J´adore Tres Jolie Sapa

28.11.2002 18 °C

Xin chao!
I'll preface this email by stating that this computer is seriously dodgy and things are jumping all over the place so if the continuity is somewhat lacking, that is the reason why. This is my third attempt at writing this mail....grrr

I am now in beautiful Sapa in the NW highlands of Vietnam. Actually for the sake of Ruben and Greg (from my Halong Bay tour) who didn't make it here...let's just say the place really sucks so don't feel as though you have missed out on anything!

Sapa was built as a hill station back in the 1920s and is not far from the Chinese border. Upon my arrival in Sapa at the crack ofdawn on Wednesday, I was thinking the whole highland mountain trekking was a very bad idea as it was very cold (around 11 degrees) and there was incessant drizzle and very ominous clouds. Thankfully I awoke yesterday morning to see a delightful sliver of sunshine peeking through the curtains of my hotel room and the view from my balcony was truly amazing. There were fluffy white clouds shrouding the higher mountains around the town and it was quite ethereal

I'm staying in a nice-ish hotel with very very hot water in the shower (and bath!! woohoo!), a comfy bed and awesome views over the mountains and valleys below. Oh and I have Cable TV. I have a new favourite song too. I was watching MTV Asia yesterday morning (very scary stuff)and came across a song called Boogie Woogie Number 5. It is a dance track by two very cheesy Japanese chicky-babes and is a cross between Aerobics Oz style, Tellitubbies on smack and Abba (not that there is anything wrong with Abba - they are Swedish after all).I've decided I'm going to join the groupie circuit and follow them around the globe on their next world tour - or maybe NOT!

Sapa is a relatively peaceful place after Hanoi, and a good place to meet the local H´mong people - who are ultra-friendly and constantly wishing to make conversation with you. The H'mong people (one of the ethnic minority groups in Vietnam) live in and around Sapa in the valleys of Cat Cat and Ta Phin (didn't see any cats though, just dogs, pigs and chickens..... I went for a walk down to their village when I got here on Wednesday and came upon a small cafe...a tiny bamboo hut covered with tarpaulin for rain protection. It was raining quite heavily at that point so I really just wanted to get out of the cold. But I ended up staying there for several hours with the cafe owner and her daughter. Soon after my arrival, I was greeted atvarious stages of my visit by 15-20 of the Black H'mong (there are also the Red, White etc etc)girls who showed me their "tres jolie" goods. At one point I must have had 10 of them hovered round me showing their goods. Normally such a situation would be quite overwhelming and somewhat suffocating but because of their genuine warmth, kindness and friendliness, it didn´t seem so bad.

They were very curious to know all about me! Their English is quite good and many of them also speak a little French. They´re especially friendly and talkative if you happen to buy anything from them - which of course I did - a dozen or so bangles, and even a musical instrument (a thing you pluck and blow at the same time). Tricky to get the knack of but with about 8 enthusiastic teachers, I finally got there......

The other major exciting event of Wednesday was my first motorbike ride! It was quite a hoot....I had been walking for about 5km (go the pedometer!)and it was getting pretty muddy so I jumped on the back of a motorbike to get back up to Sapa. Good stuff....bumpy all the way but we didn't do an Evil Knievel (sp?) or anything into the rice fields so not too bad. There are some seriously crazy motorbike drivers in Vietnam. Not all of them are locals either. You sometimes get crazy Dutchman who have had too much Tiger Beer and wake up the next morning with no bike but the scars to prove it (not to mention any names Ruben!). Watch out those of you Down Under as the flying Dutchman is coming to a town near you very soon! Arrggh - the horror, the horror!

On my way to dinner on Wednesday night, I was again greeted by the beautiful H'mong children. They wanted to know where my husband was. I said he was having a hair cut and massage before heading off to a Karaoke Bar to eat noodles. No....they saw my ring and thoughtit very odd I was on my own. This time they started playing with my hair, touching my skin ( i guess to see if it was real!) and kissing my hands. Many of them are only very young yet they happily wander the streets in hope of finding new friends and are eager to communicate with everyone.I feel bad because I can´t remember all their names! No doubt they will remind me several times over when I am shown more of their "tres jolie" goodies.

Actually this afternoon I ran into many of the same children I met yesterday. Instead of calling them by their names, Ma, Zhang, Chi and Pi Ka Chu (isn't that one of the Pokemon dudes?) etc, they are encouraging me to call them Clever, Silly, Crazy and Lazy - seriously!! I have also been dubbed "clever" so I think I have made it as an honorary H'mong.

After my plucking up the courage to hop on a Honda Om motorcycle on Wednesday, I was keen to hit the road again and thus hired a local motorbike taxi dude to drive me up around the Tram Ton Pass - the highest mountain pass in Vietnam. As it was a truly beautiful day yesterday, it was a good day to do this trip. I could see for miles in all directions, and even when thick clouds coated the valleys, they would move quickly and so the views were generally pretty good. He drove me about 15km up and around Sapa. Really good stuff. I also visited Thac Ba, or the "Silver Waterfall" on the way. Because there had been so much rain of late, the waterfall was abundant and truly beautiful. Every Tom, Dick and Harry along the way was wavingand saying G'day to me (Ok not G'day but Xin Chao). I think theywere like, what the? Crazy blonde foreigner on motorbike. It must have hit about 24 degrees yesterday and the sun was very powerful. I came home rather red in the face from my motorbike sunburn. I think the anti-malarial medication I'm taking (Doxycycline) is helping me bronze up because it makes the user photosensitive.

This morning I ran into my motorbike friend from yesterday and he drove me down to the village of Tai Phin to visit the home of the Red Dzao people. When I got down to the village, one of the ladies invited me into her mud hut - I had initially thought maybe it was sheer generosity, but it turned out that it was an opportunity to sell me stuff. Grrrrr.....

I had dinner with a Israeli guy last night - at first he seemed lovely, but then he started to moan about the locals...and he turned out to be a complete jerk. He resents how, as he sees it, the H´mong make a career out of their poverty and demonstrated to me, his despicable contempt for the H´mong people - it seems he thinks that to be a "real man", you have to be a complete prick! It´s tough to know how to deal with the poverty here though. On the one hand, the H´mong are seriously underprivileged and preying on hapless backpackers IS their main source of income. So of course you want to try and help them by buying things off them. But then, you can´t just keep buying 100 bangles, just to help someone out....And is it really that helpful if they have a little more money, but no access to clean water, and basic education? I dunno...You also reach a point where you just don´t want to buy any more, and you get sick of being asked. And a simple "No thank you" can be occasionally met with a torrent of abuse...Now, that´s not going to win any customers over!

The other major event of the past week was my marriage to a Romanian Mafia dude.

Just testing to see if you were still reading!

No, I visted Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. I had seen pictures of Halong Bay in National Geographic magazines and been told by the dude who sold me my backpack how spectacular it is but you cannot describe it with only words and pictures. The whole "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth" (aka Cordelia in King Lear) is quite appropriate here. If you have been to the Karst area of Thailand, it is (I suspect) quite similar. Even though the weather was a little chilly and overcast....the place was very enchanting. The water was lovely and warm when I finally got up the courage to jump in. Quite fun jumping off the boat for a swim in the middle of the beautiful limestone islets of Halong Bay.

The troops from the Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island trip were an extremely groovy crowd of people, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them all (how corny do I sound?). The trip consisted of the Swedish delegation, a Kiwi, 3 Dutchies, 4 Frenchmen and an Irish couple. The tour guide was pretty cool too - she taught us all that if you want to marry a Vietnamese man you are best off going for a "rice man"and not a "noodle man" because "noodle men" like karaoke bars too much and oh boy is that pretty scary stuff! I have yet to check out the karaoke scene here. As part of our tour to Halong Bay we were supposed to check out the nightlife on Cat Ba island, but all the karaoke bars were pretty dead. We wound up in the extremely pov local discotheque to hear about three songs from the 80s recycled over and over and only 3-4 people on the dance floor (all of whom were absolutely shocking boogiers).

Our trip to Halong Bay started with a bumpy minibus ride up toHalong City, where we then boarded a boat for a cruise out onHalong Bay. Halong Bay is part of the Gulf of Tonkin and is filled with limestone islets similar to those you see in Southern Thailand (I already said this didn't I? Testing you again!). There are lots of caves there too.

It's quite fascinating cruising around the bay as you come across floating villages and schools. Interestingly, there seem to be as many dogs living in these villages as there are people. Perhaps in case they have a bad fishing season! Halong Bay is prone to typhoons in the Summer ( I think) so I have no idea what the people do in such catastrophic circumstances. I certainly wouldn't want to be living out there if a typhoon was looming.

We spent the second day of our trip hiking on Cat Ba island anddoing more sailing. There was a particularly interesting crewmanwearing a Russian hat and smiling quite cheesily for photographswith everyone on the boat. I think he was a noodle man who enjoyed drinking Vodka. Good value entertainment though. I suspect that all the tourists doing this trip have their photos taken with him so he is quite the performer. Maybe he is considered a sex symbol in NE Nam. He should really start charging people - maybe a couple of thousand dong per picture.
We did a hike up the second tallest mountain on Cat Ba island onthis day also. The mountain was only a couple of hundred metreshigh but because it had been raining recently, the path was quite muddy and slippery. My butt managed (somehow) to stay dry - must be those genuine imitation Nikes I picked up in the shoe market in Hanoi for a ridiculously uninflated price. The lunch after the hike was nice though, and we shared it with the local cat and dog

Upon our return to Hanoi on Sunday night, we had dinner at theTamarind Cafe (vego restaurant affiliated with the tour group) and played Jenga. I was kinda sad for the trip to end because I really liked everybody, but we'll possibly meet up again one day on the road - somewhere in this big wide world.

Not sure what's on the agenda for this afternoon. I don't want to spend anymore money while I'm up here...ok, maybe ONE more motorbike ride, so I may be best to duck for cover in a cafe for the afternoon and sip Ca Fe Seu (Vietnamese Black Coffee). I just saw some young fellow walking past with a snake hanging off a stick....maybe I'll go do some taste testing at the Chapa Restaurant....or maybe not. There is a snake village not far from Hanoi and I'm goinn to head out there when I get back to Hanoi in a couple of days.

Tomorrow is the market day in Sapa - supposed to quite a gathering of people. So that's the plan for tomorrow. Then back to Hanoi on the O'nite train for a couple days before I head South.

Ciao
Belinda xo

Honk if you Love Hanoi

23.11.2002 24 °C

Honk if you love Ha Noi....

This seems to be a fitting way to begin this email and I'm certain that when I reach Saigon, it will be even more apt.

I arrived here on Thursday afternoon and was delighted to be greeted by two smiling faces at the arrivals area of Ha Noi's Noi Bai airport I had my name written "Be Lin Da Brooke Roy" on a piece of cardboard! I've always wanted to be greeted at the airport by a cardboard flashing local. I felt most special indeed. Honk!

The ride from the airport was certainly an adventure. Field after field of rice and vegetables and people riding motorbikes, bicycles and carrying yokes filled with tomatoes, kumara, star fruit etc etc. You name it, they had it. Amidst all the rice paddies, there were lots of little villages - with beautiful maisons juxtaposed with rubble from the American war. Along side of the road, vendors had set up shop for the day.... I think come rain, hail, shine or the other one (mental blank) perhaps snow?...they are there everyday selling whatever they can.

Now back to that honking.....it is certainly something which could be considered a national sport! Everyone with a motorbike honks passionately to assert his/her space on the road. I think perhaps the motorcyclists take tremendous glee in their honking behaviours which certainly work well at terrorizing the travellers. Those who have bicycles similarly ring their bells. And jolly loud bells too! The women with the yokes don't have bells or horns so they just do their best to avoid being converted into minced-meat. In downtown Ha Noi (Vietnamese is apparently not mono-syllabic but they do write everything as though it is... anyone understand?!?), the honking is even more of a cacophony. It is ceaseless too. Any time of the day there is honking honking honking. I can even hear it when I'm away from the traffic - of course, something that is quite infrequent.

That said, the hotel at which I am staying is on a quiet alley way in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi. It is run by a Vietnamese family and guarded competently by their ankle-biter dog (Mi La) and cat (originally named "Kitty"). It is very spartan but clean and safe and the family are lovely. Upon my arrival, I was greeted with bananas and artichoke tea. Quite a peculiar taste but very pleasant.

Speaking of hot drinks, Vietnamese coffee is jolly good stuff! It is about 10 times as strong as Aussie coffee but really good. In the local English paper, Viet Nam News, they were pleased to announce that Vietnam had just become the major provider of coffee to Spain! Must be good if the Europeans are getting stuck into it.

I treated myself to some fine dining on my first night in Ha Noi, a posh restaurant called (most originally I might add), Ha Noi Garden. The restaurant appears to be a favourite with over-dressed diplomats, Japanese businessmen and the ex-pat community. Very nice food, but a tad characterless... I also indulged in some (mostly) window shopping. There are some exquisite art, musical instrument and handicraft shops not far from where I am staying, as well as silk shops.

I followed the walking tour in my LonelyPlanet Guide yesterday morning around the Old Quarter. It takes you through the cities 36 "Pho Puong" (36 streets) which is essentially a massive marketplace. Each street is named after the product in which it specializes. For example, Pho Hang Giay is the shoe street, Pho Hang Ruoi is where you go for clam worms, and Pho Hang Gai, is where you go for hemp (for wearing, not smoking in this case). Chicken street was interesting...here you can buy a chicken fresh and take it home to kill and prepare for dinner. You can also buy deep fried chicken feet, chicken heads, and chicken gizzards. KFC - Vietnam Style! It certainly puts a new spin on the whole fast food thing. Hey at least you KNOW it's gonna be fresh - oh and definitely doesn't have rabbit in it!

I spent the afternoon walking around Hoan Kiem Lake (there is a Loch Ness monster character that stole the sword of the 15th Century emperor, Ly Thai To in here), visiting the Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple), going to the Temple of Literature (where Vietnam's first uni was started in the 11th Century), listening to an enchanting concert with instruments similar to lutes, tubular bells (made from bamboo!) and cymbals and cruising down to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Musuem (both closed but I think I will get to see Unkie Ho when I get back from the North).

I visited a handicrafts shop somewhere along the way and learnt about some interesting things from the salesman - Apparently if you have carp (alive or as a sculpture) in your house it will bring you good luck, if you have a cat, it will bring you wealth, a statue of a Buddha, will bring you happiness (I think a pot-belly is also useful), and the goatee-Buddha (not sure of his title) will afford you longevity. So far Caesar (my cat) hasn't afforded me any wealth....grrr....maybe I should get some carp when I get home for him to play with!

Perhaps though, as Vietnamese spirituality has Taoist/Confucian influences (the Temple of Literature is Ha Noi's centre of Confucianism), the wealth is more intrinsic...in which case I'm getting there. I did become a millionnaire twice over yesterday when I took out 2 million dong from the bank (there are 8000 dong to the Aussie dollar so you do the maths!). I was very excited. Who needs Eddie McGuire when you can achieve millionnaire-status in Nam!? Honk honk honk!

Today was a very exciting day which started with me being mistaken for a mosquito by the local motorbike drivers. There are believed to be 10 million motorbikes in Vietnam (population around 78 million, 13th most in the world would you believe) and you certainly notice em. It takes quite some skill to cross the road in Ha Noi. First of all, you look to the left....actually maybe it's the right. I don´t think anybody really knows! In Nam, you are supposed to drive on the RHS of the road, but really everyone just drives wherever they can fit! As for pedestrians, well what an adventure! It is actually easier walking on the road, towards oncoming traffic, than on the footpaths as they are covered with motorbikes. The only problem is, you are a very easy target for the incessant cries of "Madame", "Where you going?" and "Taxi madame". In a stretch of maybe 100 metres, you will guaranteed be asked 5-10 times if you want a ride.
Smiling sweetly and saying "No No merci" seems to work. The dudes are actually pretty good about it....they don't follow you and psychologically torment you like the hawkers in Paris. The ladies with the yokes (is there a technical term for this when people carry the baskets?) also follow you. I don't know how the heck they walk with those things but they practically jog with them. Some must weigh several dozen kilograms. In the Kangaroo cafe, you can buy exclusive tea shirts that say (in both Vietnamese and English) "No cyclo, no taxi, no shoe shine, no hat, no cigarette lighter".....I'm thinking of making an investment. Could be very handy.

I was delighted to read in today's paper that by 2010, the local government anticipates there will be good roads in the Ha Noi area. YEAH RIGHT! I think even if they did go to the trouble and expense of fixing them up, they would get hammered very quickly from constant pounding by motorbikes and trucks etc....I don't know anything about roads though so maybe it is a feasible expectation. I was even more delighted when I read tomorrow's newspaper today! It had an article on yet another Pommie-thrashing game of cricket. Go Aussies go! Another gem was that a study conducted in several European countries, Canada and the States found that only 9/10 18-24 year old Americans could ID their own country on a map. Some 50% could ID fewer than 10 countries. Shocking!

This morning I visited St Joseph's Cathedral and also the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. This prison was essentially a concentration camp for anti-colonial revolutionaries during the late 19th/early 20th century. There are some rather ominous looking guillotines on display their (complete with draining baths) where the nasty French dudes did their best Marie Antoinette impersonations. Very scary looking apparati. During the American War, the Vietnamese used the same prison to house American pilots shot down in combat (it then became known as Hanoi Hilton). As the info provided to the tourists says, the Americans were treated very well and were very happy there. There are countless pictures of the shiny happy Yankees plastered all over the museum walls to attest this claim. Shiny happy prisoners?

This afternoon I spent at the History and Revolutionary Museums. The history museum was not particularly engaging, however the Revolutionary Museum was quite fascinating - one Ho after another Ho after another Ho.

Some other cool things about Ha Noi....
1. As in Australia, the garbage collection is ridiculously early in the morning. However, unlike down under, there is not a garbage-truck but rather a lady with a wheelbarrow who dongs on a cymbal-type instrument. When she starts a-donging, all the people in the nearby houses come a-running with their garbage for collection.

2. It seems every second old dude (i.e. over 60 - life expectancy isn't particularly high here) wears one of those metal army hats you see in movies like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket etc. Even better is when they go all out and put on army fatigues too.

3. Nobody seems to have an indoor kitchen. Rather, you see people sitting out on the pavement in front of their houses doing their cooking on gas-cookers or hot coals. They will sell you some of their dinner if you ask. And instead of sitting round on chairs at a table, an awful lot of people squat down and do a tremendously good job balancing whilst munching on their fine foods.

4. They have amazing fruit drinks/smoothies here. For lunch for instance, I had a "tamarind exotique" which had tamarind, sugar cane and pineapple in it. 5 Honks!

I'm off to Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island tomorrow and then on to Sa Pa (NW Vietnamese mountains) on Tuesday night. May be offline for a week but please keep the emails up.

Ciao Belinda x
P.S. Honk Honk!

Cane toads, Mahjong, Incense and Swastikas

21.11.2002 27 °C

Hi everyone from expensive Hong Kong!

I arrived here Sunday afternoon after a wonderful flight from Melbourne. Not much has changed since I was last here - it is still a frightfully expensive place and I'm still not vertically challenged like the rest of the locals! At a grand height of 5'5, this is very encouraging.

The main addition to HK (as far as I can see) is the very spiffy new Metro. Very clean, very efficient and quite reasonably priced. Curiously, it seems to be run by the Power Puff Girls (the Noughties answer to "Hello Kitty"). There are posters up all over the place with the Power Puff girls spreading important messages such as "please take care of the elderly" and "look after children". There is also a message flashing on various screens as follows "Be safe, be considerate, be a millionaire". Well I don't know who that philosophy works for, but it certainly isn't me! Grrrr.

On Sunday night I went walking through the Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts on Hong Kong island. It was quite unlike Sunday night in Sydney....there were people everywhere and all the shops stayed open til 10pm! No wonder people go silly here with all the shopping. So far all I've spent money on is accommodation, food, transport and entrance to sites...and that is costing me an arm and a leg. Anyway, whilst wandering about, I was surprised to find what appeared to be sizable gathering of women in Victoria park...they were all sitting on the ground in large groups eating veges wrapped in banana leaves. When I asked someone what the significance of it was, they said "they are just eating dinner"! Very peculiar indeed.

Also discovered some Mahjong parlours where people sit around tables and flick domino type bits of plastic with pictures on them over and over and group them in some strange way. I don't quite understand the game from watching it. It is all too fast and furious to pick up quickly i think. Perhaps it is a Chinese version of Gin Rummy? A quirky looking fella followed me as I looked in all the parlours and advised me I wasn't allowed to go in...but I think he was just being mean. I enjoyed watching the frenetic pace at a local ping-pong club and how dexterously 3 year olds could hit the balls time and time again. I think Forrest Gump must have spent some time in HK when he was in Nam. He probably came to HK to recuperate after he got shot in the bum with that bullet Who knows!

Along Cannon St (2 streets back from my hotel), there are about 50 or so pet shops with exquisite cats and dogs. None of those big rotweilers and german shepherds etc.....but lots of shit-zus and pekingnese as well as himalayans, chinchillas and the odd feral kitty-cat. They have them in large enclosures with synthetic trees! Very adorable.

My last stop on Sunday night was at one of the markets....very smelly but quite fascinating...you can buy ginormous catfish, chickens hanging from the neck, shark fins and cane toads (they were about 100 of them nestled together in a container ready to be taken home and boiled/deep-fried for cooking). No doubt they have developed some fancy way of extracting the poison!

I awoke early on Monday and walked all the way down to HK Central (quite a hike!). The waterfront is quite interesting though and you really get a sense of just how utterly vertical HK island is! Not much sunlight penetrating the city cause of all those tall buildings. Surely that is very bad Feng Shui! I was talking to an American guy (a Noo Yawka) on the ferry back from Lantau island on Monday and he was saying that the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation building (at least I THINK that's what HSBC stands for), was not built following consultation with a Feng Shui practitioner and whilst the building is quite an aesthetic delight, it is a Feng Shui nightmare! According to a book I was reading just before I left (The Power of Place - highly recommended), most Chinese people will consult a Feng Shui practitioner when they build a house/skyscraper/duckpond (etc.), particularly if they are setting up a business. You would think that such an important institution as the HSBC would have gotten their act together!?!?!

Anyway, I spent most of Monday out on Lantau Island, the largest but most sparsely populated of the 235 or so islands that make up HK. The reason for visiting Lantau Island was to see the Po Lin monastery and the giant Buddha. Can't give you stats on the Buddha, but it is the largest outdoor seated bronze one in the world. Very impressive...you walk up about 267 steps to get to the buddha and underneath him is a little museum with important Buddhist relics (some as small as grains of rice!). I was very curious to note that the giant Buddha had what appeared to be a swastika on his chest....I don't at all understand the significance of this, so if anyone is more cluey than I am, please feel free to englighten me (no pun intended). The monks at the monastery cooked up a very delicious vegetarian meal for lunch. Broth, chinese tea, rice, stir fry veges, tofu (I think Sanitarium pinched their recipe for "Not-Chicken" off the monks here), some tasty dim sim type things and scary looking and tasting mushrooms.

Monday night I took the Peak tram up to Victoria Peak to get a spectacular panorama of the city lights....the peak tram was set up in the late 1800s and was the first tram in HK. It must have been quite an engineering feat for its time...parts of it are pretty damn steep! I wandered back down through Hong Kong Park and ducked into the Hong Kong Shan-gri-La hotel for some dinner -NOT! I actually went in to check out the impressive foyer withbeautiful chandeliers, paintings and tapestries. Couldn't afford anything on the menu!! Ah well... I was going to go up Central Plaza (8th tallest building in the world at 374m) as well, but didn't think I'd be allowed to...there is the World (?) Accountancy Conference on in HK at the moment and there were policeman everywhere! I must have seen a couple of hundred in a block! Will probably try again tomorrow night.

Tuesday I started off the day by walking through the SoHo (South of Hollywood St) district of HK island and also visited the fresh food markets up towards Robinson Heights (not far from Victoria peak). There is a hillside escalator link here which goes for about 800m up the hillside. It's a pretty cool way of seeing the city suburbs. Of course I walked up the hill instead of using the escalator (i'm trying to get fit ok?! ). Passed lots of grocery shops selling sun-dried delicacies and I think the locals were as fascinated as I was with my fascination with their delicacies (tu comprende?). I also visited the Man Mo temple, the oldest temple in HK - it is dedicated to the Gods of Literature (Man) and War (Mo) and has huge incense spirals (much like Chinese lantern shaped mosqito coils) hanging from the roof and lots and lots of joss sticks (incense) people bring in and dedicate, along with fruit, to the Gods and Buddha. I can still smell it now!
On Tuesday afternoon I caught a ferry out to the island of Cheung Chau. Michael Palin visited the island on his Around the World in 80 Days trek so of course, I had to do the trek also. Cheung Chau was a nice change from the business of HK island...there are no cars there ( just mad cyclists and golf buggy drivers) but there are lots of boats nestled in the harbour like a Greek fishing village. There wasn't much to do there, but it was a charming place to spend a couple of hours meandering through the villages - got to watch people playing Mahjong again too - I don't get it at all, but I am utterly intrigued.

When I got back to town I hit mainland HK starting from Kowloon. I walked all the way up to Mong Kok (too far!) and visited some of the night markets. I was surprised to read (somewhere) that Mao Zedong was a huge fan of Kung Fu movies.

I clocked up a total of just under 16km on Tuesday so you can imagine my feet were a little sore by the time I finished up. I picked up a pedometer from the Australian Geographic Shop (retail prince of $29.95 - bargain!) a couple of months ago and it's a great motivator. It also tells the time which is particularly useful when I'm not travelling with a watch. Today (Wed) I've only managed 13.957 km, but I'm yet to go out for dinner so no doubt I'll hit above 14

OK so finally today.... I was umming and ah-ing about what to do today as everything is so
jolly expensive here and all....... I figured that I may not come back here for quite a while though because of the exorbitant expenses - as much as I thoroughly enjoy the place. I settled on Macau, and a quick duck into (The PR of) China (I had made the effort to get the visa, considering I was originally going to be in Hongkers for 6-7 days). Good choice. I got to go through immigration a whopping 8 times! In spite of the handovers of HK and Macau (in 1997 and 1999 respectively), they are places which very much have separate identities (not to mention currencies and bureauxracy) and you still need a visa for China, and also must pass those lovely smiling faces of customs officers to visit all of them.

Anyway, I didn't spend that long in the city of Zhu-hai (Special Economic Zone) because there isn't a whole lot to see there. I think Sun Yat-Sen was either born there or spent an important part of his life there, but aside from that the place is of little interest....Got to take snaps of the border gate though (without having my film thrown away by security) and wandered through some more markets! Also got asked at least 30 times if I would like a taxi (no thank you very very much).

Macau is quite lovely....it is very much like a grungy version of Lisbon, however the 'tourist' strip is quite polished up and reminiscent of a seaside resort (like Cascais, Denise). The most picturesque site in Macau would have to have been the Ruin's of St Paul's Church. The church was (according to my sources), designed by an Italian Jesuit and built in 1602 by Japanese Refugees who had fled anti-Christian persecution in Nagasaki. There was a whopping big typhoon back in the mid 19th Century when it was pretty much ruined. The museum below is purported to contain a special relic (the right arm bone) of St Francis Xavier! I also went to the Kum Iam temple where there are lots of joss sticks and lanterns and 18 gold plated men encased in glass - one of them is supposed to be Marco Polo, ie. the one with elephantrhinitis.

Also went to Monte Fort (old Jesuit castle ruins), Camoes Gardens and grottoes ( very very pretty), the Lisboa Hotel/Casino (no money with which to punt, alas), and walked part of the Macau Grand Prix track! They had the GP last weekend so the place is still abuzz. And last but not least, I visited the site of the changeover ceremony when Macau was officially returned to the PRC. A pretty gold lotus flower blooms at the site.

I'm off to Nam tomorrow (Yipeee!). Met a Canuck guy (who likes clocking up countries by working for various NGOS all over the globe) last night who spent 2 years living in Saigon who gave me lots of good advice......i.e. make sure you don't have a hairy chest if you are lying on the beach because whole families will come and take turns plucking your chest hairs! Lucky for me I'm not a hairy chested/backed bloke!) Anyway Not sure what the access to Net will be like there but hopefully I will get online every few days. So please, keep the emails coming

Belinda x