In Hong Kong

On my first night in Hong Kong I dashed into Carnegies to use their toilet on my way to meet everyone at Eberneezers for a kebab. A gigantic woman was on the bar dancing when she fell and in a manner similar to the movie Armageddon or Deep Impact I found myself in the path of a life threatening projectile. Thankfully two friends caught hold of her and I was saved.

I realised later as I munched my kebab that Hong Kong will never change. There will always be giant woman falling off the bar in Carnegies, Chicken Tikka kebabs, Dim Sum and beers at the Bridge.

Getting to predictable Hong Kong was no easy task . Jen and I left Sapa in Vietnam and twisted our way down the mountain in a minibus towards the Chinese border crossing. We checked out of Vietnam immigration and customs then walked across a small bridge to the Chinese border crossing with our bags on our backs. I was still not feeling well and could only think about the medical check the Chinese authorities were going to do before I was allowed in the country. If they did not let me in could I return to Vietnam? Probably not. Would I have to live on the bridge between the two countries till my temperature turned normal? Probably so.

Luckily for me I took two paracetamol thirty minutes before I crossed the border (a trick I learnt from my devious border crossing mother). My temperature was fine but Jen had to get checked twice because she was quite high! Amusing considering she was the healthy one out of us two.

When we crossed into China we stopped and waited. Why were we not being harassed? Where are the people crowding us and trying to sell taxis, bracelets, food, money exchange services, bus tickets, prostitutes, drugs and guns? This is what we are used to and it was not what we got in China. Nobody harassed us at all. We could have dipped ourselves in toffee and covered ourselves in banknotes and still we would have been ignored.

Eventually we found the bus station and booked a ticket to the city of Kunming on the overnight bus. We arrived the next morning at 5am and I was greeted by an experience that I will never forget in all my life. Using a Chinese public toilet.

Imagine a pig trough running down one side of a wall. this pig trough is dug into the floor and is the communal hole for where people are expected to squat and excrete. Now imagine that the entire experience is open plan, no doors, small dividers either side no larger than two foot high. The toilet was busy and it took me a while standing in the hot and smelly room before I remembered that Chinese people do not ever make orderly lines and queue up for anything. I had to stand in front of a cubicle and wait for a man to finish then dash in before an elbowing Chinese man got there first. The other typical Chinese characteristic is the ability to stare without feeling embarrassed, which is how I found myself crapping with an audience.

It took a 24 hour train to eventually get to Hong Kong. It was a different kind of relief once I stepped off the carriage.

bx