Bye Bye Balham

Shopping Frenzy

We had no choice but to drop our plans for our onward journey.  We wouldn't be making it to Mongolia - no one had responded to our emails about the place, anyway.  We'd be missing the trip through the Three Gorges and wouldn't be crossing into Thailand overland.  It seemed unlikely that we'd be having Christmas with Guy and Lisa in Phnom Penh or with Richard and Fiona in Tokyo.  We were going home.

We had very little time left for sightseeing or shopping, too.  We hadn't bought much stuff on our travels as we knew we'd end up carrying it for months.  As this problem had now disappeared we headed over to the tackiest, touristiest part of town to stock up.  On the way we dropped into a travel agency and booked our tickets back to London.

Few old houses survive in central Shanghai.   From the viewing platform of the Pearl TV tower we saw whole districts being bulldozed to make way for new offices and apartment buildings.  However, if you go to the south end of the bund and keep walking you get to the area that in colonial days was known as the 'Chinese City'.  Here it's possible to get some idea of what life was like before the boom started - low-rise houses shadowing narrow alleys where vibrant street life still goes in.  In the centre of this area, surrounded by a maze of market stalls and souvenir shops, is Yu Gardens, a traditional Chinese Garden that somehow survived the Cultural Revolution.

Inside the walled gardens are a series of grottoes and pavillions, stunted pines and carp-filled ponds.  They are immensely popular but they somehow manage to retain a tranquil air in places.  Perhaps it's the separation you feel from the city - you can hear it and can see the tops of the surrounding buildings peering over the walls but you are definitely separated from it.  We found old men napping in the shade and young women sketching the light falling onto the lotus pools.

Outside could not be more of a contrast.  The local dumpling shops are nationally famous and attract large queues of people at all times of day.  In the middle of a pond next to the gardens is a tea-house that all visiting dignatories are taken to - the Queen was here a few years back.  It was impossible to take a decent photo because of the ever-present throng of people waiting to be snapped by the professional photographers whose stalls are lined up in front of it.

We managed to order some food using some nifty sign language then began a tour of the souvenir shops.  The range of tat was astounding, as was the range of prices for the same gear in different stalls.  We saw the same paper cut artwork for sale at 10 yuan on one stall and 100 yuan on another.  Every shop sold similar stuff - dolls, fans, porcelain, paintings, silk, mah jongg sets etc.  Every shop had a staff member who could speak rudimentary English i.e. enough to be able to tell us an inflated price and look hurt when we suggested something much lower.  We ended the day with a bag full of marble ink stamps carved with the Chinese equivalent of our relatives' names.

The Stowaway

David had to stay in the hotel room all Tuesday during the final stages of preparation for his tests.  He hadn't eaten for almost two days by the time his appointment came around so we took a taxi across town to the hospital.  We studied the English translation of the taxi regulations on the back of the driver's seat: 'Passengers are not allowed to carry with them contraband goods, smoke, spit or to dump inside taxis.  Psychos or drunkards without guardians are prohibited to take taxis.  Be sure to check your belongings when you get off'.

At the hospital David was led from the shiny foreigners' section to the general section of the building.  A group of non-English speaking doctors carried out the procedure with a nurse from the International section translating.  The colonoscopy was uncomfortable but relatively painless - at one point it did hurt, however, and the doctors laughed when David went 'Ow!'.  Clearly it means something else in Chinese.  The test over, we went back to the clinic for the results.

Dr. Dong told David that they had found a tumour in David's bowel.  She was unable to elaborate on what it might be and told us to wait for the pathology results.  With hindsight we think she knew exactly what it was but at the time she just advised us to go home for surgery.  We took a taxi back across town and began planning for our return home.

Sunday Stroll

Today was the first day of David's preparation for his medical tests.  For the next couple of days he had to restrict himself to a 'low residue' diet - avoiding all fibre and meat and sticking to light-coloured carbohydrates like rice and noodles.  Mmmmm.

We decided to restrict ourselves to some more city sightseeing in case he fainted from lack of food.  So we headed to to city park, had a coffee then explored the gardens with the aim of eventually reaching the museum.  We got a little lost in the maze of paths but were eventually rescued by three children who unexpectedly spoke English to us.  We asked them the way to our destination and they told us they would lead us there.  They took us through the park to an area where several knots of people were standing and chatting.  Some of them shouted 'Hello!' to us and one man said 'Come and talk to us!'.  The children explained that this was the park's English corner where Shanghai residents came to practice their English.  We thought this kind of fraternisation was banned in China but times clearly have changed.  However, typically, we resisted the chance to get some genuine local insight and hurried on as we were hungry.

The kids led us on towards the museum.  On the way, one of them told us that he wanted to go to America but only for two days 'because they eat so much food there.  My teacher told us about one American who ate so much that he died'.  Once we neared the museum the children asked us if we would take them inside.  We explained that we were going to have lunch first and then tour the place so they, somewhat reluctantly, said goodbye and went back to their parents.  We really are flying the flag for Britain.

Inside we found the museum's rather formal restaurant and ordered our meal.  Oddly, David's mushroom noodle soup came with the mushrooms on one plate and the noodles in consomme in a separate bowl - perfect for someone on a low residue diet!  They must have seen him coming.  Kirsteen enjoyed the mushrooms.

The museum itself is fantastic.  Very well laid out with lots of English descriptions of the wide array of bronze, porcelein and calligraphy inside.  We stayed until closing time.  We went back to our room and ate instant noodles while watching 'Lord of the Rings' on cable TV.

Cruising and Boozing

We took the ferry back over to the Bund just in time for our river cruise.  From the ferry we could have a good look at the boat we'd be travelling on - a grand, four-storey affair painted a rich orange with gilded dragons at the prow.  Our guidebook promised jugglers, acrobats and unlimited refreshments to those who purchased an upper class ticket.  We boarded the boat with mounting excitement but, in a true comedy moment, we were led all the way across it and onto a small launch that was moored alongside the behemoth.  Once on board we were presented with a small carrier bag containing a bottle of mineral water, some dried plums and a bag of what appeared to be powdered chicken stock.

The first class cabin was a pine clad room reminiscent of a sauna, crammed with cane furniture that faced into the room i.e. away from the windows and the view.  Most of the seats were taken so we squeezed onto a sofa alongside an American tourist.  The company had oversold tickets and the people who arrived after us had to sit in the heat outside.  A TV babbled in the corner - one of the Chinese passengers tried to change the channel and was told off by a crew member.

We cast off and put these disappointments behind us and we nosed into the chocolately waters of the Huang Pu.  The trip downriver was spectacular - the banks of the river teemed with activity for 30km.  We left the skyscrapers behind us, passed under a suspension bridge and found ourselves surrounded by shipyards where oil tankers were being put together.  Half of a freighter sat in a floating dry dock.  A submarine with washing hanging from a line was tied up alongside a battleship.  Rust bucket coal freighters were moored alongside power stations.  We stood outside, cooled by the fragrant breeze off the river and took it all in.  Inside, our Chinese co-passengers had scoffed their snacks, pulled the curtains closed and had settled down for a nice nap.

After 90 minutes the wind rose and the water grew choppy.  We had reached the point where the brown waters of the Huang Pu met the browner waters of the mighty Yangtse.  There was a clearly visible line where the waters of the two rivers met but our boat slowed and turned before we passed over it - our Yangtse river cruise would have to wait for another time.  We sailed back upriver, looking back at the distant bank of the river where yet more dockyard cranes stood in long lines on the horizon.

Back in the city centre the sun was setting and the buildings on the Bund were glowing in the fading light.  The Bund was buzzing with evening strollers and eager hawkers.  A well-spoken Chinese man approached and told us, in impeccable English, that he had spent some time in the UK.  He showed us some Scottish ten pound notes that the local banks were unwilling to exchange for yuan and asked us if we would change them for him.  Both he and the notes seemed genuine but we had no use for them and wouldn't be back in the UK for six months so we declined.  Incidentally, we did see him again a few days later and he asked us the same question - when we told him he'd already spoken to us he practically ran away - very suspicious.

To plan our evening's entertainment we picked up some of the local ex-pat mags and worked out where the happening restaurants where.  We ended up on the roof terrace of a building at the south end of the Bund, overlooking the river and the buildings either side.  On the table next to us a group of American and Chinese businessmen were celebrating a new deal.   Our dinner cost about the same as a meal back home but it was worth it for the food and the views.

After our meal we headed over the road to a new basement bar that we'd seen advertised in a mag.  They had a two-for-one opening offer which we took full advantage of.  We ended up playing pool and chatting to the owners, who we later realised hadn't been drinking.  Poor them for having to put up with our drivel.

Pearl TV Tower

We'd already seen how much Shanghai had changed since our guidebook was published (in 2002) but we still believed it when it said that cruises along the river departed each morning at 9am.  So we scoffed our breakfast and hurried along the bund to the distant ferry terminal.

'Hurried' is perhaps not the most accurate word.  Within a couple of hundred yards David was dripping with sweat and having to walk like John Wayne.  There's little shelter from the sun on the bund and it was very unpleasant.  Eventually he wailed 'I can't function!' and had to lurk in the shadow of a stall.  Kirsteen, being more practical, went on by herself.  She eventually found the ticket office where she discovered that the timetable had changed and our boat wasn't leaving until 2pm.  We ducked into a beautifully air conditioned convenience store and reworked our plans.  We decided to cross the river and go up the Pudong Tower instead.

The contrast between the two banks of the Huangpu river couldn't be greater.  Pudong, which was marshy swampland until a decade ago, has grown a thicket of skyscrapers.  The ferry terminal is surrounded by a construction site where half a dozen high-rise blocks are taking shape.  They are destined to be apartments for Shanghai's new elite plus the odd foreigner, off course.  Hard to believe we are in a Communist police state.

We slipped past the kebab vendors, dodged the postcard sellers and headed for the most striking building, the Pearl TV tower - a confection of beige cylinders and rose coloured glass spheres that looks like a model of an obscure molecule.  It draws huge numbers of tourists and therefore touts.  We spent a few minutes trying to take pictures of each other in front of the tower but were constantly pestered by itinerant photographers with special wide-angle cameras designed to capture the full glory of the tower.  We turned down their offers but felt we couldn't refuse when an off-duty nurse asked us to stand with her while she got her picture taken.

Inside, the tower was pretty much the same as any other tall building in the world - a circular viewing platform and a cluster of stalls selling scale models of the tower ranging from mini plastic jobs to giant gold-plated edifices with crystal balls that would grace any living room, provided that the owner had very poor taste.  However, the view was fabulous as the day was clear, and there was an official-looking desk with a red flag on it that you could sit behind and pretend to be a minor functionary of a totalitarian state.  And there was no stupid open air platform that you could walk around, like in Macau.  The best bit was a series of glass cabinets that contained gifts that had been given to the city by official delegations from its twin cities around the world - alongside a carved wooden giraffe from Windhoek in Namibia and a Ship's Bell from San Francisco was a scale model of Anfield Stadium, a gift from the people of Liverpool.  I wonder if the Evertonians know?

At the base of the tower were a series of large photographs of world landmarks and we sat and watched as the Chinese tourists posed for photographs in front of them.  Before we left, Kirsteen bought a mid-range model of the tower to add to our models of towers from around the world collection.  We walked back along the riverside in the noon heat and bumped into the nurse we'd posed with earlier - she proudly showed us the picture of us together - it's odd to think of it sitting proudly in a Shanghai house.

Internal explorations

Over our delicious and extensive buffet breakfast we discussed our travel plans.  We were going to take a series of short hops up the coast to Beijing, take a train to Mongolia, ride the plains for a month then re-enter China and head down the Yellow River.  We'd then either go west to Tibet or south to Indochina, depending on whether winter had started to set in or not.

We weren't planning to stay in Beijing for more than a couple of days so it was clear that Shanghai was the last place we'd have access to modern medical facilities for a while.  Our Mongolia guidebook advised travellers who fell ill there to fly to Hong Kong for treatment!  David was still having some bowel trouble so we decided to spend our first day in Shanghai trying to get to the bottom of it.  So we found an international hospital in our book and headed out.

We walked along the bund in the morning heat.  There was little shelter from the sun or the numerous hawkers who offered us 'Rolexes', postcards, kites and toy pull-along mice.  It was humid so we tried to adopt the 'Singapore stroll', a walk that is so slow that it prevents you from breaking out into a sweat.

Nanjing Lu is Shanghai's main shopping street and it was lined with western brand shops and their near-identical Chinese cousins.  For example, not far from the 'Playboy' clothes shop you could visit the 'Pearlboy' store, with its famous 'bunny' logo.  There were also almost-Nike and not-quite Reebok shops, and travel guides that were nearly Dorling-Kindersley but were actually something else when you looked really close.  They need to sort out their copyright laws here.  The street is also home to what bills itself as China's first sex shop, but we were sure we'd seen one in Beijing 10 years ago.  We didn't visit it, and we also didn't go into the pharmacy whose lively assistants encouraged David to try the latest treatment for baldness.

Halfway up the street we found the subway station and bought our tickets for the trip across town.  The subway network has only two lines so it wasn't hard to work out our route.  Within half an hour David was been examined by Dr. Dong.  She recommended another test for infection so he provided another sample and we went to explore the local area while the test was carried out.  The hospital was in the embassy district so there were plenty of troops patrolling the streets.  We also found the city library so spent an hour or so in their internet room, trying to get in touch with travel agents in Mongolia to sort out the next stage of the trip.

After lunch we returned to the hospital to get the results, which again were negative.  But David was sure that there was something wrong with him, so he asked Dr. Dong what else could be done.  She said he probably had piles but he should return to the UK for further tests.  This seemed a bit extravagant - it would cost a fortune to go home just to see a doctor, and we'd probably end up stuck on a lengthy waiting list.  We could imagine the conversations we'd have: 'Why have you come back?' 'Because David had piles.'.  We decided to make use of our travel insurance and get an endoscopy done here.  The medical staff gave David the drugs he would need to take to prepare for the procedure and told him to come back next Wednesday.  We were going to be in Shanghai for a long time.

That evening we decided to check out Shanghai's famous/notorious night life.  Before the war the place was known as 'The Whore of the Orient' and David, at least, wanted to see whether modern day Shanghai still lived up to that billing.  We had a pricey but tasty meal in a 1920s themed restaurant then walked up Maoming Lu looking for some action.  The road was lined with bars serving beers at 10 times Hangzhou prices - clearly targetted squarely at expats.  Some of the joints wouldn't have looked out of place in London, others were sleazier and had few customers apart from bored Russian hookers smoking and flicking through magazines.  It seemed like the party had moved on.

Shanghai, the long way

We started the day with our usual soup'n'dumplings then joined the crowds in Puji.  The temple was bustling with people videoing each other and making loud mobile phone calls.  We watched three off-duty members of the People's Liberation Army in their camo gear offering their incense to the four directions before depositing the sticks into a fiercely-burning brazier.   Forty years ago they would have been burning the temple buildings.

We walked back to the hotel to check out, passing a girl wearing a T-shirt bearing the eternal question 'Whab is Tove?'.  We also passed a couple of English tourists wearing Oxford University t-shirts who ignored us when we said hello to them.  Bloody Oxbridge Snobs.

Back at the hotel the teenage staff bade us farewell - as we waited for the minibus to the dock we watched as they sang and danced to a Chinese pop song whose chorus line was in English: 'You are my superstar'.

At the dock we narrowly missed getting onto the good ship PUKE but fortunately the next boat departed 10 minutes later.  After a short journey we were deposited at another terminal on the next island.  We had no idea where we were but a sign indicated that buses for Shanghai left from the nearby bus stop.  Our Oxbridge pals were sitting in the waiting room looking glum.  They eventually acknowledged Kirsteen and reluctantly gave up the information that they had bought tickets for a bus to Shanghai that was leaving the dock in four hours' time at 5pm.  That would mean arriving in Shanghai after midnight.  We took a step back and examined the town around us.  It was a big place with hundreds of fishing boats lined up along the promenade.  It seemed inconceivable so few Shanghai-bound buses would leave here each day.  So we found a local taxi driver and, with a combination of enthusiastic sign language and poor Chinese, we established that the main bus station was a short hop away.  We loaded our bags into his cab, gave our compatriots a cheery two-fingered salute (which fotrunately they didn't see) and were soon deposited at the long-distance bus station where coaches to Shanghai were departing every ten minutes.  How smug did we feel?  Very.

We had to wait an hour before our bus departed so we hunkered down in the waiting room and ate some instant noodles that we hydrated with water from the tea geyser.  A group of English girls arrived and sat down next to us.  They told us that they were booked on a train to Beijing that was due to depart Shanghai at 8pm that evening.  They were going to miss it.

The journey took a long time.  The causeway that our guidebook told us linked this island to the mainland didn't appear to exist so our coach had to drive onto a ferry for another hour-long sea voyage.  We had no idea where we were going but our compass showed we were heading south - the opposite direction from Shanghai.  We eventually realised we were heading back towards Ningbo.  As we neared the terminal we passed a row of freighters at different stages of construction propped up on piles at the waterside - no need for dry docks here.  It was another indication of how the port was booming.

Back on dry land we drove along endless miles of newly-built highway, with neatly clipped conifers beautifying the central reservation.  We watched a series of incomprehensible films then grabbed a quick meal at a service station.  The bus stopped for 15 minutes - in that time everyone on board managed to gobble a three course meal and visit the loo.  I think you'd be give an hour to do that in the UK.

It wasn't clear where Shanghai started but we were soon surrounded by tower blocks, construction sites, giant advertising hoardings and neon lights.  We had no idea where the bus dropped us but a crowd of taxi drivers offered to take us to our hotel.  They quoted a flat rate of 50 yuan for the journey but readily accepted when we insisted they use the meter.

Our arrival was spectacular after all as our cab swooped down off the elevated highway onto the southern end of the bund.  On our side of the river the colonial buildings were floodlit and sported red flags flying from every tower.  It reminded David of the Pier Head at Liverpool, except with no Liver Birds.  On the other side of the river the sparkling new skyscrapers of Pudong glowed with multicoloured lights.  Between them, the river was busy with late night traffic.  We sped up the Bund, across the steel bridge that used to divide the Japanese and British concessions and stopped outside our hotel.  The meter fare?  80 yuan.  We checked into our very comfortable room and soaked the aches from the bus journey away in the large bath.

Exploring the Island

It rained during the night but we woke to blue skies and sunshine.  Kirsteen wasn't convinced by the change in the weather so put on her hiking boots and kagoule while David recklessly stuck to his sandals, shorts and t-shirt.  Who would be proved right?

Breakfast was not available at our hotel so we strolled over to Puji temple which is at the centre of the island's biggest settlement.  The first tour parties were already milling around the entrance or getting their photographs taken on the stone bridges that cross the three pools that lie in a row across the front of the temple.  We admired the lotuses that bloomed in the water and gave up counting the goldfish after about a million.  It was time for breakfast, anyway.  Through a gate and a courtyard we found a restaurant which had no English menu but did have a Chinese/British couple at the next table who were able to translate for us - we ended up with delicious dumplings in soup.

Back outside the day was hotting up.  We had decided to visit Puji tomorrow so instead we headed up a stone-flagged alley lined with shops and sheltered from the sun by a series of makeshift awnings.  Kirsteen bought a traditional pilgrim's cloth bag from one shop - at each temple you visit you can get it stamped with the temple's symbol.  We were ready for our trek.

We walked up the east coast of the island, alongside the 'thousand step' and 'ten thousand step' beaches.  The water was brown and uninviting but some early morning bathers were already frolicking in it.  Sun, sand, sea and shrines - that's Putuoshan.  We passed a number of newly-built hotels along the way - one had two tennis courts.  Watch out for a Chinese Wimbledon champion soon.

We were occasionally passed minubuses shuttling between the temples and sweaty boys on bicycles struggling up the gentle slopes but for most of the walk we were on our own.  The lesser-known sites on the island were deserted, including a well whose waters promised eternal life (which you would think would be a big draw).  We only caught up with the crowds when we reached the carpark at the foot of the steps to Huiji Si.  We walked past a row of unappetising restaurants and commenced our ascent through the woods.

In spite of the shade from the trees it was hot work.  It didn't take us long to realise that we were the only people climbing the steps that morning.  Everyone else on the path was heading downhill.  Kiddies gawped at us and shouted 'Hello!'.  An old lady burdened with two paniers smiled as she trotted passed us.  Occasionally there would be a break in the trees where we could stand and be refreshed by the sea breeze, but we were very sweaty by the time we reached the top.  We found an exposed spot and sat and dried off in the wind and drank some cold drinks.  We watched two men slug down a couple of bottles of Coke then chuck their empties on the floor.  The stallholders yelled at them to pick them up - you wouldn't get that in India.  We found a signpost where one arrow pointed towards the temple and the other to the cablecar - clearly the most sensible option for getting up the hill.  We will know better next time.

The way to the temple was a mossy, stone-flagged path between ochre walls with large stone tablets bearing calligraphy embedded in them.  At one point we tried a local challenge - you close your eyes, spin three times then attempt to walk towards a particular inscription on the wall.  We're not sure what benefit you receive if you hit the right spot but we failed, anyway.  We paid our subs and entered the temple.

Huiji Si lies in a saddle between two wooded peaks.  In the first courtyard we watched pilgrims burning ghost money for their ancestors in a brazier and met an old monk who loved having his picture taken.  Inside the first building we found the now-familiar figure of the Laughing Buddha surrounded by the fierce Kings of the four directions.  Passing through, we found ourselves in a quiet courtyard surrounded by lacquered buildings with yellow tiled roofs.  At the centre of the courtyard was a tall, ornate iron lantern - children were trying to throw small coins through the holes in its side.  Incense drifted lazily across the yard and to the left the monks' underwear flapped gently on a washing line.  The atmosphere was so peaceful that David felt compelled to have a nap.

We felt that we had already proved our worthiness by walking up to the temple so we took the cable car back down to sea level.  From our cabin we could see a huge building site on the next hill where a series of wide terraces was being carved into the slope.  From the layout it appeared to be the foundations for a new temple - Buddhism here has clearly experienced an astonishing revival since the organised ransacking of the temples during the Cultural Revolution.

It was hot again now that we were back at ground level so we took an aircon minibus back down the island.  It terminated near the row of restaurants we had seen earlier.  Each of them had a live menu of sea creatures in bowls on the floor of the restaurant - the smell made us gag.  We eventually plumped for noodles with unidentifiable meat from the least unappealing of them.

After our lunch we visited Fayu temple.  It was much busier than Huiji and was undergoing major restoration.  Here, the smell of new lacquer overpowered the more subtle incense.  We watched as a young mother walked around the temple, bowing before each of the saints, followed by her little daughter who copied her every move.  The afternoon was warm and the monk guardians slumbered in the hear, waking only to tell us not to take photographs.

We took a bus down to the ferry terminal to make our transport arrangements for the following day.  We were planning to take an overnight ferry to Shanghai so we could arrive on the bund at dawn.  Unfortunately there was a typhoon warning and all ferries had been cancelled apart from the shuttle to the neighbouring island where we could catch a bus.  Quite disappointing, really, especially as the weather seemed so good.

We returned to the hotel where we chatted with a group of British and American English language teachers who had just spent a year working in Hangzhou.  We ended up having dinner with them but it was not a pleasant meal - they appeared to have 'issues' with each other and several of them left the table for long periods during the meal.  We got the impression that they would be glad to see the back of eachother and, by the end of dinner, Kirsteen and I felt the same about them.

To Putuoshan

It's easy to understand why so many foreigners to come to live and work in Hangzhou.  It's a pleasant, prosperous town which manages to combine Chinese traditions with Western levels of comfort.  For us, though, it was time to hit the road again.  Our next stop was Putuoshan, an island of peaceful temples and hordes of tourists (in pilgrimage season).

A lady taxi driver took us to the station where we were practically the last people onto the train.  Our carriage was packed but it was an all-ticket carriage so our seats were still empty.  We struggled to find somewhere to stow our bags as the luggage racks were full - on many Indian trains and buses we were the only people carrying significant baggage.

We squeezed into out seats and took in our surroundings.  The PA system played soporific music, interrupted frequently by a breathy female voice who appeared to be commentating on our route.  Our fellow passengers had their noses in a wide variety of government-controlled media.  Two girls on the other side of the aisle were munching a late breakfast of chicken wings and pigs' ears.  Outside our air conditioned carriage it was grey and damp and looked like a misty autumn day.  We sped past duck and geese farms and small towns where colourful new houses stood alongside crumbling 60s blocks.

We arrived at Ningbo just as our buttocks started to calcify on the hard seats.  David had memorised the characters for ferry terminal and we quickly found a bus that appeared to be heading in the right direction.  It was difficult to follow the bus's route on our inadequate map but fortunately a group of local ladies took an interest in us and gestured wildly when the bus arrived at our stop.  It was raining heavily at this point so we sheltered under some scaffolding while we tried to work out our next move.  We eventually found the ferry terminal down some dodgy-looking backstreets.  We bought our tickets and Kirsteen got in some supplies for our journey, which we were surprised to discover began with a 90 minute bus ride to the new ferry terminal outside town.

Anyone interested in urban development would have enjoyed the first part of the journey.  A new city was being built on either side of the road to the terminal.  Vast housing estates, factories and civic centres were being thrown up, with new motorways and flyovers linking them.  At one major junction a series of hoardings half a mile long displayed visions of a bright future accompanied by inspiring slogans.  Ningbo is already the world's fifth largest port and it's only getting bigger.

At the dock we were hustled onto a waiting jetfoil  It was late afternoon and the muddy spray sent up by the boat turned to gold in the light from the low sun.  Inside a TV showed a tourist video then a Chinese costume drama.  Our few fellow passengers seemed disinterested.

I think we were expecting that Putuoshan would look like a Chinese version of Jura - a remote, thinly-populated rural idyll.  That image was destroyed the minute we drew up at the large, modern multi-berth ferry terminal.  A crowd of several hundred people was hurrying down the jetty towards a Shanghai-bound ferry.  We reflected that we were fortunate that they weren't arriving at the same time as us.

Dealing with hotel touts here is a completely different experience to India.  Because so few speak English their attempts to snare you are pretty half-hearted - there are too many local tourists to deal with, anyway.  When you eventually get their attention they offer what seems to be a reasonable price instantly.  You may be able to negotiate a 10-20% reduction but there is no ritualised system where foreigners are quoted 10 times the local price and have to deploy extreme haggling skills to get a fair deal.  Perhaps we were lucky because it was low season but we quickly got a good deal for a decent hotel which, as a bonus, appeared to be staffed solely by teenage girls.  Kirsteen and I soon made ourselves at home, drinking green tea and watching China's athletes winning more golds on cable TV.

At about six o'clock we heard noises outside and saw that the carpark had been turned into an alfresco dining room.  We went out and asked for the menu and in response were led to a smelly room next to the kitchen where a wide variety of unidentifiable sea creatures were spending their last moments on earth in shallow bowls on the floor.  Our waitress waited patiently for us to order.  We had no idea what to get so  we bottled it and went back outside to see what everyone else was eating.  We got some reocommendations from our more knowledgable fellow guests and enjoyed a pleasant meal, fanned by a light sea breeze as the light faded.

Feilai Feng

The main tourist draw in town is a temple on a hillside on the west side of Xi Hu lake.  After three days of trying to get there, we left the hotel at 8am and waited for the wood-panelled 'old-fashioned' bus that follows a route around the lake to the temple.  The day was already hot and humid yet foggy - a combination that you don't get back home.  Thankfully the bus was airconditioned, so we had a pleasant ride, laughing as the girls on the back seat shrieked each time we went over a hump-backed bridge.

We grabbed some noodles for breakfast then took a mossy path off to the left of the crowded main drag.  Minutes later we were on a damp forested hill with the hordes below muffled by the dripping vegetation.  Thick brown millipedes clustered on the tree trunks and the rocks beside the path.  At the top of a hill an enterprising salesman had erected a couple of Coca Cola umbrellas and was selling drinks out of polystyrene containers.

We followed the sound of the crowds back to ground level, past hundreds of Buddha statues carved into the craggy hillside and into the temple complex.  The temple is a series of great halls built on terraces leading up the other side of the valley.  The buildings were thronged with Chinese tourists and pilgrims, many holding clumps of incense sticks that they placed into fiercely burning braziers outside each hall.  Inside, young families prostrated themselves in front of statues that would have been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution were it not for the intervention of Zhou Enlai.  The walls of one oddly laid out building was lined with over 500 3m statues of Buddhists saints - it was several minutes before we realised the hall was shaped like a swastika (a traditional Buddhist symbol).

We trekked uphill past a fountain where a giant marble ball revolved on a film of water.  Kirsteen saw a monk using a mobile phone and tried to take a picture but he spotted her, scowled and walked away.  Two Chinese girls said 'Bonjour' to David as he sat by the path.  They walked back shortly afterwards and said 'Au revoir'.  Signs pointed to the Tripitaka temple which should be familiar to any fans of the cult/rubbish 70s TV show 'Monkey'.  We eventually made it to the highest temple where three vast sandalwood Buddhas with International Klein Blue hair sat in dreamy silence. 

We took the bus back all the way to the railway station to get our tickets for the following day.  Passengers are not allowed into the building until their train is ready so there were large numbers of people camped out on the square and terraces around the station.  We picked our way through them and found the ticket office.  Unlike in Shanghai there was no English timetable and no English-speaking staff.  David's Japanese skills saved the day again - he deciphered the relevant timetable and wrote down the details of the tickets that we wanted on a piece of paper.  The ticket seller was somehow able to read his bad calligraphy and we returned to the hotel in triumph.

Our last task in Hangzhou was to buy some postcards.  In common with many Asian countries we have visited it was very difficult to buy these in anything less than a pack of ten.  Of these, one or two might be acceptable but the others will be blurred, poorly composed or might not be be a picture of anything particularly interesting (though occasionally you might be lucky enough to find a thirty year old picture of some local beauties in the style of day secreted among them).  We toured the lakeside giftshops and the smarter hotels (waking up several dozing shopkeepers as we went along) but found nothing remotely suitable.  One hotel shop had an attractive mounted metallic model of a communications satellite for sale but had no postcards at all.  We eventually gave in and bought the best pack of ten that we could find.

The highlight of our evening were the TV tributes to Deng Xiao Ping, who was born 100 years ago today.  The man is seriously lionised for his contribution to making China the economic powerhouse that it is today.  Cue opera singers with vast backing choirs singing tributes in front of vistas of skyscrapers.  The best was left until last - a two-hour song-and-dance revue performed solely by uniformed members of the armed forces.  It was like something off of the Two Ronnies.

Day Off

We planned to get up early again to catch the bus to the temple we should have got to yesterday.  But, although we were woken at 6am by the loud shouts and bangs of our neighbouring guests packing up and leaving we didn't make it to Starbucks until mid-morning.  We were too busy enjoying the Chinese lessons for children on the state Enlish language channel.

Kirsteen decided that we should try to find the local tourist information office so we spent the rest of the morning trying to relate what was shown on our map to the facts on the ground.  The town has changed a lot since the map was published and large new (mostly empty) offices and shop buildings lined the road where we hoped to find the tourist information office.  We conceded defeat and had some lunch in a crowded Japanese restuarant.  An elderly hawker was wandering from table to table selling live turtles.  I don't think they were intended to be pets.

In the afternoon the weather finally broke and we were caught in a torrential downpour.  We dashed into an internet cafe where we had to give our passport details before being granted access to the information superhighway.  This is where we had our first experience of the new Great Wall of China - a national firewall that blocks access to sites that the government has deemed unsuitable.  These include the BBC and even our blog - we felt strangely proud!

We had a great dinner at a hotpot restaurant.  We chose a spicy duck stew from the picture menu, though we could have had another dish that was topped with a whole poached terrapin.  Mmm.

Not only does Hangzhou have four Starbucks but it also boasts an Irish pub.  We sat drinking obscenely expensive Guinness and watched live Premiership football on the big screen.  We seem to be increasingly drawn to places that remind us of home.

The pub was clearly the centre of the local expat scene and we got chatting to a number of people who were working or studying in the town.  These included two spectacularly drunk British women who were at the local acupuncture school.  One of them took quite a fancy to David, who took the oppurtunity to get some advice about his continuing bowel problems - they recommended a combination of Chinese herbs that they felt would be able to clear up the issue.  They eventually lost interest in David's intestines and wandered over to the pool table to see if they could get off with some of the youngsters instead.

Easy Riders

We rose at seven to check out the early morning activities by the lakeside.  Groups of elderly locals were practising tai chi, ballroom dancing, martial arts and sword fighting.  One group of middle aged ladies were performing a complex fan dance - from a distance we thought their red shirts might have been something to do with the communist party but they were actually sponsored by Budweiser.  It was touching to see these examples of community spirit - it seems unlikely that such public group activities would catch on in the UK.

After managing to get a cash advance on one of our credit cards we rented some bikes and hit the highway.  The bikes were designed for people of Chinese stature so, of course, David looked ridiculous.  We headed south passing the 'Looks Promising' and '100% Delivery' restaurants and a building site whose sign declared that it was soon to be Hangzhou's first Porsche dealership.  The lake was lined with sites with wonderfully evocative names such as 'Orioles in Willows'.

It was another gloomy, close day and cycling was sweaty work.  We soon realised that we had underestimated the distance to the temple that was our goal and eventually parked our bikes and visited a much closer garden instead.  The ponds in the garden were filled with goldfish which were being fed by excited children.  Teahouses overlooked the lakeshore.  Across the water we could see hordes of tourists crossing the lake on one of the long causeways but the place we were was relatively quiet.  We mustn't have read our guidebook properly.  We headed back to the hotel, accompanied for much of the way by a local girl who was back in Hangzhou during her vacation from the law department at Bristol University.

We decided against dining at the expensive lakeside restaurants again and walked into the centre of town instead.  People were sitting outside their houses in their pajamas, drinking tea and playing cards.  In the centre of town was a square overlooked by an illuminated castle straight out of 'Spirited Away'.  A giant TV screen was showing an Olympic badminton match and small stalls sold toys and snacks.  We got talking to an American ex-pat who directed us to a street of cheap restaurants.  We couldn't find the one he recommended but ended up at modishly-decorated place that served us up with some of the local specialities - lake fish in a piquant sauce, a bowl of murky grey West Lake soup and a joint of fatty pork in a dark broth.  Not a great meal - David preferred the fish dish that was delivered to our table accidentally.  He had already taken a big chunk out of it when the staff realised they had made a mistake and whisked it away to another group of people.  They left soon afterwards, complaining loudly.

Going Native

We strolled along the lakeshore to the local Starbucks for a latte and a muffin.  Inside, the Pogues were singing 'Dirty Old Town' on the stereo.  We got chatting to an American businessman who was working on the publication of the city's first 'Yellow Pages' - there is clearly space for many travellers on China's capitalist road.  He told of his classification system for Chinese cities - the more Starbucks they have, the more civilised they are.  Apparently, Hangzhou is a four Starbucks town.  Mao must be turning in his mausoleum.

We reluctantly left the aircon comfort of the cafe and walked north along the lakeside in the muggy heat.  The path was lined with pebbles set into concrete and paved with large granite slabs, including many with intricate carvings.  The borders were neat and maintained by a sizeable army of gardeners.  Loudspeakers hidden between the shrubs broadcast soothing music.  Weeping willows hung over the water.  It would have been very picturesque had it not been for the hordes of tourists walking the paths and causeways and the sound of children relentlessly playing swannee whistles on the pleasure boats that crowded the lake.  We were tempted to take a rowing boat out ourselves but a sign at the boathouse warned us that we would have to be accompanied by a Chinese person.

Eventually we reached the hills at the northern edge of the lake and the crowds thinned considerably.  We climbed up to a crumbling pagoda where a toothless old crone spotted David sweating profusely and sold him a bottle of ice cold water from the heavy sack she had effortlessly lugged up with her.  After a quick breather we wandered westwards along a craggy ridge, admiring the hazy views until we reached a yellow wall with a circular gate that led into the grounds of a Daoist temple.  David ignored the colourful temple buildings and headed to the toilets, where he spotted a man squatting inside a low tiled enclosure, enjoying a newspaper while he went about his 'business'.

The temple showed all the signs of having recently been 'done up' - the carvings were freshly lacquered and gilded.  In front of each shrine stood tall rotating cones featuring hundreds of tiny illuminated figures.  The calls of songbirds in cages mingled with music from a distant radio.  Many of the staff were taking advantage of the dearth of visitors and having a quick nap in the drowsy midday heat.  We tiptoed around the temple before heading back down to join the crowds on the lakeside.

We hit one of the towns best restaurants for lunch, which sat on a small island in the lake that you could reach by walking along a wide causeway.  A living menu of turtles and plump, glossy green frogs welcomed us at the front door.  We settled for prawns and crispy rice in a thick tomato sauce accompanied by endless cups of tea.

David's post-lunch nap was interrupted by a swarm of mozzies so we moved on to the tomb of Yuefei, a 12th century general who was betrayed, executed then exonerated.  Statues of the men who framed him stand in a corner of the temple grounds.  It's traditional to spit at them but this practice is now illegal for health reasons - it's political correctness gone mad!  Here is a picture of David simulating gozzing.

We walked back in the general direction of the hotel along the causeway across the lake.  The water alongside us was choked with lotus flowers.  Toothless old crones were selling seed heads that they had gathered from the closest plants to passers-by - the seeds are tasty.

As we neared the hotel our thoughts turned to dinner and we realised that we didn't have the money to pay for it.  So began an oddysey around the cashpoints of Hangzhou.  Some rejected our card immediately, others demanded a six-figure PIN code.  We walked several miles in the gathering dusk without success.  So we had to eat in the local branch of an Hong Kong-based Italian restaurant chain, which was happy to accept our credit card.

To Hangzhou

At dinner the previous evening we sat chatting with a young guy from Hong Kong and made a vague arrangement to see him at breakfast today. In the event, we woke at 7:30, rolled over and didn’t make it to the dining car until half past nine. It’s going to be difficult to adjust to working life back in the UK.

Breakfast was no longer being served to passengers when we reached the dining car so we sat drinking Nescafe while the train staff queued up for a delicious-looking buffet. We started talking to another couple of passengers, James and Teddy from Hong Kong. They were on their way to Shanghai where they lectured on strategic finance at a local university. They told us they had little confidence in the future of Hong Kong and had managed to get multiple passports in the years before the handover. James’ wife was already living abroad, in Australia. We shared an early lunch with them and they taught us some survival Mandarin as our fellow passengers looked on and sniggered.

Outside, modern industrial units started appearing among the vegetable fields. The greenery was gradually replaced with concrete and the buildings grew taller. At noon we drew into Shanghai station, passed through passport control with no hitches and found ourselves in a new country.

In front of the station was a huge square, crowded with people sitting on the pavement waiting for their trains - you’re only allowed into the station with a valid ticket and only then if your train is about to depart. We doubled back into the booking office to get tickets for the next stage of our journey – we weren’t planning to stay in Shanghai that night. David quickly found the English-speaking ticket window and bought tickets for the next train to Hangzhou. We went into the soft-seat waiting room and settled down on one of the comfy leather sofas to wait for our train.

When we boarded the train a couple of hours later, we were surprised to find two men sitting in our seats. We checked our tickets and found they were dated for the following day. We wondered what the penalty for using incorrectly dated tickets on a Chinese train would be – six months in a re-education camp, perhaps. The other passengers told us to stay on board and say nothing. We switched to other seats but they, too, turned out to be reserved. The carriage seemed to be filling up but fortunately it was a double-decker. We found an empty table and relaxed in the knowledge that it was a non-stop train so there would be no further hiccups.

We reached Hangzhou at nightfall. Our taxi driver couldn’t understand our directions in mangled Mandarin but fortunately David had written the hotel name in Chinese when we booked it over the internet. It’s good to know that his Japanese M.A. is still paying dividends, ten years later.

Our hotel appeared to be a bargain. It was right by the lakeside in Hangzhou and the rate we’d been quoted on the website was less than half that displayed on the notice board next to reception. Slightly alarmingly, there appeared to be an hourly rate quoted too…

Once in the room David explored the cable TV channels while Kirsteen checked out the other facilities. These included the world’s smallest and thinnest hotel slippers, two grades of tea – one free, the other 20p per bag, and a bag of bath salts with a large sticker on them warning us they were ‘Uncomplimentary’.

We bought a map at reception and tried to work out where the local restaurants could be found. In the end we wandered rather aimlessly along the lake shore until we came across a brand-new development of glass-walled restaurants and bars. We made a mental note of the Starbucks branch before entering an Asian-fusion joint. There were several other foreigners in the place, all sitting at tables in the same area (the waiter for that section was the staff member who could speak English). In such surroundings it was very hard to believe that we were in China.

After dinner we braved a cloud of greenfly and headed back to the hotel. On the street outside a Muslim man grilled chicken kebabs over a brazier and teenagers bought condoms from a vending machine attached to a wall.  The neighbourhood bars were buzzing so we decided to have a nightcap.  Inside, pumping rock music was drowning out the commentary from the TVs that were showing Chinese Olympiads in action.  A waiter showed us to a table then, with a slight sneer, produced a Chinese only menu. David had already memorized the characters for the local beer brand (that Japanese M.A. again). The waiter was visibly surprised. We felt that had passed some kind of test. After a couple of triumphant drinks and a highly-competitive game of Liar Dice we went back to our room. It was then we realized why we had got such a bargain. Our hotel was sandwiched between two karaoke bars. From the left came Chinese Europop, if you can imagine what that sounds like. From the right came unsyncopated drums and a deep bass rumble. The earplugs we had bought in Boots five months earlier were finally able to serve their purpose.

Slow train to China

We spent our last morning in Mongkok packing up our stuff and ensuring that the flat was left in a reasonable condition. This meant that David could have a final liaison with the laundry lady before we left town.

We lugged our bags down to the main road and were pretty sweaty by the time we caught a taxi. The driver had a go at David for not putting our bags into his boot before telling him our destination. We didn’t argue in case he was connected to the Mongkok underworld and sat timidly in the back as we cruised down the oddly deserted concrete expressways towards Hung Hom station at the southern tip of Kowloon. At the station we stopped to take a final look at the skyscrapers of Hong Kong island, but a thick haze lay across the harbour and the towers were barely visible in the gloom.

Many years ago you could catch trains from here all the way to Europe but our destination, Shanghai, lay a mere 22 hours away. We could have flown in a tenth of the time but we preferred to take it slowly and enjoy the scenery along the way.

We weren’t entirely sure what our soft-sleeper tickets would entitle us to. Much of the information we’d seen about Chinese trains was out-of-date and failed to take into account the effects of ten years of economic success. We were prepared for an Indian-style dormitory carriage with thin curtains separating the cubicles and a constant flow of hawkers from dawn till dusk. So it was a pleasant surprise to be shown into a spotless cubicle with four beds and a table with a red carnation in a vase on it. As an added bonus, the upper bunks would remain empty for the duration of the journey.

The first twenty minutes of the journey were spent in a blind panic. David somehow managed to lose our tickets and we failed to find them despite a detailed search. Our friendly guard claimed to know every crack they could slip into but he couldn’t locate them, either. All three of us became increasingly nervous as the search went on. We weren’t sure what the penalty for fare evasion would be in China – six months in a re-education camp, perhaps. David eventually found them down the side of one of the beds. We finally relaxed, settled down in our seats and took a look outside. During the course of our search the New Territories had slipped past unseen and we were already in China.

A little later David explored the train. The hard sleeper carriages were bright and airy, despite having three tiers of bunks. People sat around slurping instant noodles and drinking tea from jam jars with a half-inch of green leaves at the bottom of them. At the end of each carriage was a geyser of boiling water and a height chart which, our guard explained, was used to determine whether children were entitled to child fares. For the record – if you’re taller than 1.3m in China, you’re an adult. On the other side of our carriage was the first class compartment. Clearly, the notion of a classless society has been abandoned on the Chinese railway network. Those prepared to pay top yuan got a compartment the same size as ours except with only two beds in it.

As dusk fell we were gliding through dramatic hill country, past tiny villages by lakes where ducks were being farmed. Like India, it was strange to find so much empty space in a country with such a huge population. Pondering this, we wandered along to the dining car for our evening meal.

Moving On

We now knew that it was time to move on.  Kirsteen's ankle had healed nicely so there was no further excuse for staying on in HK, apart from the fact that we were enjoying an easy, domesticated life.  But we could have stayed in Balham for that.

On Saturday we went to the China Travel Service and bought two train tickets for Shanghai for Tuesday.  This deadline concentrated our minds so we trawled around the shops looking for the things that we'll really need over the next two or three months.  David replaced his stinking sandals with a new pair of the same brand, except the new ones were impregnated with an anti-stink agent.  Time will tell whether this is effective.  We bought new T-shirts and some trousers that will be slightly warmer as Autumn sets in - the temperatures in Mongolia are already dipping below 20 degrees.  We also packed a whole load of stuff into a parcel and sent it back to Kirsteen's parents - we've been quite careful with our packing but have managed to accumulate a fair amount of junk along the way.

Saturday was also the first day of the Premiership season so we went back to the 'Cosmos 2' bar which was showing the Liverpool-Tottenham game on a big screen.  We thought it would be more a more 'authentic' experience to go to a local bar than to head over to an expat pub on the island.  However, the place was pretty much deserted when we got there.  The other punters were only half-watching the game and seemed more interested in playing Liar Dice.  The rattle of the dice drowned out the commentary (which was in Cantonese, anyway).  When Tottenham equalised a few people in the bar cheered - I initially thought that I had found the only Spurs pub outside of north London.  On reflection I thought they may have had a bet on a draw.  Despite the result and the distractions we enjoyed ourselves, possibly aided by the Heineken promotion that night.

Much of the rest of the time was spent completing the Sri Lanka section of the blog at our usual places in the library.  We're not sure how good internet access will be in China so it was good to get it out of the way.  We also made a short list of restaurants that we wanted to visit and had some delicious dim sum and a couple of good Italian meals.  By Monday night we were ready to move on.

I.T. Support

Our plan for today was to do some more shopping – partly to restock for the rest of our journey, partly for souvenirs to post back to the UK.  Kirsteen was also planning to post her SLR camera and lenses back home as we weren’t using them and they were taking up about half of her backpack.

Unfortunately these plans were scuppered by David, who was getting a bit frustrated by the speed of Glyn’s computer.  In spite of the fact that the PC was running a Chinese version of windows he went ahead and changed a couple of settings and managed to disable the firewall.  The PC was immediately infected by a worm which changed his homepage and started redirecting all web searches to gay porn sites.  David felt the fear that he used to get when something went badly wrong at work…  So he spent the rest of the day cleaning the PC and installing anti-virus software.  Rather than wait and watch him sweat, Kirsteen took her camera to the local DHL office and went shopping for gifts to send home.  She came back to find him far more relaxed having finally solved the problem.

We met up with Fergus that evening at the HK Football Club, which serves up burgers and chips and pints of strong lager.  We moved on to a cocktail bar in Wan Chai where we drank Martinis and felt a little out of place in our traveller gear.  We ended up in Delaney’s Irish Pub, drinking Guinness and talking to strangers.  Such is life in HK.

The Streets of Macau

We checked out just before they were going to chuck us out and headed to the square where we’d seen some nice-looking restaurants the day before.  We had a late breakfast/early lunch of noodles and rice then caught a bus to an ornamental garden across town.

The garden was surrounded by a high concrete wall with no visible gate – we ended up having to slither through a building site to gain entry.  Inside, the garden had a languid atmosphere and felt remote from the muffled city outside.  David felt obliged to have a little doze on a bench surrounded by jagged grottoes.  There were few other people in the garden – across a crooked bridge designed to confuse evil spirits a group of old men played cards in the sunshine.

We found the gate out of the garden and walked east towards a temple.  The shuttered tenements crowding over the road were more evocative of provincial Spanish towns than the Far East – it is interesting to see how different colonial powers have stamped their image on the countries they have seized.  We stopped off for a refreshing espresso in a little café, where David managed to restrict himself to just one egg tart this time.  When we eventually made it to the temple it seemed oddly out of place in this almost European environment.  It was another pleasant oasis - shady and filled with drifting incense smoke.  At one side was a large pile of paper models of consumer goods and piles of fake money, waiting to be burned as an offering to a dead relative.

We hopped on a bus across the causeway to one of the outlying islands.  Away from the tower blocks the area had an almost rural feel, with little traffic troubling the single track roads.  On the waterfront was a series of beautifully restored colonial houses overlooking the weed-choked bay.  We were joined on the promenade by a fashion photographer with a troupe of models in wedding dresses, and a large crowd of tourists who kept getting in his way.

We made our way to the local food street to try the pork sandwiches from a famous restaurant.  Despite walking up and down the road several times we couldn’t find the place and eventually had to move on, still hungry.  It was now getting close to the time of our ferry back to HK so grabbed a bus back to the terminal.  We arrived with a few minutes to spare so looked around for some fast food.  The only restaurants available seemed to be rather formal but we had no choice so we sat down, ordered and told the waiter we were in a hurry.  We chose well, though – the roast pork with thick crackling was one of the best meals we have had on our travels.  You wouldn’t get that at the docks at Dover.  We made it to our ferry in time and, an hour later, we were back on the increasingly familiar streets of Hong Kong.

Across the delta

It was time to shake ourselves out of the domestic bliss that we’d fallen into chez Glyn and have some more travellers’ experiences.  The easiest way to do this in HK is to grab a ticket for the JetFoil to Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the other side of the Pearl River delta.  We booked a JetFoil and hotel package at the terminal in HK – judging by the photos of nude ladies in some of the agents it was also possible to book JetFoil, hotel and sex packages, too – all tastes catered for.  An hour later we were back on dry land in another country (OK, another “Special Economic Zone”, to be precise).

We had to fill in a form saying we didn’t have any respiratory illnesses and pass through infrared cameras before we went through to passport control, where we were surprised to see thousands of people from mainland Chinese waiting in line.  We gathered that Macau is one of the few places they are allowed to go on holiday.

David came here fifteen years ago on his way back from his first trip to Japan.  Much of the place has changed beyond recognition since then.  For example, the bus we took into town passed along a road which was the seafront promenade in 1990.  It’s now 400m from the water following a massive land reclamation project.

By way of contrast we checked into a cheap hotel down by the docks in an area that looks like it hasn’t changed for a century.  The pavements were covered with rows of fish drying in the sunlight and petrol fumes.  The smell reminded us of Lisbon, where there is a street of shops selling the Portuguese speciality bacalao (fortunately the stink couldn’t be detected from our hotel).  Two smiley Chinese ladies took us to our room, brought us fresh water and generally fussed around until David gave them ten HK dollars each.

It was way past lunchtime by now so we strolled up to the small square lined with colonial buildings that lies at the centre of the old town.  The square was cobbled with black and white stones in a wavy line pattern, again quite reminiscent of Lisbon.  We eventually found a quiet café that sold traditional Portuguese coffee (small espressos or ‘bicas’), ham and cheese rolls and Portuguese flaky pastry custard tarts.  The waitresses and some of the customers were European looking and some were speaking Portuguese.  David enjoyed his food so much he was soon onto his second tart and more coffee.  The waitress was obviously impressed with his tart eating abilities as she asked him if he wanted a third one.  When he declined she asked if he wanted one to take away.  He was very tempted.

We reluctantly left the place and explored the cobbled streets leading up to the cathedral.  The roads are lined with antique and reproduction furniture shops – their stock is fairly cheap as it is all brought over from the mainland.  We eventually reached our destination, the remains of cathedral of Sao Paolo, we found that one thing hadn’t changed in 15 years – it was still covered with scaffolding.

We hopped on a bus which took us past the docks to a temple dedicated to A-Ma, the goddess of seafarers.  The temple is built into the side of a rocky, wooded hill and the air was thick with smoke that drifted from the burning coils of incense hanging from the beams.  We almost missed the highlight of the place which was initially hidden from us by a knot of excited children – a small fishtank containing a large turtle whose shell was covered with coins and banknotes.  It’s lucky, apparently, to drop money on a turtle.  On further exploration we found several other tanks containing unhappy amphibians with cash cargos.

It was late afternoon by now and it suddenly got very gloomy.  It wasn’t long before fat drops of rain were splashing on the ground and we hurried to find shelter from the oncoming downpour.  We hailed a cab which took us to the Macau tower.

This is another recent development – a 330m high tower built on another patch of reclaimed land in what once was a bay but is now two lakes enclosed by a ring-road and bisected by a causeway.  It looks a bit like the CN tower in Toronto.  This tower has several unique features, though.  At 233m there is an open air walkway all the way around the tower – a suspended metre-wide path without railings on either side which you can pay to walk around.  You are provided with a safety harness, though.  David was dead against the idea (I even feel slightly ill as I write about it, five months later) but renowned thrill-seeker Kirsteen was very keen.  Fortunately for David, the gods intervened.  The regulations allow people to attempt the circumnavigation under all weather conditions apart from lightning and, by now, the downpour had turned into a fully-fledged thunderstorm.  So we had to be satisfied with standing astride the glass floor panels in the observation lounge and observing the sheer drop to the concrete below.

The streets around our hotel had livened up by the time we got back.  Crowds of tourists were filling their bags with edible souvenirs from the local shops – the most popular item was pork which had been pulverised into a glossy, thin sheet which you bought by the metre.

After a tasty Macanese (Portuguese/Chinese combo) meal we headed to the casinos that are Macau’s main attraction.  Our first stop was the Casino Lisboa, the only joint in town in 1990.  At the centre of the building was a large, functionally decorated circular room where thousands of visitors from the mainland where crowding around dozens of tables.  Games of pure luck seemed to be the most popular – particularly dice games.  The minimum stake was about 20 pounds which was way out of our league but didn’t seem to bother our fellow punters in the slightest.  We eventually found the low-rollers section in a poky side room – the baize on the British-made tables was as scuffed and faded as the clothes of the players.  It was time to move on.

Since 1990 nine other casinos have opened including a branch of the Sands from Las Vegas.  We’d heard good reports so we headed over there, passing a group of Russian prostitutes negotiating with some Chinese tourists on the way.

The Sands is one of those places that makes you reach for aircraft hangar/football pitch comparisons, a vast space devoted to roulette, blackjack, craps, baccarat and slot machines.  Five-storey chandeliers plunged from ceiling to floor.  At the centre of the room was a long bar but most people were sticking to the tea that was being delivered to the tables by waitresses in fancy dress.  Again, the minimum stake was more than our hotel was costing us for the night so we headed for the slot machines where you can spend a whole evening losing twenty quid.  In the event Kirsteen got lucky and won a haul of coins that just about covered a couple of champagne cocktails.  As we sat at the bar the cabaret started on the small stage behind it.  Three blondes in spangly costumes danced half-heartedly to pop music.  They chatted to each other as they threw shapes – their accents were distinctly British.

After our drinks, David found a low-stake roulette wheel and started betting on our wedding date.  Kirsteen pulled him away after a couple of winless spins.  We stood and watched for a few more minutes and, sure enough, it came up.  It was time to go home.  We got back to the hotel at four a.m.

Around the town

There aren’t a huge number of must-see tourist sites here so we are spending the days wandering around the vast shopping malls restocking for the next stage of our journey.  We are using ‘Octopus cards’ which you charge up with money and use instead of tickets on the metro but can also use in convenience stores, vending machines and even markets – it’s the future!

We’ve spent a lot more time around Mongkok, too.  It’s an interesting area; at street level are hundreds of small shops selling computers, phones, high fashion and sports clothes.  Above them rise grim tower blocks – many of them contain seedy hotels which advertise their presence with signs showing the hourly rate for rooms and the cost of spending time with ‘Passionate Russians’ or ‘Light Skinned Thais’.  The local paper features stories from the area on a daily basis – the Triads are particularly active here.  We read about how one day a man sitting in a restaurant had his right hand chopped off by a masked gang – a case of mistaken identity, it turned out.  On another a group of men were arrested after they were caught gambling on the outcome of cricket fights – it’s not cricket fighting that’s illegal but the gambling.  As this is a sport popular with old men they were elderly, with the oldest being 87.

On Saturday evening we went to Kennedy Town where Fergus and Natalie had invited us to their luxury pad with a great view over the sea.  They installed the barbie in a corner of their balcony - when the steaks started to burn we had to give up sitting on the balcony with our eyes smarting and retreat inside.  After a lot of fanning the smoke disappeared and we were able to stuff our faces with delicious pork chops and other meat including the charcoal steaks (which had become tasty after sitting in the kitchen for a while).  After dinner we drank lots of wine and played three hours of 1980’s Trivial Pursuit.  Not surprisingly, us 30-somethings were excellent at it and it all became quite competitive (especially Fergus who thought he was king of 80s trivia until we started beating him).

On Monday evening Glyn took us to a local Mongkok restaurant where he used his impressive Cantonese skills to order ‘cheesy lobster’ for us.  It’s a local speciality although it doesn’t sound like it – whole lobsters on a bed of noodles in a mild cheesy sauce.  It was delicious and really cheap and, somehow, quite Chinese.  Glyn is off to Singapore tomorrow so he gave a quick tour of the neighbourhood hotspots on the way back - we ended up in a local pub (the ‘Cosmos 2’) where he introduced us to Liar Dice – a game that we’ve seen everywhere but never known how to play.  Very addictive, especially when you start playing for money.