Alex

Happy Diwali!

2006-10-21T06:00:01Z

I've finally arrived in Mumbai/Bombay, the terminus of my trip across Asia. It's Diwali today, a fact so far only obvious from the garlands of flowers adorning most taxis and many private cars in the city, but tonight likely to result in a lot of fireworks and no sleep. I'd heard a lot of negative opinions on Mumbai from fellow travellers, but I love it so far: (relatively) clean air thanks to the lack of rickshaws, gorgeous weather, beautiful palm-tree-fringed bay scenes a short walk from my hostel. It is ridiculously expensive compared to elsewhere in India though, with taxis and accommodation costing around 3 times Delhi prices. Not ideal for my final stop! In fact, Mumbai allegedly has the highest-priced office space in the world.

I spent the last few days in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, checking out the backwater town and the more developed Kheoladeo-Ghana National Park. The park is a haven for migrating birds and claims to house 364 species in a good year; sadly, this isn't a good year. The monsoon in this part of Rajasthan was very bad this year, as evidenced by the empty river at Agra, alongside the Taj, and many water birds have not come. Still, I spent one enjoyable day in the park, with a naturalist guide in the morning. These are the species I saw with my guide over 3 hours or so:

Cattle Egret
Red-Bottled Lapwing
Rosering Parakeet
Magpie Robin
Black Drongo
Pond Heron
Spotted Owlette
Jungle Babbler
Lesser Golden-Back Bullpecker
White-Breasted Waterhen
Crested Serpent Eagle
White-Breasted Kingfisher (my favourite!)
Brahamani Starling
Red-Bented Bulbul
Sikra
Peacock (and Peahen and Peachicks!)
Ring Dove
Indian Treepie
Wood Sandpiper
Green Sandpiper
Blackwing Stilt
Shoveler Duck
Blackneck Stork
Grey Heron
Collared Scope Owl
Common Starling
Blackwing Kite
Wild Buschat
Grey Partridge
Hopur (?)
Indian Golden Jackal (not a bird)
Bluebull Antelope (ditto)

And this is what I saw on my own in the afternoon:

Some other ones.

Yep, it was definitely worth the Rs70 (about 80p) an hour for the guide in the morning!

Cheers Freddie

2006-10-16T12:06:41Z

I'm in Jaipur now. Since my last post I've travelled around most of the major destinations in the desert state of Rajasthan, spending time in Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. Jaisalmer is an amazing desert city out of a fairytale, with a huge sandstone fort containing part of the city inside it. The rest of the city spreads out from the base of the fort, all of it built entirely from yellow sandstone. I was staying in a guesthouse within the fort itself; it was pretty cool coming back at night and walking through all the imposing gates back to my accommodation. I also did a half-day camel safari out into the desert. The Thar desert is mostly barren scrub, resembling the Australian Outback except more sandy, but it has a few areas of Sahara-like dunes. We went out to one of these areas and watched the sunset, which is incredible in the desert because the sun can be seen until the very last moment, a single red line on the horizon. I also discovered that staying on a running camel is very difficult!

The next night I set off on the night train to Jodhpur, going back east towards Delhi. Jodhpur at first appears to be a more modern, ugly city than Jaisalmer, as the areas around the train station are made of modern materials as opposed to sandstone. But Jodhpur is the Blue City (as well as being known as Sun City) and the buildings within the old town are almost all painted various shades of blue. It too is dominated by a huge fort, which unlike the Jaisalmer Fort does not contain part of the city but rises above it on a massive cliff. It has sheltered the maharajas of Jodhpur for generations, never having been breached by an invading army. It's certainly one of the more impressive forts I've visited in India or anywhere else for that matter, and the view over all the blue-painted buildings from the fort's ramparts was like something out of a dream; as good as the first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. Sights which you never get bored of looking at.

After Jodhpur I took a horribly early 5:45am train to Jaipur, and set about trying to get a ticket for the India v England cricket match in the ICC Champions Trophy. Despite it being the eve of the match, it was incredibly easy to pick up a fairly good ticket for Rs1500 (about 17 pounds). In the end, I and 3 other English guys from my hotel were sat in an enclosure near the pitch, completely surrounded by increasingly boisterous Indians. Unfortunately England's abject batting performance, led from the front by Freddie Flintoff's duck, did little to calm them down. Our total of 125 was obviously not enough, and despite some great bowling from Harmison (after a wayward start), Mahmood (future great), Anderson and Dalrymple, the inevitable India victory eventually came. We got out of the stadium as quickly as possible to avoid too much (very undeveloped by English standards) Indian banter (sample: "India's going to win! You guys're going to lose!" More annoying were such comments as "You guys wasted your money coming here", to which one of my companions suggested we should respond by ripping up a few Rs100 notes. :) (we didn't) We also got to witness some traditional police brutality as they beat with long poles some (Indian) guys who'd started ripping down the canvas roof of our enclosure. It was a great day however, and I'm really glad I managed to see a cricket match in India, although the ground was surprisingly not quite full.

Only 9 days left of my trip; tomorrow I'm off to nearby (by Indian standards - only 4 hours by bus!) Bharatpur to visit a national park where thousands of bird species come to winter. I'll chill out there for a few days and then head on down to Mumbai for the final leg of my journey.

Arrggghh

2006-10-10T07:25:46Z

I just spent ages writing a long entry about Agra and the Taj etc, and then accidentally closed the tab before posting. No time to write it again, so summary: went to Agra yesterday, saw the amazing Taj and also Agra Fort and the 'Baby Taj'. Going to the desert city of Jaisalmer tonight. Hope everyone's doing ok!

The Big DL

2006-10-06T12:58:38Z

I'm in Delhi now, having spent about a week recuperating from my stomach illness in Dharamshala, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Although it's in India it's more like a piece of Tibet, albeit a piece where Tibetans are allowed to do what they want and worship freely. Aside from that it's a beautiful place, set 1800m up in the Himalayas, surrounded by incredibly green vistas, mountain paths and waterfalls. It was a nice place to chill out for a while, although I couldn't enjoy it much to start with. I was holed up watching my time in India tick away, but in the end it turned out to be worth staying there so long: on the 4th day the DL returned from his visit to Canada, and was driven through the streets of Mcleod Ganj to his home. The streets were lined with Tibetans and tourists both Indian and foreign, and it was a moving sight to see when he finally arrived. The Tibetans all bowed down, holding out their incense sticks, and many burst into tears in the presence of His Holiness. For me it was only a fleeting glimpse of him waving through the passenger window, too brief even to take a photo, but I did get the feeling of having seen someone great, and from only a metre away! Afterwards Tibetan monks ,nuns and others poured through the streets following the convoy down to his house and the adjacent temple, where everyone had a free lunch (see a couple of pics here).

Dharamshala is a very chilled place with fantastic food; restaurants almost all offer at least a choice of Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Israeli (there are sooooo many Israeli tourists there) and Italian foods, all pretty good. There are also many classes and courses in yoga, massage, languages, cooking, musical instruments etc etc. Most Western travellers there are studying something. It would be an easy place to spend a very long time, but my time is limited, so I set off yesterday for Delhi. I'll spend a few days here before it all gets too much and I head off on a whistlestop tour of Rajasthan. Some photos from north Pakistan are here, but I haven't turned them around or commented on them yet.

India!

2006-09-28T08:59:17Z

Due to illness and lack of decent internet facilities I haven't written anything since 'Pindi, but I'm now in Amritsar in India, just across the border. After 'Pindi and Islamabad I went west to Peshawar, planning to check out the old city there and possibly the Khyber Pass, but shortly after I got there I came down with some virus that rendered me inactive for 2 days. Then I took a bus to Lahore (better hospitals in case I didn't get better), but after a couple of days more rest I felt well again. Lahore is an amazing, massive city with many beautiful buildings from the Mughal and colonial eras, but unfortunately the air is extremely dirty. This is mainly due to the LPG rickshaws which spew out black smoke all over the place, a nuisance until you want to go somewhere very cheaply. Apparently these LPG-running pollution generators have a month to get off the streets or convert to something cleaner, which should make a huge difference if it's actually achieved. Whilst in Lahore I travelled to the Indian border to watch the daily closing of the border ceremony, an amazing patriotic spectacle which starts about an hour beforehand, with hundreds of people on both sides chanting for their countries and singing patriotic songs along to the P.A. (a lot of the Pakistan ones seemed to basically go "Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan" for the majority of the time), but all in a fairly friendly vein, many people waving to the other side as they walked to their seats. Then the actual ceremony started, the Pakistan and Indian armies attempting to out shout, march, stomp and salute each other as they opened the gates, one representative from each side shook hands, and then the flags were carefully lowered, so that one was never higher than the other. They salute and shake hands again and the gates are banged shut until the following morning. This is all done to the accompaniment of much shouting of "Pakistan!" and "Hindustan!" by the respective crowds. It's incredibly over the top, especially the soldiers' stomping, but very enjoyable.

On Tuesday I crossed the border properly with a couple of travellers I met in Lahore and entered India. It was one of the more relaxed border crossings I've ever experienced given that no one else crossed the whole time we were there, and we were sat in customs for about 10 minutes before anyone turned up to stamp our passports! The border crossing at Wagah is pedestrian-only, so trucks must stop well clear of the border to be unloaded by teams of porters. The porters then carry the boxed goods on their heads as far as the line itself, where they pass the box to another (turban-wearing!) porter on the Indian side, who carries it to an Indian truck. Upon our exiting customs (in fact, before we'd even been signed into the book, just before entering India proper), an enterprising man came up to us saying "ice cold beer?" - obviously this is a good tactic with foreigners who've been in alcohol-starved Pakistan for a few weeks. Although it was the middle of the afternoon we shared one large bottle of Kingfisher to celebrate entering the World's Largest Democracy (as advertised on the welcome sign). Then we watched the closing ceremony again, this time from the Indian side, which left us glad that we'd watched it on the Pakistan side a few days before: not only is the view on the Pakistan side better, but this time Ramadan had started, so the number of (hungry) Pakistanis who'd bothered to turn up was rather slim (about 30, versus probably 500 or more Indians!) It was nice to see girls and women joining in the running with flags and dancing on the Indian side though, which you don't see on the Pakistan side.

Since arriving in India I've been staying at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism. Anyone is welcome to stay and eat for free at the temple, which receives tens of thousands of pilgrims every day. Foreigners get some special treatment, with a foreigners-only dorm area which is much nicer than I expected. The food too is not bad, and an amazing operation: hundreds of staff continually cooking, washing the floors, washing the plates and cups, everything on a huge scale. In the kitchens the daal is cooked in pots so big that people stand on the side to stir them. The temple is amazing too, entirely coated in gold and in the middle of a large artificial lake, inside a roofless building. It's open all night and many people sleep on the floor around the edges of the lake, close to their holiest shrine. Unfortunately I've been sick (again) since I reached Amritsar, so haven't been able to enjoy it as much as I'd like. I'm also staying a day longer than planned, but hopefully I'll be feeling well enough to head to Delhi tomorrow morning. I might be able to post some pictures from there if I find a decent net cafe.

'pindi baby

2006-09-17T12:12:06Z

Finally arrived in Rawalpindi this morning after a 18-hour marathon bus journey from Gilgit. And I feel like I've finally arrived in the subcontinent. Dust and chaos! (on the roads at least) 'pindi is a sprawling, very dirty city with bazaars and clogged roads as far as the eye can see. Just down the road are the clean parks and mosques, straight roads and embassy buildings of neighbouring newtown Islamabad, which I plan to go to see tomorrow. One nice thing about 'pindi is the prices. Since I arrived I spent 10p on a glass bottle of 7Up (one of the best things about Pakistan is that coke, pepsi etc are always served in glass bottles! Almost makes up for the lack of beer), 1 pound 40 on a hotel room with double bed (although it's priced as a single), cold shower, fan and balcony (!), and 98p on lunch. Lunch was chicken biryani, daal, 2 nan, raita, 2 pepsis and a cup of tea!! And it was very nice too.

I hoped to upload some pics from here but unfortunately this PC is a Pentium 2, so it doesn't even have USB! I'll try to find something a little faster in Islamabad tomorrow.

P.S.

2006-09-15T08:53:41Z

I posted a few pics from China on Flickr.

Pics

2006-09-15T08:52:21Z

I posted a few pics from China on Flickr.

Away with the fairies

2006-09-15T08:42:26Z

I'm back in Gilgit, having spent 2 nights at Fairy Meadows, a camping/trekking centre 3000m up in the mountains near here. It was an exhilarating trip all round. I went to the bus station on Tuesday morning and was jammed into a 'minibus' (a Toyota minivan with loads more seats put in and a big roofrack for luggage), the seats in front pressing hard into my legs - not so comfortable but at 1 quid for a 2 hour trip, can't complain! No sooner had we departed the bus station that the sound of machine gun fire echoed through the valley. I'd only ever heard it on TV before (e.g. Afghanistan) but there's nothing quite like the real thing. The bus screeched to a halt and everyone frantically looked around for the source - clearly it was not all in a day's work for the people of Gilgit either. For some reason I felt strangely calm, and not a bit scared - just a kind of fatalistic "oh well". After about 10 seconds we all simultaneously noticed the army firing range up ahead. Everyone visibly relaxed and we drove on!

Upon arriving at Raikot Bridge, where the jeep track leaves the KKH and ascends around 1000m to the trail head I was planning on taking, I got off the bus and had a look around for anyone else who looked like they might want to go up. Sadly there was no one, so I ended up having to hire a jeep up there for myself - 3000 Rupees return-trip (about 30 quid). This was less than ideal but preferable to the alternative of taking a full day to walk up there! We inched up the incredibly narrow track (sometimes only as wide as the jeep itself) between a sheer rock face on one side and a terrifying x-hundred metre drop on the other. On the way up we caught up with another jeep occupied by a Franco-Dutch couple, which was irritating: if I'd been 10 minutes earlier at the bottom I could've gone with them. Anyway, I still managed to hook up with them and enjoy the services of their guide for free! We took the trail up to the campsite, dwarfed by the massive snow-covered Nanga Parbat massif (8126m) in front of us. The campsite, despite being above 3000m, was a grass-covered meadow (hence the name Fairy Meadows) with amazing views of the mountain. I rented a tent which featured 2 full-sized beds inside - not exactly roughing it! At night the guests (about 7 of us) and staff/guides sat round the campfire and talked of Pakistan, politics etc - quite interesting as they all hate Musharraf and are fed up with military rule, but are optimistic for the future. On the 2nd day I set off with the aforementioned couple and their guide to try to reach Nanga Parbat's base camp. The male of the couple (probably aged about 60) fell by the wayside early on, but the 3 of us continued along the path, passing stunning vistas of colliding glaciers, to reach the point where we actually had to cross one. I'd never seen a glacier before, so this was pretty thrilling! It was covered in rocks, but the rocks are constantly shifting and the glacier is constantly making noise as it melts in the hot sunshine. Crossing it was not so difficult, except for once or twice where the covering of stones and rocks was a little thin; suddenly stepping through to ice is not pleasant. But we made it to within view of base camp at almost 4000m. The snowline was just out of reach as we had to return before nightfall. Walking at 3000-4000m is extremely tiring to someone who's not used to it, and I felt like I was crawling along compared to hiking in the UK!

Yesterday I headed back down the jeep track to the valley. About halfway we came to a sudden halt: something (presumably rockfall) had caused the trail to collapse up ahead, so that its width had approximately halved. A group of locals set about trying to repair it, but it did not look good for our crossing it any time soon. After a while another smaller jeep, carrying about 5 or 6 foreign tourists, came up the track on the other side of the breakage. The locals repaired the track enough for this small jeep to attempt to cross (after all the foreigners had got out!) and the driver shot across the makeshift bridge at full throttle. I thought my driver was about to do the same, until someone said "Our jeep is big one. He" (the driver of the small jeep) "is hardcore driver." So I waited for another hour or so while they strengthened the repaired track, but to no avail - our driver tried to go across but the rocks started to move, and he beat a hasty retreat. At that point I decided I was going to have to walk down the rest of the way. It wasn't pleasant and I think I broke my feet, but just before I reached the bottom (about 75 mins later) my jeep came past and picked me up! Evidently they'd managed to construct something resembling a path at the breakage point. I was now severely late and still needing to get back to Gilgit before nightfall, so my driver and others from my jeep helpfully went out into the road (the KKH) and started flagging down trucks. The first guy didn't seem up for it, so while they were flagging down the next one I went to stand by the side of the road. I had literally been standing there for 10 seconds when the army pulled up. "Where you going?" I said, "Gilgit". "Get in." And off we went! They were actually Military Police, reassuring people to "hitchhike" with! They were incredibly nice guys who only scrambled to put their red berets on when they passed another miltary vehicle! They drove me along the KKH for an hour before they had to stop somewhere, so they dropped me in a nearby town with a bus station. From there I managed to get a bus back to Gilgit for Rs40 (about 40p!), very affordable as I had been worrying about having to spend thousands to get a jeep back as it was so late.

I'm staying another night in Gilgit tonight and heading to Rawalpindi/Islamabad tomorrow, insh'Allah. Will try to write again from there.

You take chai?

2006-09-11T13:48:43Z

I'm now in Gilgit in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. I got here via an exhausting two day bus ride from Kashgar in China, with a compulsory overnight in the Chinese border town of Tashkurgan. Yesterday the bus set off at 10am Chinese time from Tashkurgan, and two lengthy customs procedures later (most luggage was tied to the roof of the bus, so needed to be taken down and put back up each time), we finally arrived in Gilgit at 9pm Pakistan time (3 hours behind China, so the trip was 14 hours!) It was totally worth it though. The scenery on the Chinese side is impressive, particularly the deep blue Lake Karakul surrounded by yaks, camels, horses and Kyrgyz people living in yurts, but the Pakistan side of the 4650m-high Khunjerab Pass is simply mind-blowing. Apart from the pain in my back, I didn't even notice the hours spent on the bus as I stared out the window the whole way at simply stunning mountain scenery. My whole trip has been worth it for that one experience. Every time we rounded a bend on the seemingly logic-defying Karakoram Highway (KKH), a new unbelievably beautiful panorama opened up. I tried to take photos, but I think it would be difficult to capture the scenery at the best of times; from the open window of a fast-moving bus, I'm not too confident about how they've turned out.

Gilgit itself is a trading town in a valley; not particularly interesting, but a good place to rest and try to organise treks. Despite the presence of many different Islamic groups (mainly Shiite, Sunni and Ismaili), which in the 1980s sometimes resulted in sectarian violence, the people here are extremely friendly. Today, my first day, I have already drunk for free a bottle of Coke, a bottle of Pepsi and two cups of milky chai tea. "You take chai?" means "Come and have a chat with me and drink some coke/pepsi/tea/whatever." It feels kind of obscene accepting drinks from people here when they would be so cheap for me to buy (10-15 rupees = 10-15p) but as a guest it would be very rude to refuse. On the way to the internet cafe a guy asked me have tea with him in his shop, but it turned out he doesn't even speak English, so we attempted to have a conversation in broken English and Urdu (it didn't go so well). But from the minute I crossed the border and was "interrogated" at customs by a big-smiling Pakistani who greeted me with a firm handshake (the "interrogation" consisted of 3 questions, including "What do you do?" - I replied "I'm a teacher", a half-truth which Pakistanis seem to love), the warmth of the people has really made me feel at ease here. The other thing which makes me feel more at home is the popularity of cricket, something which understandably didn't come up too much as a topic of conversation in China. One of the first things the guy on the desk of my hotel said to me yesterday when I checked in was "England beat Pakistan today", news which I hadn't heard until then, but have since been informed of every single time I say I'm from England. Welcome to Pakistan!

In the desert

2006-09-03T15:25:57Z

I'm in Turpan now, using the most knackered keyboard I've ever encountered in an internet cafe. I think I'll make this post a short one. I arrived in Urumqi (Urumuchee) yesterday afternoon on my flight from Xi'an. My first impression was that it's cold! I was expecting to step off the plane into roasting desert temperatures, but it was not to be. Urumqi is a sprawling metropolis built on oil money; basically a Chinese megacity dropped smack into the middle of the Gobi Desert. Although the architecture is communist, the feel of the city is more central Asia, with Uyghur (the Muslim people of northwestern China), Kazakhs, Chinese, Russians. Many signs are written in Chinese, Arabic and Russian script (Uyghur language bears no similarity to Arabic but Arabic script is used phonetically). Urumqi was interesting culturally, the food was delicious and the nightmarkets pretty impressive (whole roasted sheep complete with head and horns anyone?) but there are no cheap guesthouses and it's too difficult to get around without taxis, so today I swiftly decamped to Turpan. Turpan is a much more Uyghur-dominated town, a couple of hours outside Urumqi. I checked into a hotel where I'm sharing a room with 5 beds in it. About 2 quid a night, and the hotel has a swimming pool! I met an Aussie couple who are sharing my room, so we rented bikes and cycled out to a famous mosque in a traditional area of town. The mosque is famous for its minaret, The Emin Minaret. The building is mudbrick, and the whole complex looks so Arabic, it's amazing to think this is still China. The mosque buildings are like something out of a fairytale; if you tried to make a building look Arabic, you couldn't do any better than this. I took some good pics so I'll try to post them if I find a computer with USB. Planning on staying in Turpan for 3 nights and then heading to Kashgar on Wednesday. Tomorrow I'll go out to see some of the sights in the surrounding desert. Bye for now!

Mission: failed

2006-08-31T10:51:51Z

Unfortunately today I've had to give up on my self-imposed mission of not using any planes for the duration of my travels (besides the beginning and the end). Getting a sleeper, or even a seat, from Xi'an to the northwest has proved impossible. I could try getting on the train tomorrow morning and seeing if I can get an upgrade, but the consequences if I can't (28 hours with not even a proper seat) don't really bear too much thinking about. I met a Polish guy the other day who sat on a bag of rice for 17 hours to Shanghai, but even he said "I wouldn't recommend it for 28." So I'm holed up in Xi'an on my own until Saturday with a terrible cold. Asian colds are definitely worse than their European cousins. When I first got to Japan I had a cold which lasted for about 2 weeks. I'm hoping this one doesn't because it makes me feel like I don't want to do anything, but going to the desert on Saturday should help matters. A 60% discount (gotta love undersubscribed Chinese internal flights) on my plane ticket to Urumqi {the world's furthest city from the sea) means that it'll only end up costing about twice the price of a hard sleeper on the train. However, my Phileas-Fogg-in-reverse journey is over, which makes me rather sad. Still, didn't he use a hot-air balloon at some point?

Belated update

2006-08-29T17:08:45Z

I'm in Xi'an now, right in the middle of China and the "cradle" of Chinese civilisation since before Roman times. Since I've hardly written anything about where I've been until now (sorry AJ), my route so far has been Hong Kong - Guangzhou - Chongqing - Chengdu - Chongqing - Yichang (down the Yangtze) - Wuhan - Shanghai - Beijing - Xi'an. My next stop should be Turpan, a desert oasis town on the Silk Road, but I just discovered today that I might not be able to book a bed, or even a seat, on the sleeper train from Xi'an. The trains don't start from here so it's almost impossible to book. Somehow the idea of a 28.5 hour train journey without even a seat doesn't seem so appealing... back to the ticket office to check for any cancellations tomorrow. I've been keeping a handwritten diary of some of my experiences so I'll try and post a few of my impressions of each place/China in general too, especially if I end up stuck in Xi'an for a few days. Hoping to go to see the Terracotta Warriors tomorrow (avoiding paying 300 yuan for a full-day tour if at all poss). Hope everyone's doing okay.

Oops

2006-08-22T17:54:20Z

Missed the train (Chinese trains are ultra strict on timing and shutting the platform gates in good time to leave)... the Whore will just have to wait one more day...

Still alive

2006-08-22T06:03:16Z

I'm in Wuhan now, a huge city on the Yangtze. Since the last entry I've been to Guangzhou, Chongqing (a nice 30 hour train journey), Chengdu, back to Chongqing and then a boat down the Yangtze to Yichang. I recently realised what the characters are for "internet cafe" so they've suddenly become much easier to find - up until now it was almost impossible, hence the lack of updates. Internet cafes in China are rather secretive places for some reason, and you can rarely see in from the outside. I have to go now but will update more thoroughly soon. Off to get a 17 hour sleeper to the "Whore of the Orient" - Shanghai. Bye!

Any suits sir?

2006-08-10T03:18:49Z

I arrived in Hong Kong yesterday evening, about 1 hour late thanks to the late departure of my Indian Airlines plane. The final destination of the flight was Mumbai, which is coincidentally also my final destination on this trip. It did make me think I could save a lot of time and a lot of money (and probably a lot of infectious diseases) by just staying on the plane, but in the end I decided to go for the more challenging option of leaving the plane in HK. The good thing about Indian Airlines is that you can choose a curry meal on the flight, which was not bad for airline food (how far can you go wrong with curry?) In common with Malaysian Airlines you also get proper metal cutlery (as long as your flight doesn't include any terrorised Western nations), but Indian had even more ridiculously heavy knives and forks. Much better than a bendy piece of plastic though.

Upon landing in HK I noticed that we still appeared to be in the middle of a cloud bank-visibility was zero. It did make for some romantic misty scenes aboard the (double decker!) bus from the airport into town though. Huge buildings, port cranes and towering mountains loomed out of the mist. The weather's not looking good for the duration of my stay in HK unfortunately... typhoon warning level 1 has been hoisted (I'm not sure if level 1 is good or bad, although the fact that there's almost no wind would suggest that it's a low-level warning). The main thing I've noticed so far is the number of similarities to the UK - double decker buses, London-style buildings, traffic lights that go red-red+orange-green instead of that ridiculously abrupt American/Japanese red-green thing, etc. And pelican crossings with flashing amber ball-lamps on black and white poles! All very nostalgic. Unfortunately, unlike the UK, you can't walk down the street as a white person for more than 2 seconds without hearing "Any suits sir?" "Rolex copy sir?" "Any watches?" etcetc. At least they don't even bother pretending the Rolexes are real.

Best thing about HK so far - the food and drink are gorgeous. Last night's dinner was winter melon red-noodle soup with sliced beef and dumplings (delicious despite my unrealised fears that the melon might be sweet), red bean and soy milk jelly desert, and chrysanthemum and honey tea (all for about 3 quid). This morning I had an authentic Cantonese custard tart for breakfast. Beautiful.

Now it's time to go across the bay to Hong Kong Island to see some sights and sort some tickets out. Bye for now.

Travel diaries

2006-07-24T12:49:16Z

Well, I didn't bother using this as a Flickr frontend, as it turns out. Anyway, from now on (or from August 9th) I will be using it to keep family/friends updated as to where (and how) I am on my tour of China, Pakistan and India. Check back to see where I am. Or possibly just where the last internet cafe was.

Personality evaluation

2006-03-08T05:26:26Z

Thanks to splag for the heads-up about this little beauty. Unfortunately since no one reads this journal, I doubt I'll garner too many evaluations from here. Still, if you see this and have the time (and actually know me, natch), please evaluate my personality. Thanks! Go here to set up your own evaluation.

I'm back baby

2006-03-08T05:07:29Z

I just remembered I'm a member of this thing. Anyone out there? I'm not about to start spouting any long discourses on world events or anything, but just joined flickr and figured I might use this as a front-end.