spent his time going to museums and having early nights and an American guy who seemed to sleep all of the time. The jet lag must be harder to get over when travelling from America. Or else maybe young American men are just lazy.
Hong Kong boasts the longest escalator in the world, built to get workers home to the Midlevels from the central financial district. This sounded like a good way to waste away a couple of hours and so I made a visit. I was disappointed to find a series of little escalators. And not only is the supposedly longest escalator in the world in sections, but the bloody thing ran in only one direction. It was a long walk back down especially as the rain started to pour down for my trek back.
One day I headed to the bank of China building, for no other reason then to take in the view of the city from the public floor. I spotted a park so decided to waste the afternoon mooching around it. Hong Kong Park turned out to be a great place. It was entirely artificial which gave it the feeling of being from a Tim Burton movie set. As well as all the lakes, waterfalls and greenery, there was a conservatory housing Hong Kong native plants though upon entering, amongst the rules is one that clearly stated, 'no balloons'. Did balloons constitute a dangerous weapon?
Within the park was the most crap museum in the world. The Tea Museum. It was so bad, it was brilliant, though the five minutes I spent there was more then enough. There were nine galleries or so, some devoted to different parts of the teapot; the lid, the handle and my favourite - the spout. Sadly there wasn't much detail on cups and saucers. The highlight for me though was the ceramic texture gallery, within which were ‘interactive’ samples that could be touched. One such example was a teapot made to look like corrugated cardboard. With the exhibit, there was a section of corrugated cardboard, just in case the visitor didn't understand. It was in a glass case like some kind of archaeological treasure. Now that Harrison Ford's getting on a bit could we soon be seeing the movie Indiana Jones and the Section of Corrugated Cardboard?
I thought that this summarised Hong Kong up quite well. I arrived expecting glamour, style and sophistication but so much was actually quite tatty. Yes, there was the latest technological gadgets in the shops, but they all seemed to be finished poorly in cheap looking plastic casing. I went to Hong Kong expected the artistry of a Bruce Lee movie but found - while still entertaining - the tackiness of a Jackie Chan flick. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time there. Hong Kong has an excellent transport system considering that if the UK had such a high population density, the system would more then likely have collapsed long ago. The people were always polite with the service excellent, and wherever I went, I always felt perfectly safe. But I can't help worry a little for the place; the smog is choking the city and the lack of noticeable acknowledgement of former British rule caused me concern on what the future holds under the Chinese administration.
But I would soon be going to Sydney and I reflected on how lucky I felt to have the opportunity be to travelling there. I didn't need a fortune-teller to tell me that.
A special administration zone, Macau was returned to the Chinese after it had been a Portuguese colony. The small island is famed for it’s casinos and the opportunity this gives the gambling mad people of Hong Kong who otherwise have little outlet for one of their favourite past times.
My first stop was the Macau tower, at 338 metres, the tenth tallest freestanding structure in the world. It doesn't do anything apart from offer fantastic views if the smog isn’t too bad, or for the crazy people of the world that have plenty of money, there are extreme sports. I made do with a trip up to the observation platform as I didn’t really fall into either of the categories. Extreme options included climbing up the mast or zip flying all the way down to the bottom.
As I walked around the island, I observed that as with Hong Kong, it was hard to get a feel of the past rule. The only Portuguese vibe I picked up was the styling of some of the architecture, the odd restaurant and seeing the hundreds of scooters flying about the streets. Finding somewhere to eat was tricky as I'm not a big seafood fan and alternatives on the island were in short supply. And I still couldn’t speak any Chinese.
I walked around what seemed to be the main hub and found a little Indian cafe. I had been missing the chance of having a good curry and so entered the cosy looking establishment.
The food was good for a mere $30HK even though I heard the ping of a microwave just prior to it being served. I was the daredevil, risking the chicken with all the headlines about SARS in the region. But what made it was the friendly owner, a small Indian woman in advancing years, I made her day when I told her how good I thought the food was.
“It’s my own recipe,” she beamed with pride. She was a regular Delia Smith. While I ate, she sat at a nearby table with a young looking woman. She was giving Delia a lesson in Russian.
“I’m fascinated by languages,” Delia said to me later, her lesson completed and the Russian girl leaving to go to her next client.
“So you’re just learning Russian for the fun of it?” I asked.
“Oh yes. I’m learning Cantonese as well, though that’s more as a necessity. It’s much more difficult though.”
“So I hear. What makes it so hard?”
“I think it’s that the same word can be said with several different pitches, each completely changing the meaning. And then there’s all the hundreds of characters in the alphabet. That’s what I’m working on at the moment. Let me show you an example.” She fetched a piece of paper and carefully wrote out a symbol. “Each symbol represents a sound. This one represents ‘woman’.” She then drew a second symbol next to the first. “This one has another sound, but put it together with the first and the pair represent ‘horse’.” My mind boggled at the deeper meanings that lay behind the linkage to the two words.
“Well, you’re obviously a good student with languages, you’re English is very good.” I said.
“Oh no, not really, I only speak English, Spanish, some Russian now, some Cantonese and of course my home language. What languages do you speak?”
I felt embarrassed to admit my ignorance. “Just English, “ I said bowing my head.
“Oh... well I find England is interesting because of all the regional accents.”
“Yeah, thar’s the one from Berminghum, it soonds just liyke thuis,” I added, giving her my best impersonation of the black country accent.
“Are you serious? People don’t really sound like that do they?”
“Oh I’m afraid they do.”
She considered it for a moment and then stood up, “Would you like the bill now?” she asked bluntly. I think she thought I was taking the piss.
Although nowhere near as bad Shenzhan, I found the Chinese of Macau pretty disgusting with the constant spitting everywhere together with all the delightful sound effects. Taking a rest from the strength sapping humidity, I sat on a bench in a small park with an ice cream. Opposite me sat two old geezers. One began snorting away like a particularly unattractive pig. When he had suitably cleared that orifice, he worked his throat, hacking and gagging away like there was a marble caught in his gullet. He then unashamedly spat the produce in a high arc in front of him which landed with a splat on the ground a few feet away between us. I stared straight into his eyes, giving him my best look of contempt. He just smiled back, as if he was proud of his work. His mate just sat there, not bothered at all.
The day was getting older and so I decided to take a walk along the waterfront toward the ferry jetty. I encountered an old man of what appeared to be Portuguese origin with sun damaged wrinkled skin and clothes that suggested a leaning toward the alternative. As I walked past him he called out, giving me a big friendly ‘Hello!’ while he waved at me maniacally as I passed. I returned the greeting and continued on my way.
I ventured up a walkway that jutted out over the water to take in the view of the tower only to notice my new hippy friend standing at the bottom. He was looking unsure as to whether to follow me up, in the manner of a predator who had already eaten but who has just spotted some easy prey. Up he came.
"Hello!" he said again waving at me from barely three feet away. I returned the gesture.
"Baa-baa lollipop Macau Benfica," he said (or something like that) as he pointed to the ground. I guessed he was asking me if I was staying in Macau.
"Oh Yes," I replied to keep things simple. I assumed he might have trouble with the word ‘no’. We then shared several gestures and smiles about how good the view was.
"Ting-tang drivel-drivel Luis Figo blah," he then said (or something similar) making a fist with one hand and inserting his first finger in one end with his other hand. He then pointed at what was either my pockets or my crotch and laughed suggestively.
I was guessing that a) he was asking for money, b) he was a pimp or c) he was a fortune-teller and had followed me to have a good laugh about the fact that the last two years were bad ones for me to have had a girlfriend.
I shook my head, turning down his offer, whatever it was. He repeated himself, a little more loudly but I just kept shaking my head to his suggestions with my hands spread out in front of me to show I wasn’t a threat. Some more people arrived to look at the view. Now that there were witnesses should he of been thinking about throwing me into the sea, he quietened down. After it was clear that the group that arrived would be hanging around a while and that I was going nowhere, the hippy took his leave, giving me another big wave and a thumbs up.
I got back to the ferry and we pulled away with the lights of the tower and the casinos fading into the distance. I made a mental note that I really should do some washing on the following day.
* * *
"You are very lucky," said the huge Indian man. He was smartly dressed in a suit with black tie and came complete with a turban. "Some great fortune is going to happen to you in the next month."
I was sitting on the Kowloon side of the harbour early in the morning and had already waved away two beggars and was now having the attentions of another fortune-teller. I was dubious about his skills, he looked more like he should have been working in airline security. After I told him I had already had my fortune told and had got a lucky charm I think that I worried him that there was another teller on his patch.
"Who was she? What did she look like? When was this?" he asked. I didn't have the grace to tell him that it was on the other side of Hong Kong as I shooed him away.
I was without much of a plan for my last few days in Hong Kong. Ricky and Mick had left and, I had to admit, I needed time out from Lorenzo’s hyperactivity. My new dormitory buddies was made up of a quiet German who spent his time going to museums and having early nights and an American guy who seemed to sleep all of the time. The jet lag must be harder to get over when travelling from America. Or else maybe young American men are just lazy.
Hong Kong boasts the longest escalator in the world, built to get workers home to the Midlevels from the central financial district. This sounded like a good way to waste away a couple of hours and so I made a visit. I was disappointed to find a series of little escalators. And not only is the supposedly longest escalator in the world in sections, but the bloody thing ran in only one direction. It was a long walk back down especially as the rain started to pour down for my trek back.
One day I headed to the bank of China building, for no other reason then to take in the view of the city from the public floor. I spotted a park so decided to waste the afternoon mooching around it. Hong Kong Park turned out to be a great place. It was entirely artificial which gave it the feeling of being from a Tim Burton movie set. As well as all the lakes, waterfalls and greenery, there was a conservatory housing Hong Kong native plants though upon entering, amongst the rules is one that clearly stated, 'no balloons'. Did balloons constitute a dangerous weapon?
Within the park was the most crap museum in the world. The Tea Museum. It was so bad, it was brilliant, though the five minutes I spent there was more then enough. There were nine galleries or so, some devoted to different parts of the teapot; the lid, the handle and my favourite - the spout. Sadly there wasn't much detail on cups and saucers. The highlight for me though was the ceramic texture gallery, within which were ‘interactive’ samples that could be touched. One such example was a teapot made to look like corrugated cardboard. With the exhibit, there was a section of corrugated cardboard, just in case the visitor didn't understand. It was in a glass case like some kind of archaeological treasure. Now that Harrison Ford's getting on a bit could we soon be seeing the movie Indiana Jones and the Section of Corrugated Cardboard?
I thought that this summarised Hong Kong up quite well. I arrived expecting glamour, style and sophistication but so much was actually quite tatty. Yes, there was the latest technological gadgets in the shops, but they all seemed to be finished poorly in cheap looking plastic casing. I went to Hong Kong expected the artistry of a Bruce Lee movie but found - while still entertaining - the tackiness of a Jackie Chan flick. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time there. Hong Kong has an excellent transport system considering that if the UK had such a high population density, the system would more then likely have collapsed long ago. The people were always polite with the service excellent, and wherever I went, I always felt perfectly safe. But I can't help worry a little for the place; the smog is choking the city and the lack of noticeable acknowledgement of former British rule caused me concern on what the future holds under the Chinese administration.
But I would soon be going to Sydney and I reflected on how lucky I felt to have the opportunity be to travelling there. I didn't need a fortune-teller to tell me that.
Barbecue and Booze
Despite the sights of Sydney harbour being so well known, seeing the Opera House and Harbour Bridge for the first time still inspired a sense of awe. I suppose it's like meeting someone famous, you know them so well and yet still get star-struck when seeing them in the flesh. The only famous people that I’d met had been Jimmy Saville and Chris Akabussi, the comparison with the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, with respect, didn’t do justice to the city’s most famous landmarks. Seeing them at night was even better, the return ferry trip from Manly on the northern side of the harbour the best way, with the lights around the Opera House giving it a surreal ghostly appearance.
It took me until the third evening after arrival in Sydney before I was to purchase me first main meal. I wasn’t starving myself to save money though, after arriving in the late evening I made a quick dash to have a first look around the harbour, returning to the hostel in time for the barbecue and booze night that was put on. I got acquainted with Luke from Leeds, another pre-university young man with the build of a Rugby back which was no coincidence. I also met a guy from Hull amongst the host of British backpackers that seemed to have descended upon Sydney. Looking at him, his recently acquired degree in sports science was very much in evidence, and it was with regret that I couldn’t remember his name as the two of us headed out to a bar on the following evening. I just hoped that I would find it out before I embarrassed myself.
He’d heard of a place that did cheap steaks and a pub quiz. We arrived at The Pyrmont Hotel in the Darling Harbour area of town. As we ordered our food and drink, the bar tender flipped a coin. The meal was free with a correct call. The steak and mashed potato tasted all the better having not had to pay for it.
We won a prize in the quiz, the guy running it being very charitable by giving us a little goody bag for coming last. Though with two of us and one T-shirt, there was an argument about who should have it.
“You can have it,” I said
“No, it’s yours.”
Our reluctance for ownership was down to the wording on the front that read 'My boyfriend stayed up until 5am drinking to get me this shirt’. We also got some temporary tattoos which, having had a few beers I later wished had had a bit more emphasis on the temporary. In our defence at the poor showing in the quiz, points were awarded for comedy answers and we may have been concentrating too much on that element. Some example questions were:
What US TV program won record ratings and looks at the lives of the dysfunctional in America?
Answer: Jerry Springer.
Our answer - the US presidential election.
Which recording artist recorded the album 'pieces of you'?
Answer - Jewel.
Our answer - Bin Laden.
We didn’t make ourselves popular with the Americans on the table next to ours with that one, but one of the girls was happy to receive our T-shirt as a peace offering and we invited them to play pool to show we weren't complete idiots.
Brooke, sporting the T-shirt with Hayley and Stephen took us on in an international pool competition which I can proudly announce was won by the UK 3 - 0. After that we decided to mix the teams up.
"You choose who you want on your team," I said to Brooke, " Me or ...er... him."
"You've forgotten my name haven't you," said the guy who's name I'd forgotten.
" Er, no, no " I said, suddenly realising how big he really was, "It's Mark." He didn't look pleased. "Only joking, Matt," I offered. "No it’s Chris...no wait Andy!"
I'd got it but it was too late. Andy didn't look pleased. To make it up to him I suggested he teamed up with Brooke – she did look good in that T-shirt. Hayley had left and so I was left with Steve, who I found out was gay. This wasn't how I had envisaged my first night out in Sydney. Andy forgave me for forgetting his name in the end, leaving as he did with Brooke’s phone number. I didn’t try and get Steve’s.
After a couple of pints at an Irish bar a couple of evenings later, Andy and I decided to attempt to supplement our income of nothing, with a visit to the Star Casino. We agreed that we would each put $20 into a kitty for investment at the roulette table. Whatever was won would be split into half, one half for winnings and one half for further investment. It was my first time betting in a casino proper and there’s definitely something to the theory of beginner’s luck. Time and time again, our spread bets came up and as we got more adventurous we lucked out picking single numbers more then a couple of times. We ended up walking away from the table with $100 each. Not a huge sum, but I was finding out that the lifestyle on a backpacker budget was somewhere between that of a student and the homeless. I was more then happy to call it a night, but Andy turned to the black jack table taking away another $100 while I was left to rue my relative cautionary ways.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t help ourselves and ended back at the casino on the next evening, our confidence high after the previous night’s successes. Luke overheard the bragging that we did to his face and insisted that we attempted a repeat performance. That night, The Pyrmont held an 'odds or evens' evening, a correct call of odd or even when the bar staff ran a random number generator would get the order for free. Any money we saved was taken to the casino.
I should have stayed in the bar. I lost every single bet I placed on the roulette table, black jack and the big wheel as I went from one table to the other desperate for a lucky break. I’d gone through my allocated cash within half an hour of walking through the door. The casino had just about got everything back that I took away on the previous night. Andy didn’t do much better then to brake even but with that beginners luck halo shining brightly around his head it was Luke who starred, somehow walking away with a cool $1000 from the black jack table fully admitting that he didn’t really know what he had been doing. His trip up the east coast of Australia was paid for. As we left, Luke was carrying a handful of leftover chips together with his one for $1000. He dumped the smaller denominations on a single number as we passed a roulette table. It came in.
Next day, I took a bus out to Coogee beach to take the coastal walk to Bondi. The stretch of coastline was fabulous, with the discovery of hidden gems like Gordon’s Bay and Bronte Beach and passing through a massive humbling cemetery that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. From word of mouth, I was not expecting too much from Bondi beach. I arrived and found what appeared to be, well... a very nice beach. By this time clouds had gathered and as I got down to the beach proper, the heavens opened up. It’s hard to judge a place with such a huge reputation associated with good times in the sun when it’s the start of the winter and when hiding from the rain under a shelter. But even so, it’s hard to see why Bondi is so well known, it’s not even the nicest beach in Sydney - Manly and Coogee looked like much nicer places to hang out. When the rain cleared I took a walk around the suburb of Bondi. On such a gloomy day, the place reminded me of a seaside town in England; I could have been passing through Portsmouth.
I was still getting used to the Australian informality. In the tourist brochures I read language such as 'codger', 'bloke' and 'no crap.' I just loved seeing the anti-littering slogans; 'don't be a tosser!’ My first days in Sydney seemed to consist of sleeping off the beers drunk the night before and doing administration tasks such as picking up my visa, applying for a tax file number and applying for a Medicare card. They certainly seemed to like their bureaucracy in Australia. As aesthetically pleasing as the main hubs of Sydney were, the people seemed to be a rush. It felt like London with an opera house. I thought that it was a little sad that there were so many British backpackers that had arrived in the city and chosen to stay on and work there for the majority of their stay. Luke had done just that, leaving himself just six weeks to attempt to see something else of the country before his visa was due to expire. Spending the evenings in the bars seemed to be something I could have been doing at home. This didn’t feel like the real Australia, I needed to get out of Sydney.
I left the city to spend some time in the Blue Mountains, around 100km and about two hours to the west of Sydney by train. The place was magnificently peaceful and I could have spent hours just sitting at Echo Point. It was whilst there that I realised I had been away for a month and I was in a mood of reflection. My belt size had already decreased by one notch and it seemed my stomach had shrunk to the size of a walnut whilst my bladder had increased to the size of a grapefruit. But I was learning all sorts of useless new things such as that Hong Kong had the highest rate of orange consumption in the world. I was becoming more at ease being in Australia with the seemingly endless array of strange and lethal creatures. On one of my first evenings walking around the Glebe area of Sydney I had caught sight of what first appeared to me to be some kind of large deadly insect. I shuffled over toward it, only to discover that it was the discarded end of a sausage. I was discovering that I didn’t need to be so paranoid, although there was always a reminder to be on guard. The large crows, that seemed to be all around Sydney appeared as if they were planning a co-ordinated attack at any moment. They looked like relics from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, their size and strange call, which sounded like the screech of an Ewok being flushed down a toilet made their cousins in the UK look like cute budgerigars in comparison.
At the edge of the small town of Katoomba, Echo Point overlooks a huge valley full of the Eucalyptus trees that are common to the area. The name of the Blue Mountains is derived from the blue hue given to the air when sunlight shines through the oils given off by the Eucalyptus trees. The ‘mountains’ bit is harder to explain, the landscape is actually a series of canyons and valleys separated by several high plateaus. Echo Point is the starting point for many great hikes, one of which includes The Giant Stairway, 800 gruelling steps to the valley floor. Alternatively there is the vertical railway line which boasted at being the steepest line in the world. In a position that was closer to standing rather than sitting when boarding the cart, I thought it had a better shout at the title then the one in Hong Kong. If the idea of something as trivial as a sneeze being enough to cause enough forward momentum to lead to the toppling out of the cart is too troubling, a cable gondola was also present as an alternative for getting to and from the valley floor. At the edge of the valley stands the three sisters, large chunks of rock left over from erosion on a thin ledge that imposingly tower 900 metres over the valley floor from their lofty position. Originally there were seven distinct formations, the others having long since toppled down.
The sisters have special spiritual significance to the Aboriginal tribes of the area and I gained my first insight into some of their culture reading their story. The tale involves three little Aboriginal sisters Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo and their witch doctor father called Tyawan. In the Blue Mountains, one creature was feared by all, the Bunyip.
Nearby to the hole that was the home of the creature, Tyawan had left his daughters on the cliff. Here, a big centipede appeared, frightening one of the sisters who threw a stone at it. The stone crashed into the valley. The rock behind the sisters split open and Bunyip emerged in a rage. The sisters were trapped on a thin ledge and Tyawan, seeing what was happening used his magic bone to turn the sisters into stone to keep them safe. The Bunyip chased Tyawan so he changed himself into a Lyre Bird, losing his magic bone in the process. After the Bunyip had gone, Tyawan returned and searched and searched for his bone while the three sisters stand patiently, waiting on the ledge to be turned back into Aboriginal girls by their father.
I was staying at the Flying Fox Hostel. Though it seemed to attract a younger crowd, the whole place had a great homely atmosphere with a cosy log fire in the lounge area and in the corner I spotted, joy-of-joys, an acoustic guitar. The hostel was run by a charming couple, Ross and Wendy, who really did make their guests feel at home.
I was sharing the dormitory with a tall young Finnish guy called Micko. An avid climber, he would spend everyday pursuing his passion. Coincidentally, his next stop was Hong Kong and it brought a smile to my lips when reflecting on my time there as I spent an evening giving him advice about the city.
There was also a British hippy chick called Lucy who was working at the hostel for a few hours a day in exchange for her accommodation and meals. She took great pleasure in taking the piss out of the state my hair, leaving me no ammunition as she bounced around the place with her perfect golden curls. She was a bit of tree hugger but I certainly wouldn't have minded being the tree. Halfway through our introductory conversation, she cut me off mid-sentence squealing with delight and running to the door. She’d spotted a small dog out of the window and had run out to give it some fuss. I figured that I'd either be driven bonkers or be eating tofu by the end of the week.
It took me until the third evening after arrival in Sydney before I was to purchase me first main meal. I wasn’t starving myself to save money though, after arriving in the late evening I made a quick dash to have a first look around the harbour, returning to the hostel in time for the barbecue and booze night that was put on. I got acquainted with Luke from Leeds, another pre-university young man with the build of a Rugby back which was no coincidence. I also met a guy from Hull amongst the host of British backpackers that seemed to have descended upon Sydney. Looking at him, his recently acquired degree in sports science was very much in evidence, and it was with regret that I couldn’t remember his name as the two of us headed out to a bar on the following evening. I just hoped that I would find it out before I embarrassed myself.
He’d heard of a place that did cheap steaks and a pub quiz. We arrived at The Pyrmont Hotel in the Darling Harbour area of town. As we ordered our food and drink, the bar tender flipped a coin. The meal was free with a correct call. The steak and mashed potato tasted all the better having not had to pay for it.
We won a prize in the quiz, the guy running it being very charitable by giving us a little goody bag for coming last. Though with two of us and one T-shirt, there was an argument about who should have it.
“You can have it,” I said
“No, it’s yours.”
Our reluctance for ownership was down to the wording on the front that read 'My boyfriend stayed up until 5am drinking to get me this shirt’. We also got some temporary tattoos which, having had a few beers I later wished had had a bit more emphasis on the temporary. In our defence at the poor showing in the quiz, points were awarded for comedy answers and we may have been concentrating too much on that element. Some example questions were:
What US TV program won record ratings and looks at the lives of the dysfunctional in America?
Answer: Jerry Springer.
Our answer - the US presidential election.
Which recording artist recorded the album 'pieces of you'?
Answer - Jewel.
Our answer - Bin Laden.
We didn’t make ourselves popular with the Americans on the table next to ours with that one, but one of the girls was happy to receive our T-shirt as a peace offering and we invited them to play pool to show we weren't complete idiots.
Brooke, sporting the T-shirt with Hayley and Stephen took us on in an international pool competition which I can proudly announce was won by the UK 3 - 0. After that we decided to mix the teams up.
"You choose who you want on your team," I said to Brooke, " Me or ...er... him."
"You've forgotten my name haven't you," said the guy who's name I'd forgotten.
" Er, no, no " I said, suddenly realising how big he really was, "It's Mark." He didn't look pleased. "Only joking, Matt," I offered. "No it’s Chris...no wait Andy!"
I'd got it but it was too late. Andy didn't look pleased. To make it up to him I suggested he teamed up with Brooke – she did look good in that T-shirt. Hayley had left and so I was left with Steve, who I found out was gay. This wasn't how I had envisaged my first night out in Sydney. Andy forgave me for forgetting his name in the end, leaving as he did with Brooke’s phone number. I didn’t try and get Steve’s.
After a couple of pints at an Irish bar a couple of evenings later, Andy and I decided to attempt to supplement our income of nothing, with a visit to the Star Casino. We agreed that we would each put $20 into a kitty for investment at the roulette table. Whatever was won would be split into half, one half for winnings and one half for further investment. It was my first time betting in a casino proper and there’s definitely something to the theory of beginner’s luck. Time and time again, our spread bets came up and as we got more adventurous we lucked out picking single numbers more then a couple of times. We ended up walking away from the table with $100 each. Not a huge sum, but I was finding out that the lifestyle on a backpacker budget was somewhere between that of a student and the homeless. I was more then happy to call it a night, but Andy turned to the black jack table taking away another $100 while I was left to rue my relative cautionary ways.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t help ourselves and ended back at the casino on the next evening, our confidence high after the previous night’s successes. Luke overheard the bragging that we did to his face and insisted that we attempted a repeat performance. That night, The Pyrmont held an 'odds or evens' evening, a correct call of odd or even when the bar staff ran a random number generator would get the order for free. Any money we saved was taken to the casino.
I should have stayed in the bar. I lost every single bet I placed on the roulette table, black jack and the big wheel as I went from one table to the other desperate for a lucky break. I’d gone through my allocated cash within half an hour of walking through the door. The casino had just about got everything back that I took away on the previous night. Andy didn’t do much better then to brake even but with that beginners luck halo shining brightly around his head it was Luke who starred, somehow walking away with a cool $1000 from the black jack table fully admitting that he didn’t really know what he had been doing. His trip up the east coast of Australia was paid for. As we left, Luke was carrying a handful of leftover chips together with his one for $1000. He dumped the smaller denominations on a single number as we passed a roulette table. It came in.
Next day, I took a bus out to Coogee beach to take the coastal walk to Bondi. The stretch of coastline was fabulous, with the discovery of hidden gems like Gordon’s Bay and Bronte Beach and passing through a massive humbling cemetery that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. From word of mouth, I was not expecting too much from Bondi beach. I arrived and found what appeared to be, well... a very nice beach. By this time clouds had gathered and as I got down to the beach proper, the heavens opened up. It’s hard to judge a place with such a huge reputation associated with good times in the sun when it’s the start of the winter and when hiding from the rain under a shelter. But even so, it’s hard to see why Bondi is so well known, it’s not even the nicest beach in Sydney - Manly and Coogee looked like much nicer places to hang out. When the rain cleared I took a walk around the suburb of Bondi. On such a gloomy day, the place reminded me of a seaside town in England; I could have been passing through Portsmouth.
I was still getting used to the Australian informality. In the tourist brochures I read language such as 'codger', 'bloke' and 'no crap.' I just loved seeing the anti-littering slogans; 'don't be a tosser!’ My first days in Sydney seemed to consist of sleeping off the beers drunk the night before and doing administration tasks such as picking up my visa, applying for a tax file number and applying for a Medicare card. They certainly seemed to like their bureaucracy in Australia. As aesthetically pleasing as the main hubs of Sydney were, the people seemed to be a rush. It felt like London with an opera house. I thought that it was a little sad that there were so many British backpackers that had arrived in the city and chosen to stay on and work there for the majority of their stay. Luke had done just that, leaving himself just six weeks to attempt to see something else of the country before his visa was due to expire. Spending the evenings in the bars seemed to be something I could have been doing at home. This didn’t feel like the real Australia, I needed to get out of Sydney.
I left the city to spend some time in the Blue Mountains, around 100km and about two hours to the west of Sydney by train. The place was magnificently peaceful and I could have spent hours just sitting at Echo Point. It was whilst there that I realised I had been away for a month and I was in a mood of reflection. My belt size had already decreased by one notch and it seemed my stomach had shrunk to the size of a walnut whilst my bladder had increased to the size of a grapefruit. But I was learning all sorts of useless new things such as that Hong Kong had the highest rate of orange consumption in the world. I was becoming more at ease being in Australia with the seemingly endless array of strange and lethal creatures. On one of my first evenings walking around the Glebe area of Sydney I had caught sight of what first appeared to me to be some kind of large deadly insect. I shuffled over toward it, only to discover that it was the discarded end of a sausage. I was discovering that I didn’t need to be so paranoid, although there was always a reminder to be on guard. The large crows, that seemed to be all around Sydney appeared as if they were planning a co-ordinated attack at any moment. They looked like relics from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, their size and strange call, which sounded like the screech of an Ewok being flushed down a toilet made their cousins in the UK look like cute budgerigars in comparison.
At the edge of the small town of Katoomba, Echo Point overlooks a huge valley full of the Eucalyptus trees that are common to the area. The name of the Blue Mountains is derived from the blue hue given to the air when sunlight shines through the oils given off by the Eucalyptus trees. The ‘mountains’ bit is harder to explain, the landscape is actually a series of canyons and valleys separated by several high plateaus. Echo Point is the starting point for many great hikes, one of which includes The Giant Stairway, 800 gruelling steps to the valley floor. Alternatively there is the vertical railway line which boasted at being the steepest line in the world. In a position that was closer to standing rather than sitting when boarding the cart, I thought it had a better shout at the title then the one in Hong Kong. If the idea of something as trivial as a sneeze being enough to cause enough forward momentum to lead to the toppling out of the cart is too troubling, a cable gondola was also present as an alternative for getting to and from the valley floor. At the edge of the valley stands the three sisters, large chunks of rock left over from erosion on a thin ledge that imposingly tower 900 metres over the valley floor from their lofty position. Originally there were seven distinct formations, the others having long since toppled down.
The sisters have special spiritual significance to the Aboriginal tribes of the area and I gained my first insight into some of their culture reading their story. The tale involves three little Aboriginal sisters Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo and their witch doctor father called Tyawan. In the Blue Mountains, one creature was feared by all, the Bunyip.
Nearby to the hole that was the home of the creature, Tyawan had left his daughters on the cliff. Here, a big centipede appeared, frightening one of the sisters who threw a stone at it. The stone crashed into the valley. The rock behind the sisters split open and Bunyip emerged in a rage. The sisters were trapped on a thin ledge and Tyawan, seeing what was happening used his magic bone to turn the sisters into stone to keep them safe. The Bunyip chased Tyawan so he changed himself into a Lyre Bird, losing his magic bone in the process. After the Bunyip had gone, Tyawan returned and searched and searched for his bone while the three sisters stand patiently, waiting on the ledge to be turned back into Aboriginal girls by their father.
I was staying at the Flying Fox Hostel. Though it seemed to attract a younger crowd, the whole place had a great homely atmosphere with a cosy log fire in the lounge area and in the corner I spotted, joy-of-joys, an acoustic guitar. The hostel was run by a charming couple, Ross and Wendy, who really did make their guests feel at home.
I was sharing the dormitory with a tall young Finnish guy called Micko. An avid climber, he would spend everyday pursuing his passion. Coincidentally, his next stop was Hong Kong and it brought a smile to my lips when reflecting on my time there as I spent an evening giving him advice about the city.
There was also a British hippy chick called Lucy who was working at the hostel for a few hours a day in exchange for her accommodation and meals. She took great pleasure in taking the piss out of the state my hair, leaving me no ammunition as she bounced around the place with her perfect golden curls. She was a bit of tree hugger but I certainly wouldn't have minded being the tree. Halfway through our introductory conversation, she cut me off mid-sentence squealing with delight and running to the door. She’d spotted a small dog out of the window and had run out to give it some fuss. I figured that I'd either be driven bonkers or be eating tofu by the end of the week.
As Twilight Fell
"You know you've had a good climb when you take your pants off and throw them against the wall and they stick," so said an Aussie climber as we walked passed carrying our kit. We were on our way to a first crack at a grade 10 and he must have known we were beginners as we followed Brendan, our instructor to the site of our first climb.
I'd signed up for a day of abseiling and rock climbing after some of Micko’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on me. We spent the first couple of hours covering the basics of abseiling on the basis of the old adage, ‘what goes up must come down,’ - it’s somewhat of a required skill when climbing. We practised on gradually increasing cliff faces until we had built up the confidence to descend down one of 25 metres. It was great fun.
The Australian system classes climbs from grades 1 to 30 where 1 is classed as the easiest and 30 the hardest technically possible. Brendan started us off with a 10, which seemed quite a bold leap for a novice like me. On the drive out from Katoomba whilst making small talk, I’d told Brendan that I was a computer programmer in my former life. With this in mind he should have guessed I was too nerdy to take on anything too challenging.
The group included a short, slight British guy called Andrew. He had ginger hair that would have got him picked on by bullies if he’d gone to a school anything like mine, but judging by his well-spoken accent, that wasn’t likely. He’d arrived in the dormitory at the Flying Fox the previous evening, coming to the Blue Mountains specifically for the climbing course. Arriving late from Sydney was Frederick, a thick set German who was the strong silent type. They both admitted to experience on indoor climbing walls as I wondered what I had got myself into, the only things I had climbed in my life were stairs.
The other two guys took their turns on the 25 metre high grade 10 whilst Brendan and I hung on to their safety ropes. They both made it to the top, though with a bit of a struggle. It was now my turn. I started off determined not to show myself up too much and began quite well but I was only covering the easy bit. Further up, just past halfway to the summit was an overhang that had me worried as soon as I’d seen it. Clinging underneath and already feeling tired it seemed impossible to get over. Brendan had instructed us that the secret to good climbing was to use the legs as much as the arms, but you can only do that when there's something to put your feet on. I reached over the jutting rock and grabbed a couple of handfuls of rock and began to haul myself over with my feet scurrying through the empty air below desperately feeling for something to lever off of. Brendan was yelling from below to get a foothold but there was just nowhere useful I could see that I could reach to put them on. I flung my legs forward in a vain attempt to get a meaningful contact with the wall but only managed to scrape my shins painfully along the rock face.
Exhausted, I pulled myself up and over with all the strength in my arms and just managed to clear the overhang. With weary arms and bleeding legs I scurried up the rest of the way to the top. It was a relief when Brendan declared that it was time for lunch after my abseil back down.
I tried to hide my shaking arms as I took bites from my ham and cheese sandwiches that felt as heavy as if they’d been made out of solid lead. I couldn’t get enough water – it tasted like liquid gold. Goodness knows how I was going to get through the rest of the afternoon, my poor technique at that overhang had left my arms with little energy and Brendan had declared that we were going on to tackle a grade 12 next.
When we got there it actually looked easier then the grade 10. There were no overhangs to worry about and so I became a bit more optimistic. I began my climb quite well with my confidence building and some of the pain in my biceps from the build up of lactic acid was beginning to fade. However, halfway up I seemed to run out of handholds. I looked all around, shuffling along the ledge I was precariously balanced on, trying to figure out what to do. Putting too much faith in the grip of my climbing shoes I reached up to the only handhold I could get to and tried my foot scurrying method again.
Suddenly the cliff face was falling away from me. There was no life flashing before my eyes moment, just the thought that I hoped the yelp I emitted didn't sound too pathetic. Brendan took the strain in my safety rope and held me dangling in the air. I swung back to the cliff face and abseiled back to ground level with his laughter echoing across the canyon. It felt good to get back to ground and it took a few moments for the adrenaline rush to subside. I watched the other two guys make their attempts, cursing myself as they made it to the top.
We moved on to a cliff face with two routes, one a grade 13 and the other a 12, but my confidence and stamina were rapidly depleting. Again on both attempts at the 12 I was left dangling, dependent on Brendan’s sure hands and very much to his amusement.
“I’ve never seen anybody fall off as spectacularly as you!” he teased. At least the others were now beginning to struggle. Only Frederick managed the grade 12 after several attempts. I was left exhausted and covered in cuts. It felt like I had taken a shower and cleaned myself using a cheese grater rather then soap. Muscles I didn’t know I had ached for days afterward. That days’ climbing has to have been one of the hardest things I'd ever done and I include programming complex computer applications, learning advanced quantum mechanics and trying to remember to leave the toilet seat down in the comparison.
* * *
You know you're getting old when it takes two days to get over a hangover. On my last night in the Blue Mountains a short, tough looking Australian with cropped hair called Michael arrived at the hostel. At first, he was reluctant to talk about what he did for a living, but after a few beers I found out he was a professional boxer and had just won a fight the night before. He was very generous with his prize money, paying for drinks and entry into a small nightclub for the group of half a dozen or so of us that went out from the hostel. He was a fighter at lightweight, but keeping up with his heavyweight drinking proved to be impossible, it was clear that he was on a major wind down after the fight. I found him to be extremely likeable and I had great admiration for the dedication he showed when he talked about his profession. The only thing was that so did Lucy, and I have to admit to a pang of jealousy as he became her tree. It was time to call it a night after Michael refused to take me on in a drunken arm wrestle. I left him and Lucy to it, managing to make it back to the hostel just in time to catch the live transmission of the FA Cup final from the UK. I didn’t remember much of the match, my stomach punishing me for leaving it empty but for beer by sending me to the toilet repeatedly.
It was a great week in the Blue Mountains though; I very much enjoyed the bush walks through the various canyons and past the waterfalls of the area. It was humbling to come across some original Aboriginal artwork on a cliff face on one walk that must have been hundreds, if not thousands of years old. There were pictures of tribesman hunting alongside images of various animals. There was also the text from a primitive hand that read 'Mark woz ere' and another that said ' Matt 4 Katie'. I just wish I knew what it all meant.
Apart from the small touristy bit at the edge of town at Echo Point and the walking tracks the place is practically unspoilt. I was happy to hear it when Brendan had told us that the authorities have banned any further development in the area. I returned to Sydney feeling suitably relaxed. I had decided that the next leg of my journey would be northward along the east coast. The city was a shock to the system after the calm of the mountains. I took a last walk around town, the hustle and bustle a complete opposite to life in the Blue Mountains. I passed a store that had a pre-recorded voice bellowing into the street in the style of a hyperactive Ronseal commercial.
"Super savings! Nothing over $10! See how much you can save! We’ve got cheap T-shirts, cheap sunglasses, great savings on jeans, everything you need! Just come on in and have a look!" It bellowed in an infinite loop in an aggressive Aussie accent. I felt so sorry for the people that worked there.
I thought I'd take a look around King's Cross, the city’s red light district as twilight fell. Strangely, it was all men that approached me. Passing one establishment called Porkies, a short stocky man ran up to me.
"We've got a menu - come on in and have a drink," he said aggressively, grabbing hold of my arm.
"Er… no thanks mate, I'm not looking for anything," I replied.
"We've got a brothel if you want a fuck," he snarled.
Never. And I was thinking Porky's sold bacon.
"Not really, I'm fine thanks," I said and he stomped off. Now I'm no marketing genius, but surely they should have used a cute looking woman rather then a psychopathic knucklehead to drum up business.
The next day I headed up to the town of Newcastle, a freshly purchased bus pass giving me access along the east coast of Australia on The Greyhound bus network. What appeared as a small sleepy town was actually the second largest town in New South Wales and was also famous for being the world's largest coal exporter, one and a half million tons of the stuff passing through every week. There were some nice beaches and coastal walks to explore and some nature reserves, but my main reason for going was the accessibility to Hunter Valley, the wine-producing region. I booked myself into the YHA and signed up for the next available tour.
* * *
Friday 27th May 2005 10:22am. The seven of us in the tour group arrived at the first winery called Coopers, a small set up producing just 3000 bottles a year. On the menu were six wines available for our group to try. For completeness we tried them all. The Shiraz was disappointing considering it's one of the chief wines that the region was famous for and also one of my favourite blends. The other star, the Semillon was quite nice which is high praise indeed as I'm not a big white wine fan. The Rose was pretty disgusting though and smelt like someone from a previous tour might have thrown up in it.10:41 Next stop was Tatlers, a slightly larger operation with a charismatic host that reminded me of Brutus from Popeye. Most of the dozen or so wines we tried were good, though the Shiraz was a let down again. There was a nice Chardonnay; again I don't usually go for them. There was also a desert wine that tasted of toffee. I was already beginning to feel tipsy by this stage.11:06 On the way to the chocolate shop we saw a police car that had pulled someone over. Disgraceful I thought, being drunk at this time of day. The amount of free samples at the shop was disappointing as I had the munchies, but the Chocolate Rocks were interesting. They were made up of chocolate and covered with a sort of sugar coating like a posh M & M but they left a strange aftertaste as if there were traces of real rocks in them. I needed more wine to wash the taste away.11:19 The next winery we arrived at was called Sobels. There was a massive St. Bernard dog and the biggest spider I've ever seen in it’s web over the porch. It looked like we had walked into somebody’s front room when we got inside. The Semillon tasted like cold tea and the Shiraz was crap again. Why could nobody here get it right? The Merlot was excellent though. I wondered if the dog gave rides. Heck, the spider could have taken a small child. Many of the wines were beginning to taste the same, but we were then treated to some port. I think I may have been given paint by mistake, but I still drank it. Some of the others in the group were asking intelligent questions, but the best I could come up with was "What's the alcohol content in this". It was 18.5 % by the way.12:05 Just before lunch we go to the Golden Grape winery. After some ordinary stuff we get to the speciality liquors. There was a butterscotch one that tasted fantastic and one that was like Baileys with coconut in which I also very much enjoyed. We finish with one that had chilli's fermenting in the bottle which our entertaining hostess made us all down in one together. It was an acquired taste and very hot. I now felt sick.12:35 Lunch. I was the only one to have brought my own sandwiches and the burgers at The Golden Grape looked fantastic. I wasn’t too jealous as everything tasted of chilli anyway. It would have been so easy to fall asleep in the sun.2:10 Drayton's. Shiraz: shit. There was more white port that should only have been used to clean toilets, although the Tawny Port was nice, but I'm the only one in the group that thought so. There were other red and whites but my mind was fogging. The host was the latest in a long line to tell us that wine colour is determined by the grape's skin and that all wine would otherwise be white.3:05 We go to the cheese shop. I wished they sold kebabs. Though not a big cheese fan I try some cheddar. It tasted of plastic, though I couldn't rule out that I was eating plastic.3:25 McGuigan's. There were red and white wines but I didn't care, I just wanted them given to me. I loved everybody but tried to start a fight with a pillar that was looking at me funny. I realised I was drunk when I thought it was a shame that they weren’t playing Come on Eileen.
* * *
After having the dorm to myself for a couple of nights, I was joined by an older Australian guy. He seemed friendly enough during the couple of brief chats that we’d had. Up until this point I'd been quite lucky not to have been stuck with many snorers but with this guy, I was genuinely worried whether the foundations of the hostel would hold. ‘A snore like a shire horse’ would hardly adequately describe the noise that he generated. As I lay in my bunk across the room from him, I tried to think of something to throw at him to jar him out of it. But I was limited in options by what came to hand:
1) My sandals - may hurt too much and result in a fight.
2) My full water bottle - may cause injury or death.
3) My trousers - may lead to him getting the wrong idea.
To cap it off, the fucker got up at 6.30am, waking me in the process as he moved about with the subtlety of a wounded wildebeest.
I went to the Blackbutt Nature Reserve just outside of Newcastle for the day. I saw plenty of proper Aussie wildlife - kangaroos, emus, wombats and all sorts of birds such as parrots, kookaburras and galahs, but the stars of the show were the occupants of the koala house. A couple of them were actually awake and it was fascinating to watch them clamber about. I hung around for the talk which the guy struggled nervously through, apologising for 'stuffing it up', but at the end he announced we could make our way downstairs to pet their oldest koala Suzie and ask questions in small groups. As I made my way down I tried to think up something to ask - 'How old is she?' and 'How long do they live?' was the best I could come up with. I was let in to see Suzie behind another guy and two girls. As we approached Suzie and her handler one of the girls dived straight in.
"How old is she?" she asked. Damn.
"She’s eight," replied the handler girl, an attractive brunette who was feeding the koala bear from a bottle. After the two girls had their pet I got ready to ask my question.
"How long do they live?" But I realised the words were not mine. The other guy had got in there first. Damn, damn.
"About 15 years in captivity," said the handler girl. The guy moved on and it was now my turn with Suzie. My mind raced for a question as I smiled like an imbecile at the handler girl and ruffled at Suzie’s fur. The only thing I could think of was, ‘What’s the alcohol content in that?’ referring to the milky liquid that Suzie was consuming.
“Well, um… thank you, “ I muttered and followed the others out of the pen thankful that the idea had at least stayed in my head.
I'd signed up for a day of abseiling and rock climbing after some of Micko’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on me. We spent the first couple of hours covering the basics of abseiling on the basis of the old adage, ‘what goes up must come down,’ - it’s somewhat of a required skill when climbing. We practised on gradually increasing cliff faces until we had built up the confidence to descend down one of 25 metres. It was great fun.
The Australian system classes climbs from grades 1 to 30 where 1 is classed as the easiest and 30 the hardest technically possible. Brendan started us off with a 10, which seemed quite a bold leap for a novice like me. On the drive out from Katoomba whilst making small talk, I’d told Brendan that I was a computer programmer in my former life. With this in mind he should have guessed I was too nerdy to take on anything too challenging.
The group included a short, slight British guy called Andrew. He had ginger hair that would have got him picked on by bullies if he’d gone to a school anything like mine, but judging by his well-spoken accent, that wasn’t likely. He’d arrived in the dormitory at the Flying Fox the previous evening, coming to the Blue Mountains specifically for the climbing course. Arriving late from Sydney was Frederick, a thick set German who was the strong silent type. They both admitted to experience on indoor climbing walls as I wondered what I had got myself into, the only things I had climbed in my life were stairs.
The other two guys took their turns on the 25 metre high grade 10 whilst Brendan and I hung on to their safety ropes. They both made it to the top, though with a bit of a struggle. It was now my turn. I started off determined not to show myself up too much and began quite well but I was only covering the easy bit. Further up, just past halfway to the summit was an overhang that had me worried as soon as I’d seen it. Clinging underneath and already feeling tired it seemed impossible to get over. Brendan had instructed us that the secret to good climbing was to use the legs as much as the arms, but you can only do that when there's something to put your feet on. I reached over the jutting rock and grabbed a couple of handfuls of rock and began to haul myself over with my feet scurrying through the empty air below desperately feeling for something to lever off of. Brendan was yelling from below to get a foothold but there was just nowhere useful I could see that I could reach to put them on. I flung my legs forward in a vain attempt to get a meaningful contact with the wall but only managed to scrape my shins painfully along the rock face.
Exhausted, I pulled myself up and over with all the strength in my arms and just managed to clear the overhang. With weary arms and bleeding legs I scurried up the rest of the way to the top. It was a relief when Brendan declared that it was time for lunch after my abseil back down.
I tried to hide my shaking arms as I took bites from my ham and cheese sandwiches that felt as heavy as if they’d been made out of solid lead. I couldn’t get enough water – it tasted like liquid gold. Goodness knows how I was going to get through the rest of the afternoon, my poor technique at that overhang had left my arms with little energy and Brendan had declared that we were going on to tackle a grade 12 next.
When we got there it actually looked easier then the grade 10. There were no overhangs to worry about and so I became a bit more optimistic. I began my climb quite well with my confidence building and some of the pain in my biceps from the build up of lactic acid was beginning to fade. However, halfway up I seemed to run out of handholds. I looked all around, shuffling along the ledge I was precariously balanced on, trying to figure out what to do. Putting too much faith in the grip of my climbing shoes I reached up to the only handhold I could get to and tried my foot scurrying method again.
Suddenly the cliff face was falling away from me. There was no life flashing before my eyes moment, just the thought that I hoped the yelp I emitted didn't sound too pathetic. Brendan took the strain in my safety rope and held me dangling in the air. I swung back to the cliff face and abseiled back to ground level with his laughter echoing across the canyon. It felt good to get back to ground and it took a few moments for the adrenaline rush to subside. I watched the other two guys make their attempts, cursing myself as they made it to the top.
We moved on to a cliff face with two routes, one a grade 13 and the other a 12, but my confidence and stamina were rapidly depleting. Again on both attempts at the 12 I was left dangling, dependent on Brendan’s sure hands and very much to his amusement.
“I’ve never seen anybody fall off as spectacularly as you!” he teased. At least the others were now beginning to struggle. Only Frederick managed the grade 12 after several attempts. I was left exhausted and covered in cuts. It felt like I had taken a shower and cleaned myself using a cheese grater rather then soap. Muscles I didn’t know I had ached for days afterward. That days’ climbing has to have been one of the hardest things I'd ever done and I include programming complex computer applications, learning advanced quantum mechanics and trying to remember to leave the toilet seat down in the comparison.
* * *
You know you're getting old when it takes two days to get over a hangover. On my last night in the Blue Mountains a short, tough looking Australian with cropped hair called Michael arrived at the hostel. At first, he was reluctant to talk about what he did for a living, but after a few beers I found out he was a professional boxer and had just won a fight the night before. He was very generous with his prize money, paying for drinks and entry into a small nightclub for the group of half a dozen or so of us that went out from the hostel. He was a fighter at lightweight, but keeping up with his heavyweight drinking proved to be impossible, it was clear that he was on a major wind down after the fight. I found him to be extremely likeable and I had great admiration for the dedication he showed when he talked about his profession. The only thing was that so did Lucy, and I have to admit to a pang of jealousy as he became her tree. It was time to call it a night after Michael refused to take me on in a drunken arm wrestle. I left him and Lucy to it, managing to make it back to the hostel just in time to catch the live transmission of the FA Cup final from the UK. I didn’t remember much of the match, my stomach punishing me for leaving it empty but for beer by sending me to the toilet repeatedly.
It was a great week in the Blue Mountains though; I very much enjoyed the bush walks through the various canyons and past the waterfalls of the area. It was humbling to come across some original Aboriginal artwork on a cliff face on one walk that must have been hundreds, if not thousands of years old. There were pictures of tribesman hunting alongside images of various animals. There was also the text from a primitive hand that read 'Mark woz ere' and another that said ' Matt 4 Katie'. I just wish I knew what it all meant.
Apart from the small touristy bit at the edge of town at Echo Point and the walking tracks the place is practically unspoilt. I was happy to hear it when Brendan had told us that the authorities have banned any further development in the area. I returned to Sydney feeling suitably relaxed. I had decided that the next leg of my journey would be northward along the east coast. The city was a shock to the system after the calm of the mountains. I took a last walk around town, the hustle and bustle a complete opposite to life in the Blue Mountains. I passed a store that had a pre-recorded voice bellowing into the street in the style of a hyperactive Ronseal commercial.
"Super savings! Nothing over $10! See how much you can save! We’ve got cheap T-shirts, cheap sunglasses, great savings on jeans, everything you need! Just come on in and have a look!" It bellowed in an infinite loop in an aggressive Aussie accent. I felt so sorry for the people that worked there.
I thought I'd take a look around King's Cross, the city’s red light district as twilight fell. Strangely, it was all men that approached me. Passing one establishment called Porkies, a short stocky man ran up to me.
"We've got a menu - come on in and have a drink," he said aggressively, grabbing hold of my arm.
"Er… no thanks mate, I'm not looking for anything," I replied.
"We've got a brothel if you want a fuck," he snarled.
Never. And I was thinking Porky's sold bacon.
"Not really, I'm fine thanks," I said and he stomped off. Now I'm no marketing genius, but surely they should have used a cute looking woman rather then a psychopathic knucklehead to drum up business.
The next day I headed up to the town of Newcastle, a freshly purchased bus pass giving me access along the east coast of Australia on The Greyhound bus network. What appeared as a small sleepy town was actually the second largest town in New South Wales and was also famous for being the world's largest coal exporter, one and a half million tons of the stuff passing through every week. There were some nice beaches and coastal walks to explore and some nature reserves, but my main reason for going was the accessibility to Hunter Valley, the wine-producing region. I booked myself into the YHA and signed up for the next available tour.
* * *
Friday 27th May 2005 10:22am. The seven of us in the tour group arrived at the first winery called Coopers, a small set up producing just 3000 bottles a year. On the menu were six wines available for our group to try. For completeness we tried them all. The Shiraz was disappointing considering it's one of the chief wines that the region was famous for and also one of my favourite blends. The other star, the Semillon was quite nice which is high praise indeed as I'm not a big white wine fan. The Rose was pretty disgusting though and smelt like someone from a previous tour might have thrown up in it.10:41 Next stop was Tatlers, a slightly larger operation with a charismatic host that reminded me of Brutus from Popeye. Most of the dozen or so wines we tried were good, though the Shiraz was a let down again. There was a nice Chardonnay; again I don't usually go for them. There was also a desert wine that tasted of toffee. I was already beginning to feel tipsy by this stage.11:06 On the way to the chocolate shop we saw a police car that had pulled someone over. Disgraceful I thought, being drunk at this time of day. The amount of free samples at the shop was disappointing as I had the munchies, but the Chocolate Rocks were interesting. They were made up of chocolate and covered with a sort of sugar coating like a posh M & M but they left a strange aftertaste as if there were traces of real rocks in them. I needed more wine to wash the taste away.11:19 The next winery we arrived at was called Sobels. There was a massive St. Bernard dog and the biggest spider I've ever seen in it’s web over the porch. It looked like we had walked into somebody’s front room when we got inside. The Semillon tasted like cold tea and the Shiraz was crap again. Why could nobody here get it right? The Merlot was excellent though. I wondered if the dog gave rides. Heck, the spider could have taken a small child. Many of the wines were beginning to taste the same, but we were then treated to some port. I think I may have been given paint by mistake, but I still drank it. Some of the others in the group were asking intelligent questions, but the best I could come up with was "What's the alcohol content in this". It was 18.5 % by the way.12:05 Just before lunch we go to the Golden Grape winery. After some ordinary stuff we get to the speciality liquors. There was a butterscotch one that tasted fantastic and one that was like Baileys with coconut in which I also very much enjoyed. We finish with one that had chilli's fermenting in the bottle which our entertaining hostess made us all down in one together. It was an acquired taste and very hot. I now felt sick.12:35 Lunch. I was the only one to have brought my own sandwiches and the burgers at The Golden Grape looked fantastic. I wasn’t too jealous as everything tasted of chilli anyway. It would have been so easy to fall asleep in the sun.2:10 Drayton's. Shiraz: shit. There was more white port that should only have been used to clean toilets, although the Tawny Port was nice, but I'm the only one in the group that thought so. There were other red and whites but my mind was fogging. The host was the latest in a long line to tell us that wine colour is determined by the grape's skin and that all wine would otherwise be white.3:05 We go to the cheese shop. I wished they sold kebabs. Though not a big cheese fan I try some cheddar. It tasted of plastic, though I couldn't rule out that I was eating plastic.3:25 McGuigan's. There were red and white wines but I didn't care, I just wanted them given to me. I loved everybody but tried to start a fight with a pillar that was looking at me funny. I realised I was drunk when I thought it was a shame that they weren’t playing Come on Eileen.
* * *
After having the dorm to myself for a couple of nights, I was joined by an older Australian guy. He seemed friendly enough during the couple of brief chats that we’d had. Up until this point I'd been quite lucky not to have been stuck with many snorers but with this guy, I was genuinely worried whether the foundations of the hostel would hold. ‘A snore like a shire horse’ would hardly adequately describe the noise that he generated. As I lay in my bunk across the room from him, I tried to think of something to throw at him to jar him out of it. But I was limited in options by what came to hand:
1) My sandals - may hurt too much and result in a fight.
2) My full water bottle - may cause injury or death.
3) My trousers - may lead to him getting the wrong idea.
To cap it off, the fucker got up at 6.30am, waking me in the process as he moved about with the subtlety of a wounded wildebeest.
I went to the Blackbutt Nature Reserve just outside of Newcastle for the day. I saw plenty of proper Aussie wildlife - kangaroos, emus, wombats and all sorts of birds such as parrots, kookaburras and galahs, but the stars of the show were the occupants of the koala house. A couple of them were actually awake and it was fascinating to watch them clamber about. I hung around for the talk which the guy struggled nervously through, apologising for 'stuffing it up', but at the end he announced we could make our way downstairs to pet their oldest koala Suzie and ask questions in small groups. As I made my way down I tried to think up something to ask - 'How old is she?' and 'How long do they live?' was the best I could come up with. I was let in to see Suzie behind another guy and two girls. As we approached Suzie and her handler one of the girls dived straight in.
"How old is she?" she asked. Damn.
"She’s eight," replied the handler girl, an attractive brunette who was feeding the koala bear from a bottle. After the two girls had their pet I got ready to ask my question.
"How long do they live?" But I realised the words were not mine. The other guy had got in there first. Damn, damn.
"About 15 years in captivity," said the handler girl. The guy moved on and it was now my turn with Suzie. My mind raced for a question as I smiled like an imbecile at the handler girl and ruffled at Suzie’s fur. The only thing I could think of was, ‘What’s the alcohol content in that?’ referring to the milky liquid that Suzie was consuming.
“Well, um… thank you, “ I muttered and followed the others out of the pen thankful that the idea had at least stayed in my head.
Take The Safer Option
My next stop was Forster, a delightful little town, situated in the Great Lakes region of New South Wales. It was an unspoilt oasis with miles of empty beaches that I was more then happy to wile away a couple of days on, even though the Australia winter was well under way. I arrived in town in the early evening and found the Dolphin Lodge YHA easily enough, the small hostel virtually empty due to the time of year. I shared a dormitory with one other man, a young American of slight stature called Steve. He was travelling with a guitar, using the quieter moments of his travels to learn to play the instrument and he exchanged a meal of spaghetti for a lesson from me on how to play bar chords. One of the friendly guys that helped to run the Dolphin Lodge tempted me with a swimming with dolphins cruise as he ran through the things to do in town. One of those must do things in life, I headed out early in the morning to the cruise centre, a large wooden shack on the waterfront, only to find little sign of life. The man running the adjacent whale watching cruises came over as I hung around waiting for someone from the Dolphin cruises operation to turn up.
“Looking to do a Dolphin cruise are you?” he asked.
“Yes, do you know when they open? I was told that I needed to come early?”
“Well, I haven’t seen the bloke that runs it for about three weeks now. Word is that he’s had some trouble in court after one of his customers was injured.”
“Really? Is it not safe?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a joke really. He takes you out on the boat and you get into the water and you hold onto a rope attached to the boat. He then drags you along. You’d actually have to be really lucky to see a Dolphin. Would you be interested in a whale watch instead?”
“Um, no thanks, I’m not really interested in that. Thanks for your help,” I said, doing the very British thing of giving thanks where none was really needed.
“No worries mate,” he said as I went to spend the day exploring the lakefront with a great sense of disappointment.
I was starting to see the real Australia with many of the locals happy to converse with me. Later in the evening, I went to a bar come restaurant and a guy and his friend heard my English accent at a nearby table. He introduced himself as Steve-o, (I assumed that he was doing the Aussie thing of adding an 'o' to the end of everything and that he wasn't giving me the initial of his surname). He told me proudly about the best places to visit along the east coast and his love of surfing. Whilst sitting at the beachfront I had got talking to an older guy who came along to enjoy some sunshine. In such a sports crazed country, he delighted in telling me all about Brian Clough after I said I'd come from Nottingham. After several minutes of him telling me stuff I already knew, I decided that I would go back to telling people that I was from my hometown of Milton Keynes rather then the last place I lived. Just a short time after his departure a woman and her daughter came along. With two Australian women it was little wonder that I struggled to get a word in. They did give me an interesting perspective on the Aborigine people. They told me that most Australians are ashamed of the past atrocities to the indigenous people and compared their treatment to that of the native Americans and the persecution of the Jews. In an attempt to make some kind of amends, the Australian welfare state could be counted among the best in the world but this in turn causes more racial tension as Aborigine people are seen to get generous handouts at the expense of the tax payer. They told me of a visit they made to Alice Springs where they saw the treatment of Aborigine children, the parents seeming to neglect their young and doing nothing for those that were sick. Adult Aborigine would loiter on the streets, more often drunken then not. Even though it was so obviously wrong they told me how they could see some kind of justification for the separation of children from their parents which took place in the past.
I guess that things are never as black and white as the history books say. Theses women were very friendly, inviting me to their house for tea and yet I couldn’t help but feel that the attitude they had to the Aborigine people was one of superiority and that their thoughts toward them were skewed because of a difference in culture and skin colour.
Later still, having declined their offer, I stayed on at the beachfront to watch the sun set in the couple of hours before my next bus. As I lazed, I noticed a small hourglass shaped spider with disproportional large pincers moving slowly along the thigh of my right leg. Hour glassed or funnel? Could it really have been a funnel web spider? I tried to remember the advice I had read; 1) don't panic. 2) erm... don't get bitten. I stood and held out the material of my trouser leg, shaking the fabric. The spider fell but managed to spin some webbing and dangled. It looked a bit pissed off now as it made its way back to my leg. There was nothing else for it, I took aim and flicked at it as hard as I could with my middle finger, it’s small form disappearing in one direction as I did likewise in the other.
I moved on to the town of Port Maquarie and was now confident turning up in places with nowhere to stay. Australia really was an easy place to travel, especially along the backpacker friendly east coast. Usually there were hostel representatives at the coach terminals ready to whisk you away before you’ve even had the chance to stretch your legs and even when this wasn’t the case, a pick-up was only a phone call away. The coach arrived at about eight o’clock in the evening and whilst looking over the hostel boards, I was joined by an English couple, Hannah and Peter. It was fairly obvious that Hannah was the more dominant in their relationship having jumped straight onto the pay phone and rang several hostels to get the best rate and arrange a lift. Peter seemed an entirely more laid back character and after getting talking to the two of them I decided to tag along, in no small part because of the amusing name of the hostel that Hannah had decided on – The Ozzie Pozzie Backpackers.
When we got out of the van on arrival at the hostel, Hannah and our driver both let out girlie screams as they both saw the massive spider on the side of the van. It really was big, dwarfing even the monster that I’d seen in the Hunter Valley. It may have left dents in the bodywork as it scampered across the bodywork of the van at break-neck speed. Peter and I both took an extra step backward, us both probably thinking the same thing - I’m not touching it! We decided it was for the best if we went to check in and return for our bags later. Ian the British guy who was on reception went off to take care of incey-wincey, and I felt a little guilty that I didn’t advise him to take a shovel with him with which to hit it. He came back alive and well to everybody’s relief. Ian told us that the spider was a Huntsman, as big and scary as it looked they could give a painful nip but were actually harmless to humans despite their menacing appearance.
After Ian had shown around the hostel, Hannah and Peter disappeared to find the supermarket whilst I made myself at home. I was sorting out my kit when something in my peripheral vision pricked at my subconscious. I glanced around the room with my healthy paranoia firing on all cylinders. And then I saw it. Yet another monster spider, up in the corner of the dormitory, big and hairy, though more lanky then the Huntsman we’d seen earlier. There was nobody else around. I could go for help but decided my machismo with Ian was already tarnished. I’d take it on myself.
It stood high on the wall with a confidence in its pose that told the world it was king in these parts, lounging around up there, maybe digesting a horse that it could have eaten. I wanted to get it down to a more manageable level and away from the bunk beds it had taken residence over. Looking around, my eyes fell upon the maps of the town that Ian had given to each of us. I screwed mine up and threw it at the spider. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I was trying to gauge its reflexes. Maybe I was hoping that this merest action would be enough to scare it away. What it did achieve however, was for me to get its full attention as it spun around. It gave me a look such as the hero in a Hollywood action film might give to the bad guy after he delivers a pitiful punch. I waited just a moment to see if the spider would deliver a one-liner. I grabbed Hannah’s and Peter’s maps and climbing up onto the bunk beds, deciding it was time to be bold and tackle it head on.
I used the flimsy photocopies of the maps in an elaborate pincer movement, hoping that I could get the spider onto one of the sheets of paper so that I could carry it to the door. Hopefully the paper would be able to take the weight. Stretching and bending at angles that my body had never been required to do in my old office job, I managed to start pushing the spider around. Rather then scurry away like the British house spiders I was used to dealing with, this one stood its ground, occasionally flinching only slightly as I poked at it with the maps. I admired its tenacity. I finally managed to manoeuvre it onto one of the sheets. I slowly began my descent from the upper bunk bed, holding the map out at arm’s length.
But then it dropped. Maybe it was taking some kind of suicide leap rather then face what I had in store for it. Or maybe it was just bored and decided to go off and terrorise somebody else but I’d now lost control of it. Luckily it landed on the floor rather then the bunk. It then made its fatal mistake. It began running for the door rather then take the safer option of running under the bed and out of reach.
I jumped down from the bed rolling up one the maps into a makeshift club. I brought the weapon down hard onto the spider. It stopped in its tracks spinning around. Now it was really mad. I hit it again. And again. And again, raining down repeated blows until I needed to catch my breath with my face, breaking out into a sweat. The spider was no longer moving. I scooped up the body with the now dishevelled maps, carried it out into the courtyard and flicked into the garden.
When Hannah and Peter returned, I couldn’t help but tell the tale of my struggle against the eight-legged beast.
“There was another spider in our dorm,” I said coolly. “Don’t worry though, I took care of it.”
“You didn’t kill it did you?” asked Hannah.
“Yeah,” I replied, stopping short of adding ‘And all by myself,’ and awaiting the adulation that was sure to come.
“You know that when you kill a spider, it attracts other spiders?” She said with a growl.
I don’t think any of us slept well that night.
The hostel provided free bicycles so I thought I’d spend the next day riding along the magnificent coastline. Hannah and Peter had the same idea and set off just before me, their planned early start delayed as they couldn’t find their town maps. The area was quite hilly and so remembering that Port Maquarie was said to have the highest urban population of koala bears, I had the chance to try and spot a few in the trees as I pushed the bike up the slopes. I didn’t see any koalas and got the micky taken out of me by a passing elderly Aussie bloke for not cycling up the hills. But the bike proved to be great fun with the speeds that I achieved on the downward gradients as I zoomed along. I must have looked pretty stupid in the helmet that was provided though, it looked like it was made out of paper-mache by a six-year-old. I would have felt safer if I had wrapped my head in cling film.
It was the day of my dad's birthday, the first occasion for celebration that I was away from home for. And I’d been a bad son, I had sent a card but I had my doubts whether it would have made it to the UK as you're supposed to declare what's inside on the envelope, presumably to catch out the terrorists who write 'Anthrax' on theirs. So my dad’s card may have been destroyed in a controlled explosion somewhere. I also kept forgetting to pick up a phone card, the only change that I had of $1.50 was swallowed up by the payphone after allowing me only enough time for my mum to tell me what time it was in the UK. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to have a word with my old man before the pips went and the line went dead.
Back at the hostel in the evening, some new guests had arrived. The place was quite small with the dormitory rooms surrounding a central open courtyard. The seating and hammocks created an atmosphere that was good for meeting people and socialising. Two girls were playing cards. Tera who was from Saskatchewan in Canada was being taught the international traveller’s card game of shithead by Wendy. From Las Vegas, Wendy was heading southward and was near to the end of her trip and as such made for a useful source for information. A very happy-go-lucky girl she didn’t do many favours for the reputation of the people of her homeland, coming out with a theory that an American attempt to take control of the Canadian state of Quebec was going to happen. The Goon she and Tera were drinking must have been hitting home, I got a taste of the dirt cheap boxed wine thanks to the generosity of a Geordie called Claire. As well as an introduction into the rules of shithead and my first taste of Goon, I experienced my first Tim-Tam, a biscuit much like a Penguin that is almost an institution in Australia. It was courtesy of Katherin, a young German girl taking the chance to travel before starting her studies to become a doctor. With Pete and Hannah back from their cycling and Ian on duty, we enjoyed each others company into the night, drinking and playing cards. As nice as it was that the group was mainly female, I did have to endure sitting through four separate conversations about Johnny Depp.
We were later joined by an Australian man that Tera had met on her train journey into town. He staggered into the courtyard from out of the night, carrying what remained of his own Goon - the inside bag with a few remaining mouthfuls. It was obvious that he had taken a shine to Tera’s curly blonde locks and shining blue eyes and had tracked her down to try his luck. His advanced years and dishevelled clothing didn’t give him a good start and so he got straight down to the business of trying to impress her with his list of achievements that included the winning of an Olympic gold medal for swimming and the millions of dollars he’d accumulated. Quite why he was reduced to drinking Goon, travelling by train and wanting to stay in backpacker accommodation wasn’t explained. After the joke had run thin, Ian politely asked him to leave on account of the hostel being full and the grounds being for guests only, both of which were blatant lies but a less confrontational option then the truth of his being there pissing everybody off. Before leaving, he tried one last time with Tera.
“I’ve been told I have to leave,” he slurred, “But can I have your number?”
“I’m travelling, I don’t have a number,” she replied, double checking the mobile she was carrying wasn’t visible.
“What about your home number?”
“I won’t be back home until Christmas,”
“I’ll call you when you get back then.” He wasn’t giving up.
Tera scribbled down some figures and he looked as pleased as if the numbers were the winners for that week’s lottery.
“So goodbye, “ he said to her, the rest of us invisible.
“Bye,” said Tera the irritation in her voice obvious to all but him.
“I’ll call you at Christmas then.” He struggled to stand to leave, but a sudden thought came to him. “What day is that?”
* * *
"Have you ever ridden a camel?" was my opening line to the two Scottish girls that had arrived. We had decided to go for a camel ride along the beach. When I rang up to book it, I was told in no uncertain terms by the uptight woman on the other end of the line that there couldn’t be any cancellations as they would be ordering an extra camel for the size of our group. Where you order a camel from, I don't know. When we did a head count in the morning we were two people short and so any arrivals to the hostel got the sales pitch for the camel ride in great detail from Ian and the rest of us pestering them afterward. Luckily we managed to persuade an Irish couple to join us. The ride was good fun in no small part due to the handler who - in stark contrast to his wife who I’d talked to on the phone - showed enthusiasm, told never ending jokes and was the most 'Aussie' person I'd met.
It was sad to see the little gang we formed at the Ozzie Pozzie breaking up as everyone continued on with their own journeys. There was time enough for another couple of hours lounging in the hammocks before I got a lift to the coach station with Katherin and Claire for the bus that would take us to Coff’s Harbour.
Sitting alongside the hills of the Great Dividing Range surrounded by hundreds of banana plantations, Coff’s Harbour is a popular stop on the backpacker trail and has a reputation as one of the most adrenaline filled sports capitals in New South Wales. With a similar feel to Port Maquarie, I made the stop in the hope of doing some white water rafting but disappointingly, the drought in New South Wales meant that the river rapids would not be rapid enough for it to go ahead.
The three of us were staying at the YHA for no better reason then the charismatic hostel bus driver was the first to grab our attention when we arrived. He treated us to a little tour around town and took us to a look out point to take in the beachfront and mountains on the way to the hostel. I felt in full holiday mode.
I was put into a dormitory with Rob who was working at the hostel and one of the strangest people I’d ever met and quite possibly the least Aussie person I would meet. When I saw him for the first time, he was sitting on his bunk and playing with his newly purchased mobile phone. He showed off his Britney Spears ring tone with no sense of shame and bombarded me with the most awful jokes that were of the type of those from Christmas crackers in the style of an attention seeking child. The other Australian guys working at the hostel apologised more then once for his ways during the evening we spent drinking Goon at the hostel’s poolside. But despite the irritation of Rob we had a good night that went on and on, with Claire and I the last to call it a night at 6am.
With the rapids off, we headed to The Big Banana after a meagre few hours of sleep. Rob was giddy, it was as if he had been checking the smell from the petrol tank of the hostel van he volunteered to drive us there in. I guess it wasn’t often people agreed to a day trip with him but in our sleepy state we probably would have agreed to anything. As for the Big Banana itself, well, I suppose it was quite big and, well, looked like a banana. That was it really. There were a few touristy things including the usual souvenir shops with banana theme crap, and some nice lookouts over the town but I think I would have preferred a lie-in.
Still with Britney Spears ringing in my ears I took a walk to the beachfront for the afternoon on our return. Just off of the coastline were a string of islands, one of which - mutton bird island that was named after the wedge tailed birds that nest there - could be accessed via a breakwater boardwalk. The island is also sacred to the Aborigines, adolescent males would swim over to it as a symbol of passage into manhood. As well as the bird life, a walk over to the other side of the small island makes for a good place to spot whales. I was there at a good time of year as it was the time of their migration up the coast. Though not clear, I saw something whale like splashing around in the distance. Now that was as cool as a banana.
The next day I thought I'd take a walk around the town centre. The long walk was a waste of time as there wasn’t much to it, and being a Sunday, most things were closed. As I was there, I thought I'd check where the bus left from for my onward journey the following day, when a stocky guy of what appeared to be Maori origin began following me on his pushbike. He had the build of a rugby forward but gave away several inches in height to me
"Oi bro, where you from?" he queried.
"The UK," I answered politely. Something in his demeanour didn't seem right. He kept at my pace, slightly behind and on the outside of the path I was walking along that was raised on a grass embankment from the road.
"You just get here?" he grunted. He could have got a job at Porky’s in Sydney. There was no denying I was a tourist, I was foolishly carrying my travel guide in full view.
"Yes, just having a look around," I said, subtly securing my daypack to my back and looking around for 'exits'. I really hoped that he hadn’t seen me withdrawing the week’s budget from an ATM a few moments before. After I walked on with him following, he suddenly pulled up beside me and jumped off his bike.
"Right bro, give me all your money or I'll stab you," he said just as casually as if he were asking the time. He was reaching down for a bulge in his pocket in the front of his jeans. If he had a knife, it wouldn’t have been much bigger then a Stanley knife. Crocodile Dundee he was not. Or maybe he was just adjusting his penis and he was going to hit me with that. There was no way I was just going to hand over that much money. With or without a knife, I didn't fancy my chances in a scrap though. I bolted. Down the grass verge and across the road, I didn’t even turn as I heard my assailant emitting a guttural roar. There were no natural turns to give him more options should he be pursuing me so it was a straight sprint up the road toward the town centre. After a few seconds I glanced behind me and I saw that he wasn't giving chase. I supposed he was worried someone might have nicked his bike.It would have been naive to think things like this wouldn't happen during my trip. It just surprised me that an attempt was made in broad daylight and near a shopping centre with busy streets. On the bright side, hopefully this would be my run-in for the trip over and done with and it could have ended up much worse. But I know I’d been sloppy in appearing like a tourist, the lesson was learnt.
“Looking to do a Dolphin cruise are you?” he asked.
“Yes, do you know when they open? I was told that I needed to come early?”
“Well, I haven’t seen the bloke that runs it for about three weeks now. Word is that he’s had some trouble in court after one of his customers was injured.”
“Really? Is it not safe?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a joke really. He takes you out on the boat and you get into the water and you hold onto a rope attached to the boat. He then drags you along. You’d actually have to be really lucky to see a Dolphin. Would you be interested in a whale watch instead?”
“Um, no thanks, I’m not really interested in that. Thanks for your help,” I said, doing the very British thing of giving thanks where none was really needed.
“No worries mate,” he said as I went to spend the day exploring the lakefront with a great sense of disappointment.
I was starting to see the real Australia with many of the locals happy to converse with me. Later in the evening, I went to a bar come restaurant and a guy and his friend heard my English accent at a nearby table. He introduced himself as Steve-o, (I assumed that he was doing the Aussie thing of adding an 'o' to the end of everything and that he wasn't giving me the initial of his surname). He told me proudly about the best places to visit along the east coast and his love of surfing. Whilst sitting at the beachfront I had got talking to an older guy who came along to enjoy some sunshine. In such a sports crazed country, he delighted in telling me all about Brian Clough after I said I'd come from Nottingham. After several minutes of him telling me stuff I already knew, I decided that I would go back to telling people that I was from my hometown of Milton Keynes rather then the last place I lived. Just a short time after his departure a woman and her daughter came along. With two Australian women it was little wonder that I struggled to get a word in. They did give me an interesting perspective on the Aborigine people. They told me that most Australians are ashamed of the past atrocities to the indigenous people and compared their treatment to that of the native Americans and the persecution of the Jews. In an attempt to make some kind of amends, the Australian welfare state could be counted among the best in the world but this in turn causes more racial tension as Aborigine people are seen to get generous handouts at the expense of the tax payer. They told me of a visit they made to Alice Springs where they saw the treatment of Aborigine children, the parents seeming to neglect their young and doing nothing for those that were sick. Adult Aborigine would loiter on the streets, more often drunken then not. Even though it was so obviously wrong they told me how they could see some kind of justification for the separation of children from their parents which took place in the past.
I guess that things are never as black and white as the history books say. Theses women were very friendly, inviting me to their house for tea and yet I couldn’t help but feel that the attitude they had to the Aborigine people was one of superiority and that their thoughts toward them were skewed because of a difference in culture and skin colour.
Later still, having declined their offer, I stayed on at the beachfront to watch the sun set in the couple of hours before my next bus. As I lazed, I noticed a small hourglass shaped spider with disproportional large pincers moving slowly along the thigh of my right leg. Hour glassed or funnel? Could it really have been a funnel web spider? I tried to remember the advice I had read; 1) don't panic. 2) erm... don't get bitten. I stood and held out the material of my trouser leg, shaking the fabric. The spider fell but managed to spin some webbing and dangled. It looked a bit pissed off now as it made its way back to my leg. There was nothing else for it, I took aim and flicked at it as hard as I could with my middle finger, it’s small form disappearing in one direction as I did likewise in the other.
I moved on to the town of Port Maquarie and was now confident turning up in places with nowhere to stay. Australia really was an easy place to travel, especially along the backpacker friendly east coast. Usually there were hostel representatives at the coach terminals ready to whisk you away before you’ve even had the chance to stretch your legs and even when this wasn’t the case, a pick-up was only a phone call away. The coach arrived at about eight o’clock in the evening and whilst looking over the hostel boards, I was joined by an English couple, Hannah and Peter. It was fairly obvious that Hannah was the more dominant in their relationship having jumped straight onto the pay phone and rang several hostels to get the best rate and arrange a lift. Peter seemed an entirely more laid back character and after getting talking to the two of them I decided to tag along, in no small part because of the amusing name of the hostel that Hannah had decided on – The Ozzie Pozzie Backpackers.
When we got out of the van on arrival at the hostel, Hannah and our driver both let out girlie screams as they both saw the massive spider on the side of the van. It really was big, dwarfing even the monster that I’d seen in the Hunter Valley. It may have left dents in the bodywork as it scampered across the bodywork of the van at break-neck speed. Peter and I both took an extra step backward, us both probably thinking the same thing - I’m not touching it! We decided it was for the best if we went to check in and return for our bags later. Ian the British guy who was on reception went off to take care of incey-wincey, and I felt a little guilty that I didn’t advise him to take a shovel with him with which to hit it. He came back alive and well to everybody’s relief. Ian told us that the spider was a Huntsman, as big and scary as it looked they could give a painful nip but were actually harmless to humans despite their menacing appearance.
After Ian had shown around the hostel, Hannah and Peter disappeared to find the supermarket whilst I made myself at home. I was sorting out my kit when something in my peripheral vision pricked at my subconscious. I glanced around the room with my healthy paranoia firing on all cylinders. And then I saw it. Yet another monster spider, up in the corner of the dormitory, big and hairy, though more lanky then the Huntsman we’d seen earlier. There was nobody else around. I could go for help but decided my machismo with Ian was already tarnished. I’d take it on myself.
It stood high on the wall with a confidence in its pose that told the world it was king in these parts, lounging around up there, maybe digesting a horse that it could have eaten. I wanted to get it down to a more manageable level and away from the bunk beds it had taken residence over. Looking around, my eyes fell upon the maps of the town that Ian had given to each of us. I screwed mine up and threw it at the spider. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I was trying to gauge its reflexes. Maybe I was hoping that this merest action would be enough to scare it away. What it did achieve however, was for me to get its full attention as it spun around. It gave me a look such as the hero in a Hollywood action film might give to the bad guy after he delivers a pitiful punch. I waited just a moment to see if the spider would deliver a one-liner. I grabbed Hannah’s and Peter’s maps and climbing up onto the bunk beds, deciding it was time to be bold and tackle it head on.
I used the flimsy photocopies of the maps in an elaborate pincer movement, hoping that I could get the spider onto one of the sheets of paper so that I could carry it to the door. Hopefully the paper would be able to take the weight. Stretching and bending at angles that my body had never been required to do in my old office job, I managed to start pushing the spider around. Rather then scurry away like the British house spiders I was used to dealing with, this one stood its ground, occasionally flinching only slightly as I poked at it with the maps. I admired its tenacity. I finally managed to manoeuvre it onto one of the sheets. I slowly began my descent from the upper bunk bed, holding the map out at arm’s length.
But then it dropped. Maybe it was taking some kind of suicide leap rather then face what I had in store for it. Or maybe it was just bored and decided to go off and terrorise somebody else but I’d now lost control of it. Luckily it landed on the floor rather then the bunk. It then made its fatal mistake. It began running for the door rather then take the safer option of running under the bed and out of reach.
I jumped down from the bed rolling up one the maps into a makeshift club. I brought the weapon down hard onto the spider. It stopped in its tracks spinning around. Now it was really mad. I hit it again. And again. And again, raining down repeated blows until I needed to catch my breath with my face, breaking out into a sweat. The spider was no longer moving. I scooped up the body with the now dishevelled maps, carried it out into the courtyard and flicked into the garden.
When Hannah and Peter returned, I couldn’t help but tell the tale of my struggle against the eight-legged beast.
“There was another spider in our dorm,” I said coolly. “Don’t worry though, I took care of it.”
“You didn’t kill it did you?” asked Hannah.
“Yeah,” I replied, stopping short of adding ‘And all by myself,’ and awaiting the adulation that was sure to come.
“You know that when you kill a spider, it attracts other spiders?” She said with a growl.
I don’t think any of us slept well that night.
The hostel provided free bicycles so I thought I’d spend the next day riding along the magnificent coastline. Hannah and Peter had the same idea and set off just before me, their planned early start delayed as they couldn’t find their town maps. The area was quite hilly and so remembering that Port Maquarie was said to have the highest urban population of koala bears, I had the chance to try and spot a few in the trees as I pushed the bike up the slopes. I didn’t see any koalas and got the micky taken out of me by a passing elderly Aussie bloke for not cycling up the hills. But the bike proved to be great fun with the speeds that I achieved on the downward gradients as I zoomed along. I must have looked pretty stupid in the helmet that was provided though, it looked like it was made out of paper-mache by a six-year-old. I would have felt safer if I had wrapped my head in cling film.
It was the day of my dad's birthday, the first occasion for celebration that I was away from home for. And I’d been a bad son, I had sent a card but I had my doubts whether it would have made it to the UK as you're supposed to declare what's inside on the envelope, presumably to catch out the terrorists who write 'Anthrax' on theirs. So my dad’s card may have been destroyed in a controlled explosion somewhere. I also kept forgetting to pick up a phone card, the only change that I had of $1.50 was swallowed up by the payphone after allowing me only enough time for my mum to tell me what time it was in the UK. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to have a word with my old man before the pips went and the line went dead.
Back at the hostel in the evening, some new guests had arrived. The place was quite small with the dormitory rooms surrounding a central open courtyard. The seating and hammocks created an atmosphere that was good for meeting people and socialising. Two girls were playing cards. Tera who was from Saskatchewan in Canada was being taught the international traveller’s card game of shithead by Wendy. From Las Vegas, Wendy was heading southward and was near to the end of her trip and as such made for a useful source for information. A very happy-go-lucky girl she didn’t do many favours for the reputation of the people of her homeland, coming out with a theory that an American attempt to take control of the Canadian state of Quebec was going to happen. The Goon she and Tera were drinking must have been hitting home, I got a taste of the dirt cheap boxed wine thanks to the generosity of a Geordie called Claire. As well as an introduction into the rules of shithead and my first taste of Goon, I experienced my first Tim-Tam, a biscuit much like a Penguin that is almost an institution in Australia. It was courtesy of Katherin, a young German girl taking the chance to travel before starting her studies to become a doctor. With Pete and Hannah back from their cycling and Ian on duty, we enjoyed each others company into the night, drinking and playing cards. As nice as it was that the group was mainly female, I did have to endure sitting through four separate conversations about Johnny Depp.
We were later joined by an Australian man that Tera had met on her train journey into town. He staggered into the courtyard from out of the night, carrying what remained of his own Goon - the inside bag with a few remaining mouthfuls. It was obvious that he had taken a shine to Tera’s curly blonde locks and shining blue eyes and had tracked her down to try his luck. His advanced years and dishevelled clothing didn’t give him a good start and so he got straight down to the business of trying to impress her with his list of achievements that included the winning of an Olympic gold medal for swimming and the millions of dollars he’d accumulated. Quite why he was reduced to drinking Goon, travelling by train and wanting to stay in backpacker accommodation wasn’t explained. After the joke had run thin, Ian politely asked him to leave on account of the hostel being full and the grounds being for guests only, both of which were blatant lies but a less confrontational option then the truth of his being there pissing everybody off. Before leaving, he tried one last time with Tera.
“I’ve been told I have to leave,” he slurred, “But can I have your number?”
“I’m travelling, I don’t have a number,” she replied, double checking the mobile she was carrying wasn’t visible.
“What about your home number?”
“I won’t be back home until Christmas,”
“I’ll call you when you get back then.” He wasn’t giving up.
Tera scribbled down some figures and he looked as pleased as if the numbers were the winners for that week’s lottery.
“So goodbye, “ he said to her, the rest of us invisible.
“Bye,” said Tera the irritation in her voice obvious to all but him.
“I’ll call you at Christmas then.” He struggled to stand to leave, but a sudden thought came to him. “What day is that?”
* * *
"Have you ever ridden a camel?" was my opening line to the two Scottish girls that had arrived. We had decided to go for a camel ride along the beach. When I rang up to book it, I was told in no uncertain terms by the uptight woman on the other end of the line that there couldn’t be any cancellations as they would be ordering an extra camel for the size of our group. Where you order a camel from, I don't know. When we did a head count in the morning we were two people short and so any arrivals to the hostel got the sales pitch for the camel ride in great detail from Ian and the rest of us pestering them afterward. Luckily we managed to persuade an Irish couple to join us. The ride was good fun in no small part due to the handler who - in stark contrast to his wife who I’d talked to on the phone - showed enthusiasm, told never ending jokes and was the most 'Aussie' person I'd met.
It was sad to see the little gang we formed at the Ozzie Pozzie breaking up as everyone continued on with their own journeys. There was time enough for another couple of hours lounging in the hammocks before I got a lift to the coach station with Katherin and Claire for the bus that would take us to Coff’s Harbour.
Sitting alongside the hills of the Great Dividing Range surrounded by hundreds of banana plantations, Coff’s Harbour is a popular stop on the backpacker trail and has a reputation as one of the most adrenaline filled sports capitals in New South Wales. With a similar feel to Port Maquarie, I made the stop in the hope of doing some white water rafting but disappointingly, the drought in New South Wales meant that the river rapids would not be rapid enough for it to go ahead.
The three of us were staying at the YHA for no better reason then the charismatic hostel bus driver was the first to grab our attention when we arrived. He treated us to a little tour around town and took us to a look out point to take in the beachfront and mountains on the way to the hostel. I felt in full holiday mode.
I was put into a dormitory with Rob who was working at the hostel and one of the strangest people I’d ever met and quite possibly the least Aussie person I would meet. When I saw him for the first time, he was sitting on his bunk and playing with his newly purchased mobile phone. He showed off his Britney Spears ring tone with no sense of shame and bombarded me with the most awful jokes that were of the type of those from Christmas crackers in the style of an attention seeking child. The other Australian guys working at the hostel apologised more then once for his ways during the evening we spent drinking Goon at the hostel’s poolside. But despite the irritation of Rob we had a good night that went on and on, with Claire and I the last to call it a night at 6am.
With the rapids off, we headed to The Big Banana after a meagre few hours of sleep. Rob was giddy, it was as if he had been checking the smell from the petrol tank of the hostel van he volunteered to drive us there in. I guess it wasn’t often people agreed to a day trip with him but in our sleepy state we probably would have agreed to anything. As for the Big Banana itself, well, I suppose it was quite big and, well, looked like a banana. That was it really. There were a few touristy things including the usual souvenir shops with banana theme crap, and some nice lookouts over the town but I think I would have preferred a lie-in.
Still with Britney Spears ringing in my ears I took a walk to the beachfront for the afternoon on our return. Just off of the coastline were a string of islands, one of which - mutton bird island that was named after the wedge tailed birds that nest there - could be accessed via a breakwater boardwalk. The island is also sacred to the Aborigines, adolescent males would swim over to it as a symbol of passage into manhood. As well as the bird life, a walk over to the other side of the small island makes for a good place to spot whales. I was there at a good time of year as it was the time of their migration up the coast. Though not clear, I saw something whale like splashing around in the distance. Now that was as cool as a banana.
The next day I thought I'd take a walk around the town centre. The long walk was a waste of time as there wasn’t much to it, and being a Sunday, most things were closed. As I was there, I thought I'd check where the bus left from for my onward journey the following day, when a stocky guy of what appeared to be Maori origin began following me on his pushbike. He had the build of a rugby forward but gave away several inches in height to me
"Oi bro, where you from?" he queried.
"The UK," I answered politely. Something in his demeanour didn't seem right. He kept at my pace, slightly behind and on the outside of the path I was walking along that was raised on a grass embankment from the road.
"You just get here?" he grunted. He could have got a job at Porky’s in Sydney. There was no denying I was a tourist, I was foolishly carrying my travel guide in full view.
"Yes, just having a look around," I said, subtly securing my daypack to my back and looking around for 'exits'. I really hoped that he hadn’t seen me withdrawing the week’s budget from an ATM a few moments before. After I walked on with him following, he suddenly pulled up beside me and jumped off his bike.
"Right bro, give me all your money or I'll stab you," he said just as casually as if he were asking the time. He was reaching down for a bulge in his pocket in the front of his jeans. If he had a knife, it wouldn’t have been much bigger then a Stanley knife. Crocodile Dundee he was not. Or maybe he was just adjusting his penis and he was going to hit me with that. There was no way I was just going to hand over that much money. With or without a knife, I didn't fancy my chances in a scrap though. I bolted. Down the grass verge and across the road, I didn’t even turn as I heard my assailant emitting a guttural roar. There were no natural turns to give him more options should he be pursuing me so it was a straight sprint up the road toward the town centre. After a few seconds I glanced behind me and I saw that he wasn't giving chase. I supposed he was worried someone might have nicked his bike.It would have been naive to think things like this wouldn't happen during my trip. It just surprised me that an attempt was made in broad daylight and near a shopping centre with busy streets. On the bright side, hopefully this would be my run-in for the trip over and done with and it could have ended up much worse. But I know I’d been sloppy in appearing like a tourist, the lesson was learnt.
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