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.