With no map, no chinese background and no idea, i decided to leave Guangzhou and spend the night at Shenzen, another big city on the way back to hong kong. I had seen a few of the things i wanted in Guangzhou, mainly the river but wasnt getting much further. Lonely Planet had a bit of info about Shenzen. Managed to find my way back to the station with no worries as I bought a ticket. Arriving in shenzen, I consulted the map to find my way to the hostel i had chosen. With my luck, turned out the map lonely planet had included was just for the immediate area of the train station, with all the hostels, main sights, theme parks and major factory retails 12km west, or 40km east off the map. Freaking hell. Frustrated, I roamed the streets, saw a few temples and some other touristy things before giving up and deciding to head back to the safety of hong kong.
At the train station I followed the signs to Hong Kong, finding customs. But no ticket office. Spotting signs for tickets, i walked all the way back (it was a big station) and lined up for 1/2 hour to find out that the office didnt sell tickets to hong kong. The man spoke ok english and but just pointed back saying "go hong kong". So I did, lined up through the customs just waiting for someone to yell at me as i didnt have a ticket. But no worries, this stupid foreigner made it through customs, security, health and quarantine. After crossing a river, i realised i was walking to hong kong. Oh crap where are the trains??? looking out the window all i could see were small villages. With my chinese visa now expired, I would be stuck in the village. To my great relief, turns out you were meant to cross the boarder before buying a ticket and catching the train. But this office spoke no english, so i just said Kowloon and the guy gave me a ticket. With no writing on the ticket, i had no idea if he understood what i said and had given me the right ticket. Too tired to care, i hopped on the train regardless. A long time later i got off at Kowloon Tong (there was no other kowloon on the line) thinking that Tong means station. I was wrong, Kowloon Tong was a different suburb about 4km from my comfortable tourist ghetto. What followed was at least an hour of wandering in all directions and a fruitless bus trip before i at last arrived at Tsimsy.
After dumping my stuff in a hostel, I entered the nearest bar i could find and ordered a pint of "fosters". Next thing there is some thai prostitute rubbing my back, with the bartender (most likeky a prostitute) telling me to buy her lady friend a drink. Now completely tired and pissed off, I told the lady everything from "no thanks im tired" to outright telling her to F off. she understood english pretty well but persisted, making me scull my hard-earned beer to find another pub, which thankfully had no prostitutes.
