Something different - NOT! Yet more walking...

Today we did something different – we walked! Ahem. Santiago has a great metro system, a gazillion buses everywhere, taxi’s by the...erm...truck load, but there’s nothing like a 5 hour walk to really get you lost in a foreign city. We walked from our central hotel over to the Pablo Neruda museum, then over to Sanhattan to meet Juan for lunch at one of the older restaurants in Santiago, where we tried some typical Chilean meals. I forget what they’re called (getting older, I’m slowly losing the ability to retain information), but they were GOOD.

After lunch we WALKED around Sanhattan passing a weird spirally thing just randomly placed inbetween buildings. If it weren't so darn huge, I might get one for my back garden (when I figure out where I want to live, get a house, with a garden...). At last, we figured out a way to cross the river and headed for the Parque des Esculturas – a park with random sculptures dotted throughout. Some of the prettier ones deserve to be exhibited on the blog...

Last afternoon in a foreign city, what do you do? You go shopping! A woman in the shop we visited in patio Bellavista told us about a large craft shop enclave in the Eastern side of the city, about 25 minutes by taxi from the city center. Los Domenicos is basically a tourist destination, but interesting and charming nonetheless. It has jewelry, pottery, sculpting, painting, little cafes, pet shops, clothing made from alpaca wool, leather goods, etc etc etc. We taxid out there and headed for the sister-shop where the husband of the Patio Bellavista woman gave us a tour of their small jewelry workshop.

We’re a bit sad to be leaving Santiago, but my feet are grateful and looking forward to my butt taking over on the 4 day cruise from Punta Arenas!

Scalp that thief!

Ever since arriving in Santiago – and even before – people have been warning me about the petty crime. The pickpockets are legendary. On our first day in Santiago – doing the Zombie Walk for 6 hours – Roger and I passed by the Plaza de Armas and a middle-aged man came up to me and asked “Where are you from?”. I replied, “from Holland” (he didn’t look like he was fishing for the 30 minute SHORT version of my life’s story). He then advised “watch your bag, this is a very dangerous area for pickpockets”. Juan and Maria had reiterated it on our first evening, and last night Nadege’s parents warned us again – especially about the Plaza de Armas. Can you feel it coming?



So, we moved to the Fundador this morning. We bid our B&B goodbye and piled everything into a cab for the move Chez Maman. Truth be told, I preferred the B&B, but what can I do? We then arranged to have the pre-booked tour in the afternoon so we’d have the next day free. The tour wasn’t available until 3pm, so we decided to head to the shops for some last minute shopping for the cruise to the Glaciers. I don’t like being a nag, but sometimes it’s necessary. My brother had the same idea, and together we must have warned my mother over 30 times within 2 hours to keep a watch over her bag, to hold it tight, to keep it by her side, to watch out for pickpockets etc etc etc. But, they’re slick if you're not paying attention.


We arrived at the...da-da-da-dummmm... Plaza de Armas and went into the Cathedral to have a look at this wonderful building (and in my case, escape the sizzling heat). Roger had already exited and I was taking one last picture when my mother tells me she’s taking the side door. My back was turned and as she tried to exit, she was crowded by 4 or 5 women who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One shoved a mobile phone in my mother’s face and kept saying “photo, photo”. My mother reached up to push it away and... that’s when they must have been opening her bag and taking her wallet.






My brother was 5 metres away taking a picture of the front of the building and saw the crowd suddenly disperse, and my mum’s bag open. My mum quickly concluded that they’d taken her wallet and my brother took off after the group that looked like the people that had crowded her. It can’t have taken more than 30 seconds. I stayed to take ONE picture of the inside of the church, then turned to go outside, to see my mother running to the side of the building. I knew something was terribly wrong as soon as I saw that – my mother RUNNING. Not jogging, not walking slightly faster than her usual pace, but actually running. I took off after them to see my brother on the other side of the road, still running. I ran straight through the traffic on the road and caught up just as he’d caught the sleeve of a woman. My mother was not far behind and screaming something. The woman was pulling away so I got behind her and kneed her in the back (as you do) and then got her arm behind her in a half-headlock (self-defence has paid off Big Time). My mother got a death grip on the thief’s hair and finally got the words out that she stole her wallet. She found her wallet on the floor under the thief’s feet – she’s apparently dropped it when my brother got a hold of her.


The three of us were doing a good job of both keeping her immobile and scalping her at the same time – a true Peek Team effort. We then started looking for police as the crowd around us got involved. I guess they don’t see 3 obvious tourists having a knock-down fight with one of their own in broad daylight by the side of the cathedral every day... One particularly pugnacious guy screamed in my face “just let her go, you don’t have to treat her like that”. To which I replied, pugnaciously, “she robbed my mother, she deserves even more than what we’re doing”. Finally a guy in a suit told us that there was police in the square in front of the cathedral and got a grip on the thief to drag her there. I let go and got in front of her to snap some classic photos (what if she got away... we’d need a Mug Shot, right?!). It turns out that the man was not an undercover police officer as I thought, but a lawyer on his lunch break. Same difference? Used to dealing with slime in any case...



We finally got her to the police, who seemed unimpressed. My mother went through her wallet and found none of the cash was gone (over a hundred dollars), but ALL her credit cards were missing. I went into damage-limitation overdrive and we got her banker’s phone number and immediately called to have ALL cards cancelled. We also called the hotel to reschedule the tour – priorities people! We then had an escort to the nearest police station and put in a report of the incident. Since I had the pictures, we could describe her quite well. The police, however, were not interested in the pictures and even told us the woman would just be let go as there was no real evidence and, well, she didn’t take any cash and the credit cards were already cancelled. Like everywhere in the world, they have more important criminals to chase – even though they no longer needed to chase since we served her up on a newly follicly-challenged platter.



We got back to the hotel at 3:45pm to find the tour guide waiting for us. Since his suggestion of a historical tour of Santiago and the Plaza de Armas was not met with enthusiasm we decided to do a tour of New Santiago and the San Cristobal mountain look-out (gondola!). We drove up to the top of San Cristobal – a hill-top look out on the outskirts of Santiago that offers unequalled views of the city (and has a Gondola!). Roger enjoyed a local drink of...erm... some juice, wheat-type-stuff-and whole syrupy peaches. Delicious if a little on the complex side for a libation. We also bought a mega-something to share, turned out to be a filo-cookie covered in sugar that I just had to show my appreciation for on film! (BTW, this was just for the photo, I shared with the family and the pigeons... that promptly started following me around hoping for more of the same).





We’re just taking pictures of the monument at the top when my mother comes over and says “hey guys, I need to tell you something”. Odd. Alright... “Look what I found”. In her hand – yep, her credit cards. She’d misplaced them in her bag and had not put them back into her wallet the night before. Instead, they had been buried in the bottom of her bag. So, the thief got absolutely nothing for tangling with my mother, except a future follicle issue. The credit cards were still cancelled, but it seems my mother’s banker knows her better than we do. He’d put a temporary block on them rather than cancelling the lot and they were reinstated for 30 days.



On a high, we continued our tour by descending in a mini gondola and taking a tour of Sanhattan and the Millionaire’s Row type houses in the suburbs of Santiago. In the evening we headed over to an area called Patio Bellavista – an internal courtyard with artisan shops and several restaurants, and by far the best ice cream ever! So it was a good ending to a bad start! Peek Family 1: Santiago Pickpockets -100 (it’ll take a lot of future “earnings” to pay for treatment of that sudden bald spot...)

Last Peek in Santiago

The day we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Throw on your gladrags, do a little dance in the street, scream with happiness... because MAMA has arrived! Yes indeed, Santiago is now terminally unsafe as the trio is reunited and ready to roll. Of course Mama is not staying in the hostel, mama is staying at a 4 star hotel downtown. Natch. But, it’s within walking distance so we had a lie-in and headed off (after missing breakfast) to meet her in the hopes of having brunch...

Mama was raring to go despite the 14 hour flight, so we headed to “the hill near Santa Lucia”. I still don’t know what its called, but it’s a park built around a hill with a pseudo castle ruin on top. Its absolutely beautiful with fountains and long sweeping staircases... until you get to the very top and the sweeping staircases suddenly morph into poky little mountain steps that have been worn slippery with age. Going up was easy if a bit tiring in the noon sun, but what goes up....must come down. Unfortunately. My choice of footwear for the day had been heavily influenced by the heat and thus I found myself teetering precariously on flip-flops with a small heel. I ended up pretty much lowering myself down step by step by the handrail – and even then I nearly went flying on one particularly steep and slippery slope. It was not a pretty and definitely not a graceful descent. Let’s just say that my 66 year old mother following a 14 hour flight was a damn sight more sprightly than me!

As usual when following my brother and a map – we ended up on what seemed like the never ending quest for the holy grail. The hostel had recommended the perfect breakfast place – i.e. one that was likely to be open on a Sunday mid-morning in catholic Santiago – but we never quite made it. We finally settled into a cafe next to the Bellas Artes museum and watched the people parade going by (2 girls begging for money – either as students or as hookers promising services, a goth pair with a pram, a woman with a see-through top having Chinese take-out on a bench, a heavily armoured police bus, backpackers, the homeless man trying to steal my brother’s drink over the fence of the cafe terrace...).

We dropped mama off a block from her hotel to have a Siesta. Oh, and did I mention that our room at the hostel has a TV? I took a picture with my watch in the foreground...to show the scale. It's about 5 metres from the beds, didn't know they could MAKE them that small! We met up with mum again for a dinner in the evening with the parents of Nadege - another of my brother’s friends/ex-colleagues. He’s got them EVERYWHERE.

Remember that impromptu tour of El golf that Juan and Maria treated us to on our first evening? Well, they pointed out Coco Loco – Santiago’s most expensive fish restaurant. Three guesses where we ended up having dinner tonight? Was it worth it? Definitely! It was the best piece of that-meal-just-cost-the-same-as-3-nights-in-a-B&B-for-3-people-with-private-bathroom-and-breakfast I’ve had since Bokhara in Delhi. Ka-ching!!!!

Valparaiso!

It’s amazing what 9 hours of solid sleep will do – feeling refreshed and positively PERKY we were up and ready to explore. Heartened by the hostel’s breakfast of white bread, cheese, and coffee, we set off with a map and some money for the bus terminal. Roger’s Spanish is dead handy as I just have to stand by looking gormless while he explains what we want. After procuring 2 return tickets (volver – must remember that one) we boarded our bus and sat in the wrong seat. We were ousted by a little old lady who explained that the numbers on the tickets actually mean something. It seems my brother’s Spanish doesn’t quite stretch that far...

An easy 1.5hours drive and we’ve arrived in Valparaiso. As soon as we get off the bus, a nice man in a fluorescent yellow jacket is waiting for us to show us to the tourist information center. Not. It is a tour agency and we quickly tire of the “this tour only, 2 places left, 10 minutes to decide” spiel and head out to take a walk around the area and look for the real tourist information center. Valparaiso is very hilly – it is built across 45 hills and it is completely impossible to see everything on foot. After taking a short walk through the market, seeing people buy watermelons literrally off the back of a truck, we end up back at the bus station and head to what we think is the real tourist bureau. We agree to take a slightly more expensive private tour (us, a driver and a guide) which will take us to 4 different towns. 20 minutes later we’re on our way and are told that we’re meeting another car and guide somewhere else since they didn’t realise we needed an English guide... a hint may have been my first question “Do you speak English – Hables Ingles?”.

OK, so we were had. We didn’t get a private tour, and instead of 4 places, we saw 3 – of which one was only to try to get us to eat in a specific restaurant where I am sure they receive a commission... We complained – and then got on with it and it was a great day nonetheless. Sunny, some funny people on the tour, and lots of hopping in and out of the minivan. Top sights of the day include the Renaca beach, Vina Del Mar flower clock (a must-see!), Rapa Nui head (from Easter Island - transplanted ot Vina del Mar), Valparaiso Pablo Neruda house and Funicular.

The Funicular is a mini train like they have in Switserland to take skiers up the side of the mountain – these only have one “car” though and the longest is approx 150 metres in length. The Funicular car is basically a wooden shack on rails – you can even see the ground through the wooden slats that make up the floor. Apparently most tourists are not excited by the prospect of a ride in a funicular – but since I insisted that this was part of the Valparaiso experience and we HAD to give it a try, they made a stop. We managed to get all but one of the other 6 tourists to come with us and we were soon bumping and shaking down the hill in the oldest of the old Funiculars. We made it down in one piece – a definite highlight in terms of adrenaline factor!

We nearly missed the bus on the way back to Santiago (long line in the women’s restroom is a worldwide phenomenon). Luckily my brother came up with the brilliant tactic of simply standing in front of the bus as it was waiting to depart, thereby delaying it enough for me to run up and still climb in - courtesy also of the laughing, good-humoured bus driver.

Arriving at the other end in Santiago – we were again met by a conniving Chilean who obviously saw an easy mark in us. He kept looking at me with sad eyes, pleading with me... the final straw was when he jumped up at me and then sat back down wagging his tail expectantly. I wanted to buy him a hot-dog, but my brother thought I was nuts. So he gave him a cookie, which the dog wisely ignored and followed up with a baleful stare instead. The street dogs here are plentiful and all too sad. It’s an eye-opener because I’m simply not used to seeing so many dogs alone, hurt, hungry and completely at the mercy of strangers – in Europe we have dog pounds, and in China I guess they get eaten. I’m not sure which is worse...

When it rains, it pours...

When I first suggested to my brother that we stay in a hostel in Santiago, my idea was met with a horrified and uncomprehending stare. Hostel? Me? Si! So we went online and ended up picking B&B Rio Amazonas – one block from the Plaza Italia and about 100 metres from a Metro station. No, it doesn’t have a pool or gym. No, it doesn’t have a host of toiletries or an elevator. No, you can’t collect frequent flyer miles or order room service. BUT, it’s definitely a personal service and value for money. Case in point - since there were no doubles left, we booked a triple (3rd bed for my humongous bag). When we arrived we were given a room with 5 beds, easily as big as my brother’s living room. Besides, the gym comes built-in: no elevator means a 22kg bag to haul up 4 flights of stairs!

Since we’d been sitting for the past 17+ hours, and slept approximately 2, we decided to put on some walking shoes for a self-styled city walking tour. Armed with maps and some good information from the people at the hostel, we set off for a 5 hour Epic Journey. First stop: lunch! Having read some of my Lonely Planet before arrival ( I have learned the error of my ways as a result of the unfortunate hostel choice in Hong Kong...), I knew that the thing to eat in Chile would be a Completo. Basically a hot dog with sauerkraut, ketchup and mayo piled high. We happened to find the cutest diner just around the corner from our hostel. A long square bar with a barbeque plate in the center, which was manned by about 6 older ladies – each in charge of cooking to order for their section of the bar. I ended up swapping my sauerkraut for some Palta (Avocado mush) and ended up with the mother-of-all-hotdogs!!! Yum... just what you need after 17 hours sitting in a plance and no sleep... SIESTA anyone?

We made up for it though with 6 hours of walking. We went to the Universidad de Chile, Universidad Catholica, pedestrian shopping areas, Plaza de Armas, parks, the “River”, Museo de Bellas Artes ( I actually stepped foot inside, then immediately left again), Plaza Italia and finally the hostel again. Perfect timing – just as we returned to the hostel - my feet would move no more – it started to rain... and rain...and thunder... apparently Santiago’s first rain and worst storm in months!

That evening we met up Roger’s ex-colleague / friend and his wife, Juan and Maria, who had just moved back to Santiago from London the previous week. They took us on an excellent impromptu tour of the newer parts of Santiago – Sanhattan (Santiago + Manhattan...), El Golf etc and then onto dinner at the Lammu Lounge. It was 10pm by then (3am London time) and we were both ready to drop – not eat dinner. But when in Santiago... The food was excellent, as were the drinks. We tried Empanadas – little filo pastries filled with corn or meat or both. Delicious! And Roger had a Pisco Sour, the typical Chilean drink. Intermittent power cuts due to the still-raging storm made for an interesting atmosphere. After that everything was a blur, but I woke up in my bed at the hostel... so can’t have been too wild!

In the Air again! Santiago here we come!

Having completed my hop-scotch tour of the Eastern Hemisphere and worked three months to generate more spending money, I’m now onto the Western Hemisphere. Starting with 2 month through Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru - with an incidental visit to Brazil because I have to.... It’s so hard to be me. :P

To set the scene: My brother, the responsible sibling, has taken a 4 month leave of absence from his high-flying city banking job so he can join my mother and I on the trip through Chile and Argentina. Now, my mother can brag to her friends that she has not one, but TWO unemployed kids! Hah! Me, a bad influence??? Personally, this works out great for me because:

1) I have a co-traveller on the 17 hour journey from London via Madrid to Santiago (in Economy, on Iberia)
2) My mother has another unemployed offspring to focus on
3) Roger speaks Spanish (or maybe that should be point 1?)

24 hours before and Roger can check-in online. For some reason I am unable to do the same because *drum roll please* I booked with Expedia. So I call Expedia who tell me I have to talk to the airline that I made the booking with – British Airways. After navigating the BA call-centre options, I am informed politely, but firmly, that they cannot help me because the flight is actually a LAN Chile portion. So I call Expedia again to get the LAN confirmation code as the BA code I have does not work on their website. Finally, accessing the LAN site, they then inform me that they cannot help either because, although it is a LAN code, the flight is actually operated by Iberia. On the phone to Iberia - Iberia cheerfully tell me that they are unable to help assign a seat next to my brother because... they don’t have access as it has been booked with Expedia as a travel agent and not directly with Iberia.

To cut a long story short – on my last day in the UK, pre-departure, I spent 4 hours of valuable time chasing back and forth between airlines etc, to finally get Expedia to help me... only to be told at check-in that Expedia never requested any seat and I was now in the middle of a row of 4 some 10 rows away from my brother. BUT, after all that I finally lucked out and got a really nice lady at check-in who appreciated my tale of woe and made sure that we were at least sitting in the same row for the 13 hour flight from Madrid to Santiago, WITH a possible option of asking the Aisle Seat Holder next to my brother to swap with my Aisle Seat. Yeay! And when she said “I know how you feel, when I travel with my husband I also want to sit close to him”... I didn’t dare disabuse her of her romantic notion and tell her he’s my brother. Moral of the story: avoid Expedia like the plague and just book direct with the airline online, sometimes its worth the 40 quid extra AND make sure you and your brother look nothing alike. :P

So, this whole crisis is the reason why I didn’t have time buy a new fish-feeding machine for Bob & Bertha prior to flying halfway round the world. (OK, bad excuse...I am a baaaaad parent). The feeder I have apparently decided to die at some point without proper notification. Luckily my brother arranged to have one of his friends as a sort of tenant and I had a nice stash of feeding blocks that only need to be chucked into the aquarium ever 14 days. I’m thinking this is the IDEAL example to use for my mum when she next starts on about how all her friends have grandchildren already... if I can’t even manage to care for 2 goldfish, I guess that I am nowhere near ready for *gasp* kids. Besides, Roger’s 2+ years older so he’s first in line to reproduce... First In, First Out so to speak!

Anyway, back to the Travelling With Brother. Definitely more interesting than FLYING SOLO.
First, he’s great for comic relief! As we’re moseying down to security and I’m digging through my bag for my passport he states (rather too loudly) that “my banana has gone AWOL”. He’d packed a banana in his rucksack before we left (i.e. just chucked it on top in true Man-style, and it had since gone for a walkabout round his bag). Some casual digging did not appear to locate the missing fruit as he then exclaimed “I can smell the banana smell, but I can’t see it”. Maybe you had to be there...

Second, there’s the free entry into the Business lounge at Madrid airport courtesy of his Diner’s Club card (which he hasn’t used in 2 years) – free sandwiches, drinks and all the ice cubes we can handle at midnight in Madrid.

And last, but not least, there’s the “instant husband” effect. It helped at check-in, and it again facilitated the Aisle-for-an-Aisle swap on the long flight to Santiago. I managed to swap with a nice Belgian gentleman on the Madrid-Santiago flight (one of a group of 5 guys on a two week Salmon fishing trip...) and landed myself next to my brother, AND right in front of a mum with a small child AND a baby. I am sure I mentioned to the Belgian group Roger is my brother, but perhaps they didn’t compute because when we exited the plane, one mentioned that we must be glad to get to Santiago so we could go to the hotel to “cuddle”. Ewwwwwwwwww! I told him “That’s my BROTHER!” and he looked suitably horrified and apologetic. Apparently they thought we were on our honeymoon???

The flight wasn’t so bad, the baby mostly quiet if not odor-free, we got through customs with very little effort, didn’t get caught out by the Fruit & Veg sniffer dogs at the luggage collection (unlike my mother, who would try to smuggle in 2 Swiss apples a day later), and got a cab to our hostel in the centre of the city. Let the games begin!

The £1100 haircut (Upper Class to India baby!)

So after nearly a year of procrastination, it's finally time to take on India with my mum. I'm not sure which scares me more - India and its infamous Delhi Belly or 3 weeks 24/7 with my mother! She's an absolute treasure, I'd flay anyone alive who dared to treat her like less than the Queen she, and when I'm feeling ill there's no medicine like a hug and some sympathy from my mum... BUT she also has the MOST uncanny ability to get under my skin with the littlest of things... That, and she always calls me just as I'm in the loo??? What's up with that?

Right, so after postponing India 3 times (April 2007 - too hot, June 2007 - I'm in China, October 2007 - My mum is planning major construction on her apartment) we finally settled on a now-or-never date of February 2008. As I am merely a chaperone on her trip (she's visiting friends and I'm along for the ride) I have no other option than to follow her route and travel arrangements. Upper Class flight to Delhi it is. Well, if I must...

In case you didn't know, Upper Class travel from Heathrow grants you access to the Virgin Clubhouse at Terminal 3... so after a 5 second check-in, an elevator ride straight to a separate security channel with 0 people queueing ahead of us, and some retail therapy in Duty Free, we finally head for the Clubhouse... except... we can't find it. No signs. No map. Nada, Niente, Nothing, Niks. So I ask at the Bulgari store (as you do) and they quickly point us in the right direction.

A 15 minute walk later, we arrive at the elevator to the clubhouse. I get that this is for pampered people who would prefer to expend as little effort as possible... but what exactly is the point of a sofa in an elevator that goes between 2 floors? Hmmmm. Let me rephrase that. What exactly is the point of a sofa in a PUBLIC elevator that goes between 2 floors? Exactemundo.

The clubhouse is suitably impressive - groovy moodlighting, lots of rounded shapes and funky chairs, hair salon, spa section, long bar, sushi / cold snack area, and an a-la-carte restaurant. After booking my appointment for the free haircut (yeay!), we sit down to a nice dinner. Following risotto and fish, I head to check out the restrooms before reporting back for my haircut. They've got me down as a wash and blowdry only... apparently the word CUT and my pantomime of snipping my hair with finger-scissors wasn't clear enough at time of booking. My mum starts her award-winning-scene-creating performance and they quickly fit me in after all. Sometimes mums are really handy!

My stylist is formerly of the Harvey Nicholls department store and the time flies by as we chat and he cuts. Conditioned beyond all frizz, I am done just as our flight is called out and we sashay to the gate.

Once ensconced on board, we get to grips with being Upper Class. First there's the pyjamas (I opted for extra comfy and asked for 2 sizes bigger than normal and ended up with Shaq's pants and Roseanne's top). Then there's food to order on-board, but we miss out as we're still stuffed from the Clubhouse dinner. My mum books a hand massage from the onboard beauty therapist for pre-landing. I figure out how to construct my perfectly flat bed, roll up in my duvet with my pillow and... still can't sleep. I end up trying to watch movies all night from my perfectly flat position. The massage never comes to pass (beauty therapist is MIA), the breakfast is uninspiring, and I haven't slept a wink... was it worth it? Of course, I just had the most expensive haircut of my life!

My celeb lookalikes... apparently

the blog is being updated, really!

OK, so I've been a lazy bum AND I had a good excuse while I was in China (blog was censored, ergo no access), but now I'm slowly managing to update the missing tales of wonder and woe. Starting beginning of August, all the way through to start of October. I have a few... ok, 14... more additions to go, but Watch This Space!

Soon to come in addition to reminiscing about China and Tibet:
Feb - India
March - Argentina and Chile
April - Peru and Bolivia
May, June - some of US (including Alaska) and Canada!

Plenty more places in the world where I can get into trouble, amusing one and all :)

Kunming: Gripe first, pretty pictures later!

I'm in Kunming. Flight was excellent - I went by Sichuan Airlines this time. Amazing amount of legroom, AND a cute flight attendant (guy!). That's got to be the - 9th? handsome guy I've seen in the last 3+ months. Ouch. Sorry mum, I'm still single! Anyway, I'm trying to go on every domestic airline this country has to offer, and it's quite a bunch. So far I have knocked off China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Sichuan Airlines...now there's Lucky Air to Dali, but I'm not sure if I want to jinx myself like that!

Onto the gripe at last - skip the entire post if you don't want to read another story of how-I-was-nearly-ripped-off-in-China. Then again, knowing how schadenfroh you all are...keep reading! Hey - I'm making progress, thanks in no small part to knowing basic Mandarin. At least now its more and more "nearly" stories, and no longer the "argh, ba$tards, thieving shites, dishonest, nasty, ..." Rrrrright, moving swiftly on to the story-du-jour!

I'm so sick of arriving in places and being deemed a target for being ripped off as soon as my feet hit the pavement outside the luggage claim. They try, they always try. This morning I had some guy following me out to the taxis, asking where I was going. Told him "I'm going in a taxi, and you?". He kept bugging me as people around me stared. Kept pointing at some stupid "cert" patch hanging around his neck. I wasn't sure what he was "cert" for, but since he didn't speak to everyone in the taxi line (just the dumb-easy-target-foreigner) I figured he was up to no good. Then I finally got to the head of the line after shoving another would-be queue-jumper out of the way. As I got into the cab, the cabdriver mumbles to him then tells me he doesn't know the address of my hostel. So I tell him - its ok, I have a map and I know it wil cost 20 RMB to get there. The annoying guy (let's call him MR. A$$hole) tells me the taxidriver doesn't know, but conveniently he does and he can take me for 80 RMB. So I tell him in Chinese "you drive me crazy, I pay only 20RMB". The first part of that sentence being the only condescending / halfway insulting thing I know other than "lazy pig", which, let's face it, wasn't any more suitable in this situation. I tell the taxi driver "do you know or not? I go with other taxi if you don't know". Wish I knew what 'don't waste my time' is, might figure that out today and learn to recite it by heart. So the taxi driver finally admits he does know and we get back in the cab as Mr. A$$hole is shouting "60RMB" at my uncaring back. I KNOW I should have gone to a different cab... In hindsight it's like watching that horror movie when the victim doesn't look behind the door as she enters the room even though you can see the shadow lurking...

He starts driving, then stops after 5 minutes and asks me where it is again. I get angry and ask him "do you know or not? Its near Zhuan Tang park" and I give him the little map with x-marks-the-spot. He continues, does another u-turn, continues.... looks about a bit, driving 20km/h. I call the hostel and tell them to talk to the cabdriver and to tell him to stop going in a circle and that I am not paying more than 20RMB. FINALLY he gives up trying to cheat me and I get here with the meter at 20.6 RMB. B@stards. Didn't get me! AND NOW the hostel tell me they don't have my room... right. Told them I'll wait until official check-out at 12:00 and then they'd better have my room because I have a printed confirmation and I will put in a complaint to both the site that booked it and LonelyPlanet. If they don't have my room, they can pay for a taxi to the next hostel plus give me back the deposit. She tells me I can use Internet until then... so here I am, sitting at a PC with a big sign over the top saying: "If you like our hostel, would send an email to <>. We need your help. thank you so much! email: talk2us@lonelyplanet.com.au". Oh, I'll send an e-mail all right. I don't even have to go through the bother of looking up the e-mail address! Let's see what happens at 12:00. Grrrr. :P

Every little thing here is a fight for justice and fair treatment. It's such a blessing when people are nice, honest and helpful...which is kind of what you'd expect if they want people to come back and give good word-of-mouth advertising to others along the way. I am ready to finish my travels here, leaving the squat-toilets and cockroaches behind for less polluted pastures! it's like a race against time - if I don't see the things I want to see now, I may never (willingly) come back. Sad, but true.

Aren't you all glad you're at home, have a normal clean toilet, a bed without bugs, a shower that isn't suspended over the toilet, food isn't always covered in a mystery sauce to hide the mystery meat, and the Tube/train/bus/taxi isn't going to try charging you 4 times the standard price?

Ah, but then I've also seen the Temple of Heaven and the Terracotta Warriors, climbed the Great Wall in two places, been in the world's highest hotel-lobby and floated down a river along scenery featured on a banknote, climbed around the world's largest Buddha AND seen REAL Giant Pandas!!! That's gotta be worth a bit of hassle, right? Right? Who's with me?!

Travel in China - you just have to smile!

So I’ve been looking online and trying to figure out where to go next, what to do, who to go with and what to see... there are so many choices...if you’re Chinese. Unfortunately, my Mandarin is not yet sufficient for me to be able to follow a guided tour in just Mandarin, nor have I surrendered my preference for:
- a toilet instead of a mucky hole in the floor
- a bed instead of a mat on a bench
- a shower that is private and not suspended over a toilet
- identifiable food ingredients instead of mystery meat with miscellaneous bones and gristle
- a sense of personal space instead of practically being SAT ON by the other people that would be on the tour.

I like my creature comforts, and personal space and basic hygiene are key components.

I really had to laugh when I came across the following description for the first day of an “English Guided Tour” to Tibet:

No tour guide service today but the Tibetan guide will pick up you at Lhasa airport, please do not have violent physical activity.

Just makes you wonder sometimes... what must have happened for this plea to be added to the itinerary? I’ve heard of altitude sickness, but this is a completely different kettle of fish!

Beijing without pictures :(

It had to happen sometime in the 8-9 months that I am travelling. I deleted a folder of pictures for which I don't have a back-up. Not just delete-save-them-from-the-recycle-bin... nope, hard delete, Shift+delete, bypass the recycle bin, do not pass Go, do not collect memorable snapshots from Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City, do not publish cool pics in your blog, remain photo-less and alone for the remainder of your life! Weeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!



OK, actually, it's not that bad. Not just because we really should learn to live without so many material possessions (laptop, camera, ipod, so many things - so much to be stolen!), but also because in my infinite wisdom, I made great friends that thought my photos were cool and who wanted a DVD of all my pics. So I burned DVDs the day before I deleted the photos from my PC and a copy now exists in the mountains of the south of France. Hopefully a duplicate is being made as I type and I will receive my pictures in due course. In the meantime, my blog will have to be updated NAKED!