Travelog
This diary tracks our progress along the Silk Roads, with episodes appearing in date order, most recent first. You can get to earlier entries by turning pages at the bottom of the screen.
- Details
- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
We forgot to tell you about our riotous experience trying to catch the train to Shanghai ages ago.
You need a bit of background. We were due to meet my sister at Shanghai airport the day after next. We had reassured her we would be there. Definately. We were in Xian. We had had difficulty getting tickets to Shanghai, but that is another story. We now had tickets for the 18.44 train to Shanghai. It was 17.30 We had time, in my estimation, to have a quick dinner in the Muslim Quarter, before heading back to collect our packs and walk the 10 mins to the train. Andy was panicking about time. He was reluctant to eat, but given I would have difficulty finding food on the 24 hour train journey, I insisted.
We found a restaurant. On sitting down, I had an argument with the chair. As tucked my self in, the seat of the chair lifted, and my finger slipped between the seat and the frame. I then sat down. On the seat, on my finger. Cue much comedy commotion and trying to get up, only to be held down by my trapped finger. It eventually emerged, somewhat chewed, and bleeding. I was offered a packet of tissues to clean up the cut, only for the restaurant to try to charge me for them. Needless to say, they backed off at my expostulations about it being their chair that had done the damage.
Waving my wounded finger about my head to stop the bleeding, we decided we didn't have time to find somewhere else to eat. We ordered food, and explained we were in a hurry. Andy was getting pretty twitchy by this time, as he always likes to have a leeway of at least 3 hours for anything. In fact he was getting really stressed and stroppy, so we agreed that if the food didn't arrive in 5 minutes we would go. My food arrived in time, and I dug in. Andy's was a little later, and proved to be some of the most delicious spicy beef he had tasted. So he said afterwards, ruefully, because at the time, he snatched a mouthful and insisted we leave to catch the train. After a bit of panicking and a forced march through central Xian, we collared a taxi back to our hotel. We arrived back at 18.15, in plenty of time. Half an hour to do a 10 minute walk. Enough time to have eaten dinner. And, funnily enough, just time for Andy to nip to the store down the road to buy some choccy to stave off the hunger pangs.
I got the packs, Andy went to the shop. (Can you see where this is going?) At 18.35 I was on the corner outside the hotel, backpack on, jumping up and down to see over the passersby, and cursing Andy soundly. At 18.36 Andy appears, muttering apologies, and we hoof it past astonished locals to the train station, Andy being very sheepish and apologetic about making us late.
I cannot go very fast, but Andy disappears though the waiting room yelling "I'll hold the train!". The gate is closing - first Andy then I bulldoze past and stagger off up the stairs to the platform, which is the last one. I loose sight of Andy as he turns down to the platform. The man on the barrier is yelling at me to hurry up. A little old lady, laden with bags steams past me. I am staggering - my backback weighs 20kg, and I'm not build for speed. Or stamina, come to think of it.
I wobble down the stairs, puffing, and dizzy. Which platform? The is a train at one, and NOOOOOOO! a train pulling out of the other! Where is Andy? Is he on the train? Do I have to get to Shanghai on my own?
"rrrrrrrrrrrllnnn!" What was that?
"LLLLLLLLLRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNN" from down the paltform. Ahhh! Total relief as I spy Andy, essentially holding onto the train to stop it leaving. It seems to be working. He is bellowing down the platform at me. He is a few carriages down, but motioning for me to get on the nearest one. Hurry, hurry, the guard is saying. They have already taken in the steps, so I scramble and clamber into the nearest opening. I am exhausted and weighed down by my pack. As the engine jerks into motion, I fall through the doorway face-down onto the floor, with my feet hanging out the side of the train.
The packed crowd watches with inscrutable eyes as I am helped to my feet. We made it!!!! All I need to do now is make my way through a totally packed train to Andy and my bunk. I smile at everyone and the conductor has the presence of mind to unlock the toilet, creating the vital spare space for someone to move into....
- Details
- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
A couple of times we went over to HK island and mooched around Soho and spent a fortune eating amazing global food (Habibi's babaghanoush was particularly delicious) and spending even more money on hairtoys to send home. (It is such a weakness of mine!) We got our new Chinese and Laos visas. We even made decisions about where we are heading next. No mean feat, I can tell you. After lots of research on Andy's part, and about 5 minutes thought on mine, and in the interests of getting back to England before the money runs out, we have decided to skip Vietnam and Cambodia. It's a shame, but thanks to all of you who voted, it gave us something to think about.
We have also sorted out our malaria stuff for Laos. Ho hum. We've gone with Doxycycline on the grounds that a) mosquitos love me and bite me even if I have loads of repellent on. b) neither of us can take Larium due to our medical histories (hurray!) c) it is cheaper than Malerone and also guards against filarial worms (and syphilis!)
I liked HK, it was small enough to handle for a day trip, sufficiently Chinese to be interesting, and sufficiently western to have clean toilets. All the huge consumptiveness of it did get to me a bit - every shop from Harvey Nicks to Leonidas, and every designer you have ever heard of, has a shop there. Talk about streets paved with Gucci. I have been very amused to go from working in chav culture in the UK - where fake Burberry and Louis Vuitton is ubiquitous - across Asia, where, you guessed it - fake Burberry and LV is also everywhere. On everyone of all ages. Little old guys wearing Burberry check shirts are my favourite.
The air pollution is awful though. We had one clear day on Lamma. I was pleased to see HK has its own edition of Positive News. And some lovely vegetarian cafes, Bookworm, Life and Green Cottage. It was such a relief to know I could eat without any hassle.
I loved the flowers and butterflies on Lamma, and we did a bit of walking, but although my knees are getting better, they still ache enough to keep me awake (after painkillers) after a few hours of walking. Seems ironic after all the work I did to strengthen my back.... At least that isn't a problem as well, and as Nic kindly took lots of heavy things home with her, my pack is a few pounds lighter.
We are now in Kunming, but I will have to tell you about that in another article.I'm sorry I can't put in many links today - the Wikipedia site is blocked.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
It has been 2 weeks today that we waved goodbye to Nic, and I honestly couldn't tell you what we have done since. I'm pretty sure the answer is absolutely nothing whatsoever but as I can't even remember that I must assume that we have been abducted by aliens. Actyually I do have flash-backs of endlessly lying on the golden beach, sun beating down on me. In December.
We leave HK this morning for China again, this time to Yunnan province (Kunming) - mountainous and sub-tropical and the staging point for our launch ito Laos, probably around the 12th. If I don't get a chance to phone tomorrow: Happy Birthday Mum!!!
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- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
As some of you know, I wasn't always (am not always?) the sane and well balanced personality you know and love now, and I know what good work Mind do in getting on and supporting people who sometimes have some of the most un-media-friendly problems around. It's not a cute and cuddly issue, but it is all to common.
Please help them reach their fundraising target by donating here . If you were thinking of giving me a Xmas pressie I would be pleased if you do this instead!
Also, read all about their adventures on Tuktotheroad, it is well worth a look, and go and hear them talk about it at the Royal Geographic Society in London on Dec 12th (their entry is down the page a bit). I'd go if I weren't in Hong Kong.
- Details
- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
On arrival go directly to Soho. Do not pass go. Ogle. Eat. Drink. Catch a ferry to Lamma Island. Stay there.
OK so I'm no expert, having been in Hong Kong just over a week now, but my experience of the main areas (Kowloon city, Central, Wan Chai) is one of overriding commercialism of the most impersonal variety, where everything has a price and only the price matters, and where East-meets-West really means faceless capitalism with some local colour painted on top as a facade. Don't get me wrong: it is safe, friendly, clean and easy, and if a bit of high-class shopping and strolling is what you are in the mood for then Asia may have very little to challenge it (yet). Unfortunately this kind of environment generally makes me want to scream, shave my head, climb onto the tallest building and open fire with a Kalashnikov. It induces a fit of pique in which anyone within earshot has to suffer yet another anti-consumerism first-world injustice-of-it-all tirade that benefits no one. In short, it is not my thing.
Even so, a small part of me does enjoy it a little once a decade or so provided I can escape again (but minus the impersonal quality of the high street or mall obviously), and so I found the area around Hollywood Road, especially South Of Hollywood Road, fitted the bill pretty nicely. It is a small manageable area sandwiched between Central and Mid-Levels full of small bohemian independents selling trinkets, antiques and arts of all kinds from Asia in general and South China in particular. Peppered among these wonders are great bars and restaurants, again mostly independents, selling just about every cuisine under the sun. Life cafe was very Ellen Friendly in a hippie vegetarian health-food kind of way, and there were plenty of Thai and middle-eastern joints to satisfy our more indulgent desires. All in all I can find absolutely no reason to recommend wasting time in any other district of Kowloon or Hong Kong Island; maybe one day if China stops poisoning the earth with such gay abandon it may be possible to see further than ten yards, in which case a stroll up top the Peak for a possible view may be advised, but until then you can get the same effect by just steaming up your bathroom.
After spending a couple of clean functional but ultimately impersonal and depressing nights in the centrally located HK Guesthouse our search for reality led us onto Lamma Island, where we are are currently ensconced among kindred spirits, in other words other hippie dysfunctionals who can't hack it in the fast lane. Its a bit like Stroud only on a small island off South China where even at night it rarely drops below 20 degrees, even now. There is a great laid-back small island feeling here, and it seems to have become quite a refuge for greenies, anti-consumerists, peace warriors and generally folk who want to find positive alternatives to the hectic madness that is Hong Kong. There are no motor vehicles on the island (well, a couple of exceptions) so the noise tends to come from the chatter and hubbub of the main streets and the lapping of waves against the shore instead; people have time to stop and chat, not everything is about money here, and most tellingly Chinese and Western folk are far more intermingled than in the rest of HK. Its the kind of place where people come for the afternoon and before they know it find that they've raised a family here, and where jaded old hippies like me can restore some sense of perspective. In fact I am typing this from the most excellently restorative Bookworm Cafe (restaurant, internet point, bookshop, library and cafe).