I Love Pai

After a longer-than-anticipated stay in Chiang Mai, we hopped on a minivan to Pai. The treacherous mountain journey there, careering around hairpin turns, belied the peaceful hippie-ness of the town. We (or rather, Nazma) had our doubts about hitting a village reputedly overrun by yoga- and health-food-loving vegetarians. But soon we were totally sucked in, and we ended up staying almost as long as we did in Chiang Mai (though that doesn't mean we got our hair dreadlocked).

Meeting us there was Alia, Nazma's cousin's cousin who happened to be there for an extended stay, so she knew the area quite well and had been scouting places for us. After a brief reconnaissance we three piled onto two scooters and zipped off to what would be our first abode, an inexpensive ($6 CAD) little hut that used to be by a river, until that river flooded last year and redirected itself (after destroying everything). Pretty rustic, with the bathroom (though attached) open-air. Being bamboo huts, you can understand how nervewracking it is to do your business when you can hear (and participate in, if you like) the conversation next door.

Soon after arriving, we saw how everyone around town had a scooter: seems everyone gets off the bus and heads straight for the rental place (the fact that they sponsored the only free maps of Pai doesn't hurt their business I'm sure). We picked up a 125cc for $3/day, no questions asked, no licence necessary, and apparently no ability required. Guy tells me which buttons do what, and there I go. I only fell off our newly rented scooter once, and I made a woman on the sidewalk jump out of my way into a bushel of pineapples. After some initial rumbles, though, I was a pro, but like Zoolander, I could only turn left. We were also the only losers in town wearing our helmets.

After two days it started getting a bit lonely at our place, even with the poor French girls beside us, privy to our privy though they may have been. Maybe that's why they didn't talk to us. By this time we'd been to visit Ban Nam Hoo, another little clutch of huts where Alia was staying. More people about, gracious hosts, and better bungalows meant that we uprooted on the third morning and moved there.

Can't offer up enough superlatives for this place: our own wonderful, ridiculously underpriced bungalow ($7.50 CAD) in the green hills, awakening to cowbells every morning. So that's how we spent a week, not doing very much of anything. Our new scooter-mobility allowed us to make the 5-minute commute into town whenever we needed food or laundry: a nice simple existence, all in all.

One night, our two new Italian friends at Ban Nam Hoo had a run-in with a snake in their bungalow, which proved to be a very exciting evening. Of course Nazma offers up my skills as a "trained snake-handler", which is a total lie that thankfully no one really believed so I didn't have to embarrass myself. We had to get a expert from the village nearby to come and get rid of it: this turned out to be a guy in flip-flops with a rake who was even more scared of the thing than we were. At least the rake would have been useful for scooping it up, you'd figure; well no, buddy decides to stab the thing, with the blunt end, and he missed to boot. So the thing goes crazy and bolts/slithers for the nearest crack in the wall, and the next half hour we're thrashing around the bushes in the dark trying to find it. Of course it's long gone by now. We all went to town and had a nice dinner and reflected on what snakes like to eat ("Italians").

So that was Pai. We were sad to leave, but in the end, it was time to hit the south. Said goodbye to Alia and the Ban Nam Hoo crew and rode off one last time into the morning mist to catch the bus out of town.

(This photo is a total scam: Nazma never drove the bike herself. She just wanted a shot of herself looking tough.)

Whatch Me Bounce My Melons...

A couple of days into our stay in Chiang Mai, we resigned ourselves to the impracticality of venturing out to Burma as we had hoped. Turns out that the visa process has become even more difficult as of this January, and it's both illegal (and extremely foolhardy) to cross overland and move into the country, unless you plan to do so on a so-called "visa run" where you sit in the border town for an hour before coming back. We learned that we might have been able to force the visa issue at the Burmese embassy in Bangkok by showing up at dawn, knocking on the wickets and greasing the right hands, but, well, we were in Chiang Mai already anyways. Leave it to the next time.

Slightly disappointed, we turned our gaze eastward and started thinking about Laos. Our hotel, and seemingly every other travel agent in Chiang Mai, advertised a package that included a Laotian visa and a 2-day "slow boat" ride on the Mekong to the historic city of Luang Prabang.

We signed on. Mind you, it took some talking on my part to convince Nazma that the boat would be a really great "experience", and that she could really claim to have mastered the squat once she had tried relieving herself in a hole in the deck. Maybe that's why they call them "poop decks", but I'm not a sailor.

And then, as we are wont to do, we changed our minds the morning the boat was supposed to leave, following an innocuous visit to an internet cafe. The change was in part prompted by (a) an e-mail from Alia, a cousin of a cousin who was just a few hours away in a village called Pai, inviting us to visit; and (b) my discovery of a pretty unique trekking opportunity which I've alluded to before, but have been too lazy to report on, as yet. Or maybe it was because I didn't want to listen to Nazma bragging about how empowered she felt with her newfound poop-deck talent for the next 3 months ("Guess what I just did...?")

So anyway, suddenly, Nazma and I realised that we should just stay put in the north for another week and a half; laid-back Laos (we would hear later from others) isn't really doable in the week or so we had available. The longer stay in Chiang Mai allowed us time to hit the elephant camp and for Nazma to blow more money on gifts (you lucky people).

(By the way, if you're wondering just what the hell the title has to do with anything, it was in the AutoComplete from some previous user on this computer when I went to type in our actual title. Sounds like a far more interesting post than mine.)

See elephant dance!

Another common thing to do here is to go on a "trek". I'll post about my crazy Thai-Army-survival trek later, but for Nazma's sake, we opted for a sanitized, don't-get-your-feet-wet tourist special. Note we got a discount; otherwise, we probably wouldn't have done it. The tour-guide even pulled us aside and told us not to talk about what we paid with the other suckers.

Our "trek" involved a trip to the elephant training camp outside of town. All well and good, but it was a little sad seeing the big guys chained up and performing in a sideshow-like "performance" that had the package-tourists hooting. "See elephant dance!" "See elephant paint!" "See elephant play soccer!" (This last one was actually pretty cool - he'd toss it up with his trunk and scissor-kick it with his back foot into the goal.)

Mind you, the alternative is probably extinction: at one time, they used them for hauling logs, but now machines do that, and they don't have much of a wilderness to go home to, considering the people have stripped the forests, so they end up in these camps.

One stupid lady actually tried to feed them Campinis (those little cream-soda-flavoured stripy candies): zero nutritional value and it doesn't take much for it to lodge in a windpipe. They were selling bananas there to feed them with, which I guess she was too cheap to buy. We got a bunch and it was gone in seconds. We saw one elephant nip around a guy's back, take the whole bushel he was carrying and swallow it in one gulp.

After the performance, we got to go for a ride. This was pretty sweet; at one point the handler ran away with our camera to take a shot and we were left sitting on the head, where he'd been. No problem until Bertha started feeling around with her trunk for her errant owner, only to find nervous-Chinese-guy instead. Wet slobbery elephant kiss. Nazma said she'd let that one pass, though I'd pay money to see her take on Bertha (about even odds, I'd say).

On Nazma's insistence, here's a picture of a baby elephant to end the post, for you to coo over.

If Yan can cook, evidently so can we

So it's almost a cliched thing for people to take a Thai cooking course when they come to Chiang Mai; of course we had to, to shore up our macaroni-and-cheese repertoires. A full day of training, including foodstuffs (i.e. aforementioned trip to Severed-Pigs-Head Market), cost us CAD$23 a head (haha).

We received our expert instruction from "Ma", a nice old (and very successful now) cooking instructor who took us to her home and in no time had us on the floor grinding our curry pastes. This was by far the toughest part of the whole process, so it's good to know you can apparently make a big batch and fridge it for months. Everything starts with this little bit of paste--it's pretty incredible.

We ended up making 6 dishes, each, which meant bloated stomachs and takeaway at the end of the day. Nice way to pass the day, and we've ostensibly learned a new skill. Wow did we feel like pros afterwards. No dish took longer than 5-10 minutes to cook, and still edible!

In retrospect, the thing we realised was all the ingredients were fresh fresh fresh and super high-quality, so you can't really go wrong. Even the coconut cream was freshly squeezed in this jumbo extractor, right in front of us. Even if we could gather all the right ingredients in Vancouver, there may not be any conceivable way for us to duplicate the success we had that day. But if you're brave, you're welcome to come over when we get back: we'll try our best not to kill you with our efforts.

Panda porn and diesel fumes: a miscellany

Playing catchup with the blog again; hence, some random bits about Chiang Mai:

Went shopping for our cooking class at the local non-farang market. Loads of goodies: these handy froggies in a bag caught my eye. There were a bunch of big pigs' heads on display also, but Nazma won't let me post the photo for fear of causing bad dreams in the readership. Of course this means tonight she'll dream about adopting one of them or something, which equals juicy sleepquotes tomorrow perhaps.

Visited the Chiang Mai Zoo for something to do. I'd seen pandas when two of them showed up at the Calgary Zoo back in the 80s, but Nazma had never seen them live, so she paid extra to get into the panda pavilion while I stayed outside and watched on the monitors. We found out later that apparently that morning, tens of thousands of Thais from miles around had come to the zoo, because the female had gotten a little frisky and the pair had done the nasty for the first time (and in front of thousands, no less). Exhibitionist pandas aside, they had a pretty good selection of caged beasts here. They even had elk-analogues, probably imported from N. America for their "exoticness". Seeing as you can't drive through Banff National Park without swerving to avoid hitting them at least once, we bypassed that exhibit and went for the crazy, feces-throwing monkey cages. Those little guys can swing.

Went to a little town called Bo Sang just outside of Chiang Mai, and it happened to be a big festival day for them, celebrating their town's most famous export - paper umbrellas. It was interesting seeing how the Thais run their parades. The pageantry was marred slightly by the 10 security handlers for every float, and the interspersed loudspeaker trucks blaring slogans. The best was how the parade would grind to a halt every few feet, at which time the diesel gennys necessary to run all that loudspeaker equipment would slowly reduce life expectancies for the poor little girls on the float behind them (nevermind us). Note also the frequent stops were necessary for the speaker dudes to load up on beer. Still, a fun time was had by all.

We topped off the day with the greasiest omelettes ever, made by the only overweight people we'd seen in Thailand so far. This should have been our first indication but we were hungry, so we shared a flaming cup of canola with a side of seafood omelette for about 60cents.

Thai hospitality

Our buddy from the bus, Boonjan, had left us his contact information, having suggested we go for dinner. Boonjan works in Quality Control with Chevron in the south of Thailand, and after working 14 straight days he heads up north to his wife and two sons for four days, before making the trek down to Bangkok to take classes at the university there for ten days. Then it's back on the job for another two weeks.

Boonjan had spent time with the Thai army, training in Texas. As a result, he spoke English and was keen on helping out confused tourists. While signs are supposed to be in English and Thai, it's pretty inconsistent. Good for linguistic/cultural sovereignty, but bad for independent travellers.

Boonjan suggested dinner on what was going to be our last night there. To our surprise, he brought his wife and two young boys in their new SUV and took us out for seafood dinner along the river. His poor wife and kids spoke no English and suffered through our yammering, but as Boonjan explained, he wanted his children to see their father interact with farang, speak English, take interest in our conversations, and learn (this was the first time his family had had dinner with foreigners). The dinner spread was fantastic, but most importantly we got to chat with a real Thai. Some of his insights about the future of Thailand were interesting, as was his take on the drunken youth. Apparently Thai boys drink too much, "not like in America". He has this idea that farang don't get plastered. Poor innocent Boonjan.

So far our time in the north has been nothing but smiles and hospitality. We're having a hard time leaving.

Welcome to the north

We escaped the heat, pollution and general chaos of Bangkok for Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city situated about 10 hours by bus north of the capital. We decided to forego the many Khaosan Road companies advertising bus fares for cheap, having heard they were total scams where people have been gassed and mugged during the journey. Who knows if this isn't just some Thai urban legend, but why take the chance?

Instead we hit the bus station for seats on the pricier, but infinitely safer and more comfortable buses that actual Thais use. While trying to decipher Thai to figure out exactly where our AWOL bus was (given that we were supposed to be departing in 10 minutes), we were approached by a man who wanted to help out. Having gotten the same schtick from some rather shady characters in Bangkok, we were a bit wary, but Boonjan ended up becoming one of our good friends and hosts. More on that later.

There are several classes of bus service in Thailand. We went "VIP", one step below "SUPER VIP" and a step above "First Class." Apparently this entitles you to a cute air host/hostess (in our case, ahem, he/she was both) dispensing drink after drink and snack after snack (the "nori seaweed"-flavoured Lays are highly recommended) Not too shabby, and seats actually recline almost flat out - which I found out in the middle of the night with dude-in-front-of-me's head snoring away peacefully in my lap.

We got in around 6:30 in the morning, and had a bit of a mixup with the promised free pickup from the hotel, which allowed me to make friends with the ticket girl. Nazma graciously promised to let her finish helping us out before she clawed her eyes out.

We boarded the songthaew, which is a pickup-truck taxi - you get in the back and sit in the covered cab on two benches. This is great but hair-raising at stoplights when the scooters behind you come within inches of going up your bum.

Our guesthouse had a TV, air-con, and clean sheets and towels daily for an extravagent CAD$13 a night. After a couple of weeks we were starved for news, and the TV provided, along with MTV Asia and two 24-hour Thai karaoke channels. This last seems to be a national obsession, as we would find out the hard way later.

Eating some most delicious bugs

One last post on Bangkok. Finally found our crispy-fried bugs - at a street vendor outside a 7-11 (in case a Mars bar just isn't enough). As far as we could tell, you had your choice of mantises, grubs, locusts, crunchy-ant garlic stir-fry, big meaty beetle/cockroaches, and a few more I was too busy retching to catalogue. While we were there, one guy came and bought a big bag for the long walk home. The nice lady was very game and let me snap away, though later on we found one surly critter-dealer on the Khaosan Road who wanted 10B for the privilege.

In theory (and on Fear Factor), it seems imminently doable; I mean: what's the big deal? In any case, when faced with the six-legged reality I turned and ran like a dog, but am slowly building up my gumption for our return to Bangkok towards the end of January.

So we'll be escaping the Bangkok bustle tonight: overnight bus to the cooler climes of Chiang Mai. Have our minds set on trying Burma, but no one in Bangkok can provide us with any reliable info on flights and borders. There's a border crossing north of Chiang Mai that we're eyeing; will see if it pans out.

Smile like you mean it

On the weekends, north of the city centre, Chatuchak Market opens up. We spent 5 hours there and barely covered a sixth of the sprawling mess (the long green section in the lower-left-hand corner of the map). There's a thriving T-shirt industry here, and pithy, iconoclastic down-with-the-man chest-statements you'd pay $30+ for on Main Street cost a song here. We loaded up on clothes, cold drinks and knockoff Danish assemble-yourself lampshades (?). After all the spiritual wattage of the last few days, it was grueling but supremely satisfying to balance our chi with some rampant consumerism.

The vendors here are out for your money, but it's all more good-natured than anything we've found in other countries. A smile goes a mile. Just figure out what you'd be willing to pay and turn on the charm; even if the final negotiated discount is token, both sides leave feeling happy if everyone is smiling. More often than not, maintaining a good sense of humour will net you a good measure of goodwill. Nazma's under the impression I have some kind of "way" with the locals here: I pretty sure it's because I've taken to grinning like an idiot in all transactions.

You'll find a god in every golden cloister

Bangkok is a big noisy, polluted city and we haven't been terribly impressed. Even the vaunted red-light streets are full of knockoff-Rolex dealers and touts for "hockey" played using what Nazma calls (in whispered tones) "lady's private parts", which I have to say sounded pretty intriguing, if nothing but from a purely mechanical point of view. There was little to no one conducting any serious "business" here (apparently that happens in other parts of town). Just one big circus.

But every big city has something to offer, and Bangkok has wats, wats, wats.

We took a river ferry to the home of the most sacred Buddha image in the country. The Emerald Buddha is actually made of jade, but everybody here loves it anyways. It's housed in the big carnival-like Wat Phra Kaew just south of where we're staying. Tourists everywhere and we were so overwhelmed by the size of the compound that we ended up paying a guide to take us around. This ended up being this old geezer who shuffled us the close-to-retirement express tour, while every other person was getting their guide's first-born named after them. Uninspiring but the wat more than made up for it.

Just south of that is Wat Pho, which houses an enormous reclining Buddha. Apparently each rendition of the Buddha (reclining, standing, sitting, hands this way or that) represents a different stage in his development: reclining Buddhas represent the moment he received his ultimate enlightenment. I must say: with the heat I find myself reclining an awful lot, but any bright ideas are still pending.

Wandered halfway across town to Wat Suthat. We went in thinking it was the largest gold Buddha in the country, but we'd mixed up the wats in the guidebook and this one ended up being bronze. Still, nice to see real locals coming in to worship and the resulting tranquility, compared to the tourist-scrums in the other temples.

In the roundabout outside there's this towering red arch: the "Giant Swing". Back in the day, monks would perform feats of daring-do by swinging from the arch on ropes and catching money with their teeth. Needless to say, safety harnesses being what they were, so many monks were injured or killed doing this that they passed a law banning it. I can't think of anything snide to say about this; I think it'd be pretty sweet if we had something like that at the PNE.

Backpacker soundtrack for SE Asia

1. The crappiest trance Eurohits from the last 5 years.
2. Jack Johnson, on repeat, forever and ever, in every CD store and every restaurant you pass on the Khaosan Road.

I promise I'll write about Bangkok itself, the good bits, soon.

One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble

After a few days in the heat, and with beauty-salon touts papering our sticky bodies with flyers, Nazma decided we should go for facials. Now before the more manly readers out there start their lambasting let me tell you: it was feeling like my pores were soaking up every diesel fume in Bangkok; plus the idea of lying on a cushy table in air-con for 45 minutes sounded pretty good. In any case, I didn't put up too spirited a resistance.

Being a first-timer to this, I had no idea what to expect, while girls apparently are born with the knowledge from the womb. This is the only explanation for why Nazma failed to warn me of what was about to happen.

So you close your eyes, relinquishing all control, and they proceed to lull you into this false sense of security, right. They rub your face down with all these lotions etc. Then they stick this wand in your face and give you a good steam. Everything's going swimmingly for the first half hour, and I'm actually foolish enough to think I might make it out of this alive.

Then, with my eyes still closed, the lady starts going at my face with what can only be a dental pick. It was seriously like Marathon Man on my face. Or one of those garden forks they use for weeding. Holy crap.

I later learned that the stabbings were her picking out blackheads: mining for black gold, as it were. Since I don't have any blackheads, I can only surmise she decided to go prospecting all over my big stupid face. Note to manly readers: I didn't let out a whimper.

By now my futile writhing has left a Lloyd-shaped sweat stain on their nice clean table. Then. as if to make up for their assault, they start laying cucumber on my beleaguered visage, as they do at the finest buffet restaurants. Then they left me, laying there with the salad wilting on my face, contemplating how I was going to blog all this.

After all this, sure, I might look like a month or two younger, but I've aged about 40 years from the harrowing experience. On top of that, Nazma jokes that they might charge me extra for my extra-big face. Now wouldn't that have been the icing on the cake? Well, they didn't, so I suppose I got value for money. Cold comfort as I nursed my wounded pores all the way back to the hotel.

Clear-baggin' it

In this heat one ends up spending most of their day guzzling cold drinks. You can buy an icy soft drink anywhere on the street for 10B (28cents). To keep the bottle deposit, the vendor will pour it into a little baggie full of ice, and in the afternoon sun, this is the only way to have a drink.

Beer here is anywhere from 30 to 40B for a small bottle, and seems very dependent on brand. I managed to get a big bottle (650mL) of beer Leo at an alley-side diner for 45B and they brew their lager strong here, let me tell you. Everything in moderation. I've heard they have table-side spigots of beer in Vietnam.

We also picked up icy chocolate drinks and strawberry frap shakes at the market for 40B. We are so ridiculously spoiled for cheap beverage options here we'll be crying bitter tears when we have to return home to $6 frappuccinos.

Not much between despair and ecstasy

Arrived in Bangkok and we are staying off-off-Khaosan Road proper, and what a difference a few dozen meters makes. Fewer vendors and generally a less ferocious and seedy atmosphere. We've reverted to the "the-bathroom-IS-the-shower-stall" situation, but that's okay: even having an attached bathroom is a luxury. Hell, even having a room is a luxury--we were forced to take the only place left after arriving in the area on the first night: every place was full. Most of my mosquito-related injuries to date were sustained that first night.

It's been hard meeting anyone on the Khaosan Road--the backpackers seem more cliquey, or self-sufficient, or just wary of other farang (foreigners). If they wer looking for a more authentic Thai experience, I'm not sure what they're doing here. The whole road is one big market: stall after stall of pirated CDs, T-shirts, bling, meat-on-sticks, fake IDs, scammy bus-tours, dreadlocks-on-demand, throwing stars, luggage, stolen goods, beauty salons, scummy bars, phony restaurants, taxi touts and crushing, swaying crowds. One accepts it for what it is; don't expect any epiphanies (or maps to secret beaches) here.

Very few English speakers here. Apart from the few Aussies/Kiwis and Brits, we've heard mostly French and German, with a scattering of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cantonese. We've only spotted one Canadian-flag patch, and one MEC bag.

Right on

So we leave the country for barely over a week and you lot swing the country to the right by 10 points! You know, there's a nice selection of anti-Bush t-shirts available: maybe we should buy a bunch and do airdrops over BC and Ontario-outside-of-Toronto.

Entrada a Macau

Hit Macau for about an hour before we had to get to the airport for the flight to Bangkok. It was interesting seeing what Hong Kong might have been like if the Portuguese had taken over more real estate in the South China Sea 400-odd years ago. Very reminiscent of a European city with its cobblestone plazas and Portuguese street and business names. There's also a flourishing scooter culture here--something we didn't see much of in Hong Kong at all. When things are this congested, it makes sense.

The big draw in the centre of town is the Ruins of St. Paul's, an old church facade that pulls all the tourists from HK and the requisite egg-tart and pork-jerky (!) vendors. Yum. Getting up the steps proved too ambitious: with backpacks girded on and stomachs full of orange juice and tarts, we only gained the first landing before being publicly daunted.

Apparently some people got shot up back in the 90s when all the gangs were scrapping over the casino rackets. Seems to have cleaned up now and they're want to remake it into China's own version of Las Vegas. Already you're seeing huge "Asian"-style casino/hotels along the water, and more under construction. The scale of these job-sites is staggering.

This will also be the last temperate weather we'll likely encounter: from here on, we're expecting balmy 30'C temperatures non-stop. Those of you who know me know that anything over room temperature has me sweating buckets and drooling with delirium. Well, I knew what I was getting into before I signed up. Hurray for air-con!

Kung fu and bird flu

Some last impressions to sum up Hong Kong:

Nazma met the extended family on both my mother and father's sides for the first time. The meetings weren't the nerve-wracking trials-by-fire that we might have expected: they were incredibly gracious and even openly fawning at points. A little Cantonese goes a long way, it seems. We also got to meet my cousin's 5-month-old son for the first time. Apparently he looks like me. How this happened, no one can say, and I'll thank you wags out there to keep your jokes to yourself.

They do this killer martial-arts demonstration every Sunday in Kowloon Park. Locals outnumbered tourists by about 30 to 1, so we figured it was pretty authentic. They get pretty freaky with the balancing during the lion dances, and even the kids get into it: check out this little guy with his sword in mid hi-yah.

Dimwits that we are, we decided it'd be a good idea to wander over to the bird market and check out all the songbirds and exotics. What we had forgotten was that everyone there right now is on high alert over the avian flu, so of course we get there and find the place deserted. Where is everyone? So we're feeling pretty good about having the place to ourselves, wandering around the place checking out the toucans and the parrots and the apartment-style cage dwellings. I think we realised two days later, in the middle of the night. Even frenzied hand-washing won't save us now.

And now, off to Bangkok.

Eat till you cry (but bring your own tissues)

You'll never go hungry in Hong Kong, but we nearly did, just from paralysis-by-indecision: too many options and we were frozen. On every street corner there's little vendors with their habachis doing up street-meat skewers. Think Richmond Night Market x 1000. But don't ask for sweet-and-sour chicken; Nazma went on a short-lived hunger strike because she couldn't find any, before finally giving up and tucking into her congee like a good (and starving) girl. And of course the noodle dives, posh buffets, and everything in between. And in case Chinese isn't your flavour, I think we ended up having Japanese and Indian food twice each.

In the end, though, the topper was this "Mongolian"-style hotpot we had with my mother's side of the family: insanely spicy broth on one side, and this garlic/ginger/ginseng concoction on the other. Basically you cook squid, fish, chicken, various meats in ball form, and paper-thin cuts of lamb and beef (no pork in deference to Nazma) in either broth and chow down until you pass out. To top this off, the family ordered spicy lamb ribs, the likes of which we've never seen in Vancouver. Each a foot long and heavenly. They even gave us disposable gloves to eat them with--Hong Kong being super hygiene-conscious post-SARS--and yet they still don't give out napkins at restaurants: you have to bring your own.

Walk of fame

Went out last night for some night-market action. Hong Kong by night is a neon mess but the faded, decaying gargantuan signs have a real charm and romance about them. I almost suspect half the stores don't even exist anymore but the signs stay on for sheer inertia. This guy seems to have a problem with the perfume stores.

Had a nice stroll along Hong Kong's "Avenue of Stars", with people from countless chopsocky b-movies from my childhood and some bona-fide international stars. The Avenue ends at a much-touristed statue of Bruce Lee, silently kicking ass against the Hong Kong skyline.

Hot showers and cold fronts

Switched to the business hotel this morning and had our first hot shower in a couple of days. We're now right across the road from some kind of school, as far as we can tell: bizarre Big-Brother-type pronouncements come out every few minutes over the superloud PA telling the students to finish their worksheets before playing video games. Freedom is slavery!

So last night a cold-weather warning was issued in the HK region, and volunteers have been mobilised to help prepare the elderly and infirm. The low today is a bone-chilling 13'C and it's expected to dip as low as 10'C tomorrow. When I called my aunt, she warned us to bundle up. The note of urgency and concern in her voice was touching but amusing.

Toilets on manual override

No matter how much I travel, it's still a shock when you're halfway through your flight and you suddenly realise you've left your comfortable world behind. This time it was flying low on approach over the Tokyo suburbs that did it: cars were moving along lit ribbon roads through (surprisingly) wooded areas and it could have been anywhere, even home. But every driver in those cars lives in a totally alien culture compared to ours. This is especially scary when the external trappings are so familar at first glance.

Got into HK okay and caught the last bus into town, just in the nick of time. The guesthouse is good by backpacker standards but the manual-reset toilet seals and phone-booth-sized shower-cum-bathroom has Nazma worried and consulting the guidebook for more luxurious digs (we've actually found a "business hotel"--and not that kind of business--to stay in for the remainder of our time).

We're staying at a guesthouse, which is a room in a flat in a "mansion". In any other context, going from a "mansion" to a lowly hotel would be a step down, but here, "mansion" denotes any number of monstrous, Blade Runner-esque apartment/retail/everything concrete complexes, replete with silk ties for CAD$3, screaming babies glimpsed through kitchen windows, telescope stores, South-Indian sari shops, and touts, touts, touts. It's like a third-world microcosm. Capitalistic, overcrowded, decaying, and full of character. One mansion takes up an entire city block, with a central courtyard and open-air corridors. Clothes hang drying everywhere.

Weather is far cooler than I'd expected but still t-shirt weather (15-19'C maybe, though my thermometer keychain seems stuck on 24'C). Still, everyone's in scarves and wooley coats.

Nazma is in danger of being all shopped out already, even though we haven't actually bought anything yet, and the night markets haven't even opened yet. It's unbridled capitalism and it buzzes.

INSANE rush

The library has no idea where my book is. To top it off, we forgot a piece of check-in luggage at home, so we have to go back now. If this is any indication of the next 4 months, it should be a pretty harrowing trip indeed. Nazma is only showering NOW, and we have to be at the airport in about 30 mins. Nice.

Next time I write, we'll be in HK!

Mad rush

Well, the clock's ticking down and the little unravellings have already begun: I accidentally returned my buddy's Rough Guide to Hong Kong to the library's overnight bin (Pete, if you're reading this, apologies). Anyways, tomorrow we'll pass by and (hopefully) retrieve it on the way to the airport.

We're almost done packing but, as always, that vague sense of having forgotten something has starting gnawing at our insides. This feeling won't leave us until (a) we need the thing we've forgotten and suddenly remember, or (b) the trip is over and we get home.

On a brighter note, the Vancouver Sun article went over well, apparently, and we ARE getting paid for it, so that's a bonus. Of course our photos were horrid, but from now on, we get to control the photographic content (i.e. neither of us will be in the pictures anymore). Once a month, or however often we find stuff to write about, which will hopefully be often.

So everything seems set for now (until business hours tomorrow, when the rush starts again). Nothing to do now but wonder what the hell we've gotten ourselves into.