Dear Readers...
The last chapter brought us to the conclusion of our stay in the
captivating Changsha...I will try this time, "try" being the operative
word, to keep this account of the past weeks somewhat short (er), so
let's give'er a whirl.
Our impeccable sense of bad timing didn't disappoint us. The week that
we arrived in Hong Kong was, incidentally, the same exact time of the
year that a monsterous conference hit the Pretty City. Not only did
this impede our chances at getting a relatively cheap hotel, but the
prices at every single hotel essentially tripled, and had we not had
the help of our Aunty Sylvia, The Grand Hotel Huntress, we would have
been staying at the Hilton for lack of any other option but "the best."
Because of the outrageous prices we opted to make our stay in Hong Kong
as short and sweet as possible - we jam-packed the visit and our mouths
with various meals out with our Aunt and Uncle, and egg-tarts, and
doughnuts...it was delicious two days, also filled with some more
sight-seeing, and a visa renewal, and before we knew it we were
ferrying our packs over to Macau.
*By the by, for anyone concerned, we managed to get a 3-month visa,
however the plans were already well underway for South East Asia by
this point and so, while we won't have to worry mid-China trip about
extending our visas now, we will be leaving China mid-June for Vietnam,
Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) *
Macau...ahhh Macau...again, that whole "bad timing" thing came into
play, and just as we had left the overflow that was Hong Kong earlier,
we happened to arrive in Macau on a Friday night - just in time for the
weekend, when hotels, though cheaper than Hong Kong, double their
prices for the hoards of gamblers who are willing to pay the price. The
cheapest room that was available to us in all of Macau was still over
our budget and windowless. What's more is that as we walked up to the
hotel, we found that it flanked both sides of the road, so now, did we
go in the right-hand hotel which read "Mondial Hotel" and had a desk
but there was noone and nothing at it (the adjoining restaurant which
presumably belonged to the hotel, was not only closed at 2pm but its
empty chairs were all carelessly strewn around the space and the fish
tanks were dried up and empty also), OR did we go in the left-hand
hotel which read "New Mondial Hotel," which housed a bar and a lobby
seating area? Feeling optomistic, we veered left - it made the most
sense anyhow seeming that there was actually life inside of this
building. But we checked in and she sent us back across the street to
the "Mondial Hotel," past the restaurant and into a cramped elevator
barely big enough to fit Jess and I and our packs. We arrived on the
5th floor to the wonderful aroma of B.O., not a huge issue considering
the state of the unwashed laundry rotting in our packs, and opened the
door to what was our "Cabin" (as in the kind you would find on a ship -
the windowless kind. Some are more fortunate) for the next two nights.
If there is one thing that tickles me silly here in China, it is the
art of translation that the Chinese have yet to perfect. There is
absolutely no revision of plaques put up in museums, let alone welcome
signs at restaurants on the main roads. For instance, I read an article
recently about the problem that Beijing is facing now having to correct
all of the signs and menus in English in time for the Olympics.
According to one gentleman, the menus are the worst, with an item on
one of the more prestigious restaurants in Beijing reading the name for
this style of chicken in Pinyin, then underneath it, describing the
dish as being "chicken that has no sexual feeling." What was presented
to us above the toilet in our sketchy bathroom was "Be Careful of
Landslide" - maybe a warning incase of an earthquake (there was
afterall a park on a hill next to us) or, the more likely of the two, a
word of caution regarding the slippery-when-wet floors. We left our
precious room behind for a whiz around the town, beginning with the
Portuguese Guia Fort and Lighthouse, to St. Michael's Cemetary, and to
the center of town where we treated ourselves to what we decided would
be our "one" decent meal in this city. We thought it would be
appropriate that we eat Portuguese cuisine since we were dwelling in
Macau for a few days, so I indulged in popular dish, "Spicy African
Spring Chicken" (I know, oh the irony, but I think it is a Portugese
dish, and nevermind, the Portuguese it more than we do anyhow!). It was
the most succulent chicken I've ever had, with its tender, meaty
texture and crispy, lip-smackingly spiced skin. Delicious doesn't even
touch this one. And to compliment, sangria. We went home happy :)
Despite some disturbances during the night - the room's thin walls had
the hotel sounding like a brothel at times - we hurried off in the
morning to see the Luis de Camoes Garden and Grottoes, and the adjacent
Old Protestant Cemetary. Macua isn't ALL cemetaries, but the ones that
are still viewable are worth seeing and thus we visited a few. The
Protestant Cemetary was surprisingly interesting - considering Macau's
long history with Europe, it became all the more intriguing to survey
the headstones here as many of them explained the cause of death,
sometimes by ships caught in storms, and others were just an name and a
blank spot where the age would be. Several were just babies, and the
majority were under the age of 40, so it was quite clear that the
biggest enemy at the time for foreigner abroad was tropical disease.
And a special note for you Grandad (and don't think that this is an
insinuation that I associate Old Protestant Cemetaries with thoughts of
you): I happened upon the grave of Sir Winston Churchill's grandfather,
Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, and I've got the pictures for you.
Should you ever the spiritual winds of Winston urging a trip to Macau
to visit his grandfather, this is where you will find him. We passed
through the Old City Walls, the Ruins of St. Paul's, and climbed the
Mount Fortress (all must-see sights and do-able only with the incentive
of an eggtart and folded, fresh waffle with almond butter on it waiting
for us at the end of our touristy trip through this section of town.)
Starting to feel the heat of the Saturday crowd, we bussed up to the
northern-most part of town where one would enter the mainland from
Macau, and dropped off the face of the planet. I kid - we opted for a
quiet seaside walk around the northeast end of the "island" (it's not
entirely an island) to escape the tourist buses and couldn't help but
miss the beaches at home :( But it was quiet, there was sea salt in the
air, and there were even a few patches of grass that we didn't dare sit
on, but it was grass nonetheless. On our way towards our hotel, we
walked along the edge of a reservoir where we discovered, at alarmingly
regular intervals, series of "exercise" machines. There were various
machines that we couldn't figure out, and the rest of them all
simulated some exercise machines that we have at home, such as the
elliptical and arm presses, but there was absolutely no resistance so
infact, they were mostly for stretching or creating the illusion that
you are exercising. We did find them amusing, however, and took some
exhibition pictures for our return home - this could be a coming
thing...my favourite was the circle that you stand on while your arms
stabilize you and you just twist your hips - and that's all you do.
When we finally pulled ourselves away from the exercising machines, we
came upon a Disneyland-esque set of building, one section set on a
mountain, another section was Aladdin's Fort, there was the Roman
Colusseum, and a mini-Portugal. We got excited, ran up the mountain,
saw the Fort, ran down the mountain, scaled the wall at the Fort,
giggled, ran past the Colusseum, realized there were restaurants - many
of them - and literally scrutinized every menu that was on display.
When we found Al's Diner, we realized that we had stumbled upon Heaven
on Earth and planned a fantasy dinner here for the next night. It was a
Saturday and we were in Macau, so it only seemed natural that we should
"do" something that night. We wandered the paradoxical streets of
Macau, with their clean Portuguese walls enclosing grand churches and
Protestant Cemetaries bordered by the signature flashing neon signs and
laundry hanging out behind barred balconies of those layered, sky-high
apartments that are China's most typical residential streets. Just
beyond the Church of St. Lazarus, we detected music (a thing of the
past in this life with my iPod) and were, naturally, drawn towards the
sounds. At the end of the street, where the cobble-stone street ended
and a set of stairs began, we found the "Crazy Paradise" celebration
going on. Standing there, in full-on stare mode, we were invited by a
nice man to "sit down, we're having a party, the party's free!"
Basically, it was an outdoor concert staged between lines of palm trees
and Portuguese-style houses that showcased local talent, everything
from traditional Portuguese sounds to a medley of modern tunes. We were
pleased as punch (without the pleasure of the punch) and walked the
safe streets of Macau back to the Mondial.
The next day, we relocated. We ditched the "Cabin" for a cheaper
station at the Central Hotel. For anyone who has wandered the eerie
hotel created for Disney's Tower of Terror, we stayed in the real
thing. With it's winding staircase, curled-up carpet corners, creaky,
inconveniently slow, and mostly non-functional elevator, and 50s decor,
we kept our arms and legs inside of the vehicle all the way to our room
on the 10th floor. You need no warning, what we saw on the outside?
Multiply it by 5. The avocado-green carpet was absolutely littered with
cigarette burns and random stains and was peeling, resentfully, away
from the walls and itself; the wallpaper was mostly ripped off of the
walls and in some places exposed what I supposed was the foundational
concrete wall behind it; the beds were slanted - Jessica's rolled her
away from my room and towards the wall, and mine had my feet about 3
inches above my head; the bathroom seriously violated some health and
safety regulations with the mold seething so extensively along the
backside of the door and the walls that it had created some actually
incredible geometric designs; its shower curtain was so crispy with age
that it cracked when Jessica tried to get into the shower; and the dust
was unmentionable. However, we did have a MEAN view of the Ruins of St.
Paul's Cathedral from our bathroom window if we dared to keep it open.
We made sure to store our packs above ground, off of the floor, and on
the not-much-better stained chairs. We walked the southern tip of
Macau, destined for Penha Church, where we got a spectacular view of
the Macau Tower and the bridges linking Macau to its island airport and
the communities of Taipa and Coloane. Next we hopped on the bus for
Taipa, with its shorter, older architecture, and small-town feel,
caught the fleamarket there and visited a vintage toys exhibition
before bussing back to that Disneyland-esque place once more, otherwise
known as Fisherman's Wharf. We stopped in at the Wine Museum since we
had read somewhere that you get a "free" tastetester (plus the 15 yuan
entry fee is still cheaper than any half glass of wine I've ever had).
The museum itself was in need of an entertainment review and a fresh
set of eyes to revamp its display, I think, but its collection of wine
was quite impressive, with the oldest bottle dating back to 1815. In
the most mature fashion we knew how, we pretended to absorb each
location of each grape so blandly described and carefully observed the
traditional Portuguese clothing that the mannequins were wearing, and I
think that we were convincingly slow-paced. I chose a Portuguese red
called Douro, and Jess had the Madeira Port. With my liquor fever
triggered by this experience they call "Portuguese wine," Jess and I
made our way to the Sands Casino. Macau is largely a hotspot for
weekend gamblers and is cluttered with so many casinos that it could
very well legitimately compete with Vegas for the money-addicts of the
world and probably win. We played and lost our 50 MOP (about $8) each,
watched other people lose money afterwards, and watched a few couples
fight about those losings. In celebration of my own losings, I decided
to take advantage of the full bar, thinking that I wouldn't run into
one for a long time after Macau and certainly wouldn't have the money
for it AFTER Macau, and ordered a stiff gin & tonic just in time to
watch the Flirty Girls (a group of 5 American girls out to improve the
image of foreigners in their Moulin Rouge panties) along with the other
men standing at the bar google-eyed. I enjoyed my gin & tonic - I'm
sorry I can't say the same for the Flirty Girls - and Jess and I
high-tailed it out of there when a group of 3 Asian "entertainers" who
were highly attractive, moderately able to sing, but completely
rythmically challenged hopped on stage in their denim suits and danced
(terribly) to Britney Spears' "Oops, I Did It Again." Much more in
favour of eating our planned "fantasy dinner," we sped over to Al's
Diner and ordered those nachos we'd been craving now for 28 unbearable
hours, then we realized that they had a full bar and added to the tab,
Long Island Iced Teas and Onion Rings. For this unspeakable
over-expenditure on food and drink that way exceeded our pathetic
budgets (but did provide us with a lot of fun), I was punished (I don't
know why it was just me) by a mutilating night militia formed by the
mosquitos and bedbugs at Central that night...
I kid you not: a total of 41 bites the next morning, some of them
itchy, most of them not, but big, red, and swollen. There was a cluster
of 7 on my left index finger ALONE (15 in total on my left hand), 7 on
the right side of my head mostly around my temple, 1 on my right hip, 1
on my right ring finger knuckle, 6 on my left elbow area, and 4 on my
right forearm. The battle was on: I was pock-marked and furious. I even
discovered a small spot of dried blood at the top of my sleeping bag
later that morning! They had feasted on me and they would be met with
some force. I brought out the mosquito net, became a walking bottle of
30% deet, and closed the windows. After a long night of sweating
because, even though there was an air-conditioner, by the time we'd
both gotten into our sleeping bags, neither of us could be bothered to
flip the switch. That would change also. A half hour later, Jessica had
finished lathering herself with the right suntan lotion to perfection,
and we scoped far and wide for an internet cafe - there was not a
single one, so we abandoned that plan of action. Instead, we got
excited about a grocery store that we had gone into for water
originally, but ended up wandering the aisles for an hour with grins on
our faces at the various cheeses, toothpastes, and chocolate bars that
they stored. With a half-pound of Edam and crackers in tow, we skipped
to the bus and went south again, through Taipa and into the sleepy
fishing village of Coloane (up until the early 20th century, a haven
for pirates and a bay for their ships), and gluttonously satisfied our
cheese craving there by the sea, and as always, with an audience. This
was no matter as the cheese infused us with such delight that we were
quite literally "dazed" and our tastebuds a little bit high. We walked
the hot walk to the black sands of Hac Sa Beach, on the eastern side of
town, for a quiet sit-down on the sand. We arrived to find tour buses
lining the road beside the beach and all of their tourists fully
clothed in heels, sweaters, long dress pants, skirts, and layers and
layers of shirts roaming the beach! Some took off their high heels,
others didn't; some rolled up their pants, some didn't. I felt that, in
the 80% humidity and 30 degree weather, I was witnessing a mass suicide
and so we ignored this oddity and wandered down the beach, where we
found a few foreigners in their bathing suits, and even a couple in the
nude. The Chinese people, as we have discovered, are strange sometimes.
They will poo next to one another, no walls, no doors, and no shame,
but they won't strip down to a bathing suit on a beach in the blazing
sun and suffocating heat...When the heat got too much for Jess and I,
we headed back to our Central Dump, and now, an active battleground,
showered (let's just say, it was "memorable") and bussed north to the
Canidrome to watch greyhound racing. Of course we didn't place any
bets, but it was nonetheless a different form of entertainment than
we're used to, and not to mention, cheap - the ever-important factor in
our lives for the next few months. Also important was to exit Macau
without suffering a disease from mosquitos, so we put on the AC and I
brought out the Swiss Army Knife and nailed my mosquito net to the wall
(as if we could noticeably damage that room any further) using a sewing
needle that I had grabbed from a complimentary travel sewing kit back
in the Apartment Hotel in Beijing. It did the trick.
Our arrival in Guangzhou was far from glamorous, after spending a hot,
and once again, in 80% humidity, half hour tracing the bus station to
leave Macau for Guangzhou, then an additional 2 and a half hours
bussing to the even hotter, though less humid, Guangzhou, then
metro-ing and walking to Shamian Island. This once bustling-with-boats
Port city that had been the birthplace of my grandfather, had us truly
searching for a cheap place to stay, since we had arrived just in time
for Asia's biggest import and export trades fair - yet another occasion
to hike up those hotel prices...after settling for a dorm, something we
didn't think we'd ever do again, we ended up being both happy with the
price AND with the dorm. Even though it slept 10 people and had just 1
bathroom, this didn't appear to be a problem, plus the place had just
been newly renovated and was spotless. We had originally planned on
boating to the island province of Hainan from Guangzhou but were told,
once we arrived at the ticket station, that they don't run that route,
so we decided instead to stroll the waterfront along the famous Pearl
River and deal with our transportation dilemma later. As soon as we
turned the corner onto the riverfront, we noticed a black mass of cloud
behind us that literally formed a line between the slightly overcast
sky and this impending sheet of darkness that pretty much came out of
nowhere. Before we knew it, our 5pm daylight turned into a flash flood
and an 8pm near-darkness. We ran back to the metro, scurried across the
bridge connecting Shamian Island to the mainland, collected some fruit
and water should we never make it out of the hostel again, and thought
that we should settle in for the night. By this point in time, I had
decided that baby food would be a good option for receiving at least
some vegetative nutrition - though it was stored in glass, it was
packable and so I bought a vegetable paste and apple sauce. While we
missed the privacy of the double rooms we'd been renting, the dorms are
definitely the best way to meet people, and if you can score a nice,
clean room aswell, you're talking business - the good kind. A
middle-aged British roomie from Leicester, Darren, invited us out for
drinks, to which we declined for the moment being, wanting to avoid the
rain, plus we hadn't yet had a chance to explore the island and didn't
know where he was going. While we waited for our clothes to dry, we
made conversation with the Polish couple across the way, didn't get
beyond introducing ourselves to a quiet Colombian, took part in a
quick, enthuiastic, and loud greeting with the German businessman, Uver
("Sounds like Hoover without the 'H'" he corrected us before we made
the mistake of misspronoucing his name; he was actually conducting
business out of the dorm, selling jackets from Europe to random people
he met) and met a couple of younger backpackers from Australia and
England. When Darren returned to "use the loo," he insisted that we
come down to "the living room," which he assured us was just below the
dorm. So we followed him downstairs, out of the hotel, and just around
the corner, where low-and-behold, we found Uver, New Yorker, Tim, who
was there for the trade show also, a couple of young Polish guys, and
Milton, the romance-starved Ecuadorian who, after you hear about this
night, will never escape your memory. It turns out that "the living
room" was a couple of picnic tables and a concrete bench that belonged
to the 7-Eleven and it was where these guys, all of which had been here
for varying, but considerable amounts of time - enough to make this
customary and very regular. They bought their beer from the neighboring
shop, however, since Milton knew the owner. Milton got me some red
wine, Jess had her beer, and we bought some snacks from the 7-Eleven to
much on, and thus, the night began. While I can't repeat the entire
conversation, I can pull up those highlights. You can learn a lot about
Milton in a short amount of time. He's a 40 year old man with a jolly
laugh (which I did record on camera the following night) who is "berry
happy, reee-lee" but puts on the air that he is tragically lonely,
stating that he "just want[s] to loooave a woh-man..." and the tragedy
of it all is that no one will let him "loooave" her. And now we sigh,
"awww...poor Milton," right? Wrong. We moved through numerous bottles
of beer and two bottles of wine between us all, let me remind you, this
is all happening in front of a 7-Eleven, and had a thoroughly
entertaining conversation, usually made more entertaining because
someone was always provoking Milton. They know what makes him tick, and
got him talking about the Amazon. On this subject, Milton is very
passionate but equally defensive, and he erupted into what I'll call
his "Jungle Stories." The Amazon, he "loooaves it because there are
anee-mals, loats and loats of anee-mals..." he says, dramatically, as
though telling a tale to a crowd of wide-eyed children. In his
inebriated state, he attempted to tell us some disjointed tale of being
stuck in the jungle for "three whooole thays," during which time he
encountered "menee, menee cocodriles. Cocodriles, mang." As the story
became more and more elaborate with talk of anacondas and jaguars,
Milton's accompanying actions became dangerously wild as he imitated
the animals. Another one of his "tales" recounted his happening upon a
baby in the river - being eaten by piranhas - in the jungle. How much
of this is true? I don't know, but his melodramatic endeavors in
story-telling coupled with his energetic, and far too enthusiastic
depiction of animal actions only enhanced the humor of the whole thing.
By 4am, the group had whittled down to just 6 of us, and Jess and I
agreed that if we wanted to make the most of our only full day in
Guangzhou, we better get to bed.
The two bottles of wine didn't make it easy for me to get up the next
morning, not surprisingly...After a series of on-and-off naps, I
finally got my body vertical. We stepped out into the sunshine, much
different from the previous day's horrific weather, to discover that
this was the kind of weather that brought out all of the foreign
parents-to-be, who have to wait for one month in Guangzhou - the
American Embassy is on Shamian Island and so most of them reside there
for the duration of time - for the adoption process to be completed,
and their adoptees who are, as it remains, mostly little girls. For
this reason, Shamian Island has a wide collection of children's
clothing stores, baby stoller rentals on every one of the island's 6
blocks, and baby food galore (for those of us who love it/must resort
to it). Jess and I went straight to the "Long Distance Passenger
Transportation Terminal" (othewise known as a bus terminal) to book
tickets on the sleeper bus to Sanya, on Hainan Island, then visited the
Museum of the Southern Yue Royal Mausoleum. Not much later we dragged
our feet through the heat and through Yuexin Park, where we visited the
famous Five Rams Statue (it is a legend in Guangzhou that five rams
carrying an equal number of celestial beings arrived in Guangzhou and
the people were presented with stems of rice by these beings, relieving
them of famine, thus Guangzhou means City of Rams or Goat City). We
creeped into the Guangzhou City Museum just before its closing hour and
clambered the five floors that brought it to the highest point in the
park. It was an interesting, but small, exhibition which mostly
insighted me to Guangzhou's historical prominance in the world of
trade, but also into how the people were living here. During the early
20th century, because it traded primarily with European foreigners,
Guangzhou and its people were living with such commodities as a
prototype refridgerator and radios. When we were kicked out of the
museum, we decided on a leisurely stroll the rest of the way back to
the hostel through the smaller streets in the "old city." A wrong turn,
infact, led us to a cheap food and to some interesting little
holes-in-the-wall, like the specialty wine store that sold Snake Penis
Wine, Scorpion Wine, Cock Testies Wine, Snake Head Wine, and Cobra
Wine, just to name a few of the rarities. Equally disgusting and
fascinating, all of these parts were of course, included in the large
wine bottles. Once back, Jess and I decided, without having to be
coaxed this time, that we would do a victory lap at 7-Eleven that night
after we'd picked up our laundry (we treated ourselves to this service
for the less expensive items) and checked our email. After all, the
night before, Uver, Darren ane one of the Poles, Sebastian, had
promised that we wouldn't recognize Milton the next night. In an
attempt at What Not To Wear, Uver decided that he "MUST do something
about that hair...," Sebastian would take care of the underwear (after
an underwear showdown between Uver and Milton over I don't even know
what, it was determined or should I say, "discovered" that Milton's
tighty whities were...well, they were tighty whities) and Darren took
on the shirt aspect, which was the previous night a raging 80's
statement that said, "I support zig-zag lines in dull maroon and navy
blue." At the internet station, we met a Semester at Sea staffmember
from Virginia named Dia. With only 4 days on mainland China before she
had to meet up with the ship in the north at Qingdao, and unaware of
the book-your-train-ticket-3-days-in-advance
necessity if you plan on getting a sleeper, Dia had been stranded in
Guangzhou and had only managed to book a hard seat to Beijing, some 26
hours away. She wasn't upset, but her circumstances still were not
favourable, so we invited her to the "living room" when she finished
up. Jess and I showered and headed down to 7-Eleven at 11, just in time
to catch Milton - who had, in the past few hours, wooed some poor
Chinese girl who couldn't speak a word of English and spent the whole
night text-messaging on her cell phone into going on a date with him
and coming to "the living room." He bought Jess and I some wine, since
the previous night he had made Jessica his wife, "I have plateenum
cards, jew know..." and sure enough Dia turned up to meet everyone.
With a "Y'all are some interestin' people..." she stated, "This is the
best worst night ever!" We headed to bed at an earlier 2am...
and rose at 8 to walk the streets and Shamian Island one last time.
Quingping was an incredibly noisy street, mostly a showcase of pets for
sale, all in cages far too small for them, and although the vendors no
longer sell exotic animals (only their pelts) we got a good feel for
the old days in Guangzhou as the short brick and mortar houses still
lined these streets. Come check-out time, we ran into Dia who offered
to treat us to lunch in return for our invitation the night before to
7-Eleven AND wanted to make sure that we left having had a good meal!
We stopped at Station One, where I had some savoury curried, Thai
mussels complimented by freshly squeezed fruit/veg juice. Our two hour
conversation brought us close to missing our bus, so we rushed back to
the hostel to collect our bags and Jess and I sweated our way all the
way to the bus terminal.
I suppose we'd taken too long a break from mainland China and The
Stares really got to me at the station while we were waiting for our
bus. It wouldn't bother me to be stared at if when I made eye contact,
the person's eyes were averted, but it just continues, and in our
culture, this is considered rude. I became quite angry, not loudly
angry, but I could feel the stree in my face, and it was probably
pretty clear (unfortunately not clear enough for the staring to stop)
in which case, the Chinese would consider me to be "losing face." I was
more than annoyed by the time we were on our sleeper bus, which in
fact, didn't have bed, but resembled a regular travel bus in every way
except that the seats reclined to a comfortable enough 30 degree angle.
Without air-conditioning, the odd ant or cockroach companion, and 18
hours ahead of us, we braced ourselves. Inevitably, the coach becaue
stuffy and eventually smelled like a warm, humid summer's day meets
dirty diaper. Jess and I were exhausted from our 7-Eleven nights and
conked out as soon as we set off. I woke up to a setting sun and picked
up "Red China Blues" - probably one of the best, if not THE best book
I've ever read, and what's more is that I've found a friend in the
author, Jan Wong, who does understand the alientation and strange
customs that go on in China and so is comforting to me. BUT as soon as
the sun set, and I went to turn on the reading light above me, I
discovered that it did not work, and so there was a 7pm bedtime. At
8pm, the bus came to a halt at a service station and we were handed
some green cards before everyone piled off the bus. We just followed
the crowd, and realized that the cards got us food at the canteen here,
so we got our gruel, which was nothing more than soggy cabbage and
plain rice, and went back outside to try and find someone we recognized
so as to not be left behind. The bus driver took his sweet time eating
and so we spent 25 minutes standing beside the bus waiting with
everyone else who spent those same minutes staring at us.
Uncomfortable, self-conscious and irratible at this point, I decided
that I would pick my nose or cough whole-heartedly when I found someone
looking at me in an attempt to divert their attention to more
"attractive" things. Plus it was cleaner for me to pick my nose than
hide in a corner on the spit-and-span ground. I don't think it worked
much, but it did atleast deconstruct the myth that all foreigners are
clean and flawless! This is not to say that I didn't find it gag-worthy
when we walked into the gruel cafeteria just in time to see an old man
swivel around in his chair, crank his neck over the back of it and
shoot a snot-rocket (he plugged one nostril and blew his nose,
essentially) onto the cafeteria floor. We got back on the bus, and
before we knew it were being handed gree cards again. To this, I
thought, "For what reason must we be woken up and forced off the bus to
eat at 1:30am??" We were actually at the ferry terminal for Haikou but
were required to get off the bus and onto the ferry by foot. So we sat
in a very brightly-lit room for two hours so I took the opportunity to
read. The majority of the passengers ate pot-noodles anyhow, so maybe
eating at 1am was not such an absurd idea. Two hours later we stepped
off the ferry and waited in the 3:30am darkness for our bus. Finally
seated again and very ready to sleep, the bus "stewardess" put in a CD
and I couldn't help but think that this wasn't the most appropriate
time for a disco...
We arrived, unrested, but relieved that it was daylight, at a
disorienting 8:30am and went straight to a hotel that was recommended
to us by Darren, who had stayed in Sanya for 6 months because he loved
it so much. This hotel was a God-send at 60 yuan a night and only a
stone's throw from the beach. AND it was a cool 35 degrees, which
persisted for the entire duration of our stay. Our first day in sleepy
Sanya was largely spent (6 hours to be precise) at the internet
cafe-more-like-mansion doing some serious communicating. I don't know
how it happened, it just did, and I'm ashamed, so let's just leave it
at that. Our second full day on Hainan, but first "real" day since we
weren't semi-comatose this time, sent us to Yalong Bay, a 7km strip of
white sand, clear turqouise waters, and bursting with some typical and
not-so-typical seaside activities, such as paragliding, water biking,
snorkelling, you get the idea. It was about as picture perfect as
beaches go, and *gasp* nearly everyone was geared up in swimsuits, how
unusually usual...in the 35 degree heat, the sand was unbearably hot,
the sun intensity at a maximum and we were still too cheap to pick our
pockets for some shade. We managed to sit in our spot in the sun for a
gruelling 2 and a half hours before I made the call to head southbound
back to Sanya. Jessica was quite content to bake in the sun, as she
tells me she has "a very efficient cooling system," but eventually the
sweat was even too much for her, and I was practically darting between
the water and my towel by this point - the water leaving me too
exposed, and my towel leaving me too exposed. I had brought the
umbrella that my dad had expressly bought for a meager 5 yuan when it
suddenly started pouring while we were stranded on The Strand in
Shanghai, with me on this occasion, but with only 5 of the 8 metal
"spokes" (because I'm not familiar with umbrella terminology, forgive
me) still holding onto a piece of material, this left me with very
little umbrella. Though I hadn't yet deemed it useless, I still propped
it up in the sand, but alas, it was useless and so I learned that
denial can lead to sunburn. We returned to our air-conditioned room
early in the day for some aloevera treatment and shared the 18 yuan
(about $3) bottle of red wine we'd snatched up at the local grocers: it
was suitably called "Suntime." It costed the same as a no-frills
toothbrush and for this reason, it was everything I expected - the cork
was wet and the wine repulsive (but not so repulsive that we couldn't
drink it), SO in that respect, I suppose it was perfect. Our wine
"experience" and the fact that it was a Saturday night inspired us to
comb the beaches for any sign of a nightlife. We broached the sandy
steps that lead to the sea and discovered that there were no bars, just
swarms of Chinese people, young and old, finally bathing in the ocean.
We ended up at an establishment where we ordered our drinks, a
Manhatten for me, and a Pink Lady for Jess - suffering the effects of
that half-pint of Suntime, I had mistaken the Manhatten on the menu for
a Cosmopolitan (they are one and the same, usually going hand in hand
on a word basis - anyone would have done it...?) and Jessica, drawn to
the title "Pink Lady," received a mixed drink that tasted like
Frootloops and vodka. We resorted to buying drinks from the grocery
store after this night.
The following day, we were headed for Monkey Island - supposedly,
November to May is the mating season which brings out many a monkey and
also requires that you bring a crowbar when visiting the island incase
you meet an "excited" monkey. It wasn't this that appealed to us, the
mating, that is, but the idea of an island inhabited by heaps of
monkeys seemed dreamy. So we took a series of buses, no joke, 3 buses
which took a total of 2 and a half hours to deliver us to the town of
Xincun, from where we could at least spot Monkey Island. From there we
took a sidecar to the "ferry" to Monkey Island. Instead our motorcycle
driver dropped us off at his friend's private boat and we were
subsequently harrassed into taking THIS boat instead of the
penny-per-ride ferry. When we arrived at the dock, some 200 meters
away, the boat driver started trying to communicate something with us,
but that blessed language barrier did little for us once again.
Apparently this message was important and so the man started dipping
his fingers into a bucket of water on board and writing on the wooden
boat deck. We decoded that the entry fee had risen from 30 yuan in 2006
to 118 yuan in 2007 after the sight had been awarded a 4-star rating.
We realized that this may have been a plot to get us to take a ride in
his boat instead, but took his word for it anyways. Instead, we spent
an hour on the boat for 40 yuan. This was ultimately the better choice
(yes, we don't know what we missed but it can't be worth my left hand).
The man clearly didn't want tourists to get cheated into paying far too
much for this Island but still wanted to show us something worth our
time, and not leave feeling diappointed, so he constantly urged us to
take pictures by yelling at us and mimicking the action of taking a
photo when he had our attention, and even gestured for us to stay out
of the sun. Monkey Island itself was enormous, and its surrounding
waters had, over the years, attracted fishermen and consequently
cultivated a fishing community, based upon the production of a type of
seaweed that is chewy like bubble gum and can be similarly blown into
bubbles. The houses, or more often single rooms made of wood or tin,
were free floating to a certain extent, unattached to the land on
either side and were connected to one another by planks of wood. The
planks created a grid between the houses, and in each square of the
grid was a net sinking into the bright blue water that was home to
their future meals and to any household pets, like turtles. Where the
planks ended, an island of planks and single-room houses was created
(and there were several) which was usually bordered by boats belonging
to the residents. We drove into the seaweed fields for a peek, then the
driver joined the big fishing ships/houseboats and took us as far out
into the South China Sea as he possibly could before the swells were
too much, and finally stopped by at a collection of restaurants at the
bottom of Monkey Island. The restaurants, just like the planked
islands, had in the center of them a mini-grid system where they too
housed fresh fish and various forms of sea life, including sea slugs
and pufferfish. From these nets, the patron could choose his or her
lunch from the tank, so to speak. Needless to say, we were far from
disappointed with our efforts to arrive at Monkey Island, and after an
hour and a half, made the long trek home. Our first bus took us to a
VERY small town called Ling Shui, from where we would catch our bus
back to Sanya's city proper. We bought the tickets no problem and holed
up in the stuffy bus after ignoring the assigned seats and choosing
seats that would provide us with a nice gale. A man with excessively
voluminous, wind-swept (but not sexy) hair stepped onto the bus after
us looking disgruntled. A moment later another man wearing a white
shirt poked his head into the bus using his arms on the doorframe to
support his 45-degree angle. Pantene Man and White Shirt exchanged some
loud words and in no time, Pantene Man jumped at White Shirt and began
pummelling him. Not surprisingly, everyone just stared...the two were
eventually separated and to this day I have no clue why the fight
ensued. However, Pantene was re-seated on our grungy bus and while I
worried that it'd be a disruptive ride back to Sanya, that was infact
the last we heard of him and before long I forgot that he was on the
bus entirely. Arriving back at the room, we showered the bus grime off
of us - the showering was not the interesting part, but the actual
shower arrangement in our bathroom was something special. The shower
itself was a step up from the sink level, which was no problem, except
that it required us to straddle the squat toilet below us the entire
time that we were showering. Special.
The next two days we had reserved for our local bay, Dadonghai Beach
where I planned on reading and letting my sun-burn cool off, and
Jessica exacerbated her heat rash and made 3 grades of colour progress.
Sun intensity on this day was diminished by the cloud cover, and so the
beach was tolerable, but we still opted to go indoors over noon and on
the journey home spotted a cafe: the Coco Cafe. We scanned the menu for
something snacky and as we scoured the cold drinks through our sweating
eyeballs, I zoned in on the words "Hot Dog." Had it not been for the
extreme difficultly I'd gone through to locate a hot dog that was not
plastic wrapped or without a bun after having a craving in Nanjing 4
weeks ago, I would otherwise have just scanned on...but this was not
the case, and after having a glance at the sandwiches, I decided that
this guy knew how to make a hot dog. It was on order, YES...the
anticipation nearly killed me, but it was the sight of my "hot dog"
that shot all my hopes and dreams for this much-desired fare. In
preparation, I had already shunned the knife and fork provided to me,
washed my hands, and laid out the napkin on my lap. My mouth was
practically open wide, ready for that first bit. But what arrived, was
two slices of sweet red-bean toast, flanked by one pepper sausage and
one pink sausage. The sausages were long, I'll give them that, and so
when I put them end-to-end they kind of resembled a two-tone hot dog.
And to think that those sandwiches and the comfy chairs almost had me
fooled...the search continues for a normal hot dog. Once I had
recovered from the Great Disappointment and we had managed to pass the
hottest hours of the day inside, we picked up our store-bought drinks
and went back down to the beach to people watch. A Finnish guy told us
one day, "When the Chinese can no longer make you laugh, it is time to
go home."
Things I've noticed:
1. There is a disturblingly large population of Speedo-lovers in Sanya
- just when I thought the glory days of the Speedo were WELL-over, I'm
bombarded with Speedo-sporting Europeans and Chinese alike (who also
enjoy swimming in their cotton delights).
2. The thong bikini is not, I repeat, NOT dead. This is mostly due to
the hoards of Europeans who flock Hainan's southern beaches year-round,
but partly due to Sanya's being hopelessly trapped in an 80's time
capsule. So for those of you who are offended by the thong bikini, or
for those of you who never discarded yours, it is very much so alive
and thriving happily among beachgoers here.
3. While full tuxedos aren't as plentiful on these sands, the Hawaiian
print matching shirt-and-shorts combo is increasingly popular as the
day progresses. Most commonly we see matching families or couples in
this fine attire and sometimes comrades.
My favourite victim of our vigilance on this day in particular was
certainly the old man who, standing on his own little molehill made of
sand, bent over and pulled off his pants (trousers for those of you
giggling). He essentially stripped down to his worse-than-Speedos
underwear which was high at the waist and insufficient down below. They
were pulled up so high that unmentionables had made their way into the
unknown between his butt cheeks and, to put it crudely, had become
nothing but a parir of thong budgie-smugglers. After adjusting and
readusting the "height" of his underwear waistline, the old man finally
seemed ready to swim those salty waters...but instead he stood on his
molehill in his shockingly tall-in-the-wrong-direction
underwear and picked his nose (with enthusiasm) as he stared longingly
out at the waves. He also may have been contemplating the reclamation
of his underwear from his butt. Among the highlights of our "Sights of
Sanya" photo file taken on this day at the beach was the overweight man
sporting a Speedo and carrying a flourescent pink umbrella, the smoking
jogger, and the man fishing - rod and bait - among the swimmers
(dangerous I think...Jari said it best when he stated, "All I know is
that I would not be pleased to come out of the water with a hook in my
ass."). After an hour of this nonsense, we packed up our beachware and
bought some packet noodles for dinner. Mine were irresistably labeled
an "Acid and Peppery Beef" flavour and I'm quite sure that it was
literal. They weren't the best packet noodles and I know packet
noodles...
Our other beach day commenced today (yes, we're finally at today, as in
the present) with this Internet Mansion session. We stuck to a similar
schedule as yesterday, except that this time, as we were sitting among
hoards of tour bus groups in their Hawaiian print shirt-and-shorts
combos AND dress shoes and socks under the shady shelter of a palm
tree, we spotted some foreigners walking with the waves a short
distance from us. We saw them glance over a couple of times and when
they started walking towards us we figured they were in need of some
information in English. As they approached us, one of the guys
rejoiced, "Canada!" It was none other that Uver, the German who we'd
shared a dorm with in Guangzhou a week earlier and also a member of the
7-Eleven "Living Room" regulars. He'd gone to Hong Kong for a few days,
and as far as we knew, was returning to Guangzhou for the rest of the
Trade Fair, but had decided to stop in at Sanya of all places to try
and sell some of his stock literally overnight. Him and his Finnish
friend joined us for a beer (well, we had water since we had exhausted
our store-bought alcohol stash) and we talked business. We all parted
ways and Jess and I couldn't do much but laugh at the freak coincidence
that we'd just been a part of. Following the recommendation of our
Guangzhou friends, we went to a restaurant called "Rainbow" - this was
not, it turned out a recommendation for those on an exceedingly small
budget, but after catching a glimpse of the burgers there, there was
little else I could do. My tastebuds did the talking and
post-mouth-watering Hickory burger for me and burrito for Jess, we were
spent in every way. This brings me to now.
We'll be packing up to sail back to the mainland tomorrow hopefully. At
the least, we'll make it to Haikou, at the northern tip of Hainan, and
from there, we're hoping to catch a boat to Beihai then a bus to
China's mountainous interior, in particular to the towns of Guilin and
Yangshou.
If you've made it to this point of the email, you have completed a task
worthy of a good night's sleep with a REAL mattress and Western-style
toilet, and you have a patience that even Buddha would envy. So kudos!
While I struggle to get it all down, I know it's not easy to read the
blasted thing, but I hope the emails are at least insightful!
I will inevitably write again so cancel your Tuesday night's plans a fortnight from today...missing you all :)
