PRC SAR HK

i've arrived in the people's republic of china special administrative region hong kong, and my god it's good to be back in asia!

.

the circumstances surrounding my stay in hong kong put me in mind of a murakami novel (the good bits) so i won't go into it all in this entry (i need to think about things in retrospect). i'll just talk about bangkok.

.

i've only been to bangkok once before, and again it was for a 24 hour transit, which, though is a very short time, encourages one to milk 60 seconds worth of juicy experiences out of every minute.

.

it was chinese new year, so i headed straight to chinatown, the heart of old bangkok. despite the tasteless food in africa, i had stacked it on, and am now sporting a repulsive new pot belly. about half of it came away last week when i did a really big fart, but the rest simply won't shift. i wanted to start a starvation diet, but when i rocked up in chinatown, and saw delicious food stalls lining the streets as far as the eye could see, i started eating...and couldn't stop.

.

in fact i would rate it up there as one of the top three out of control eating experiences i've had in my life (the worst occurring last year in yangshuo in what i call the 'sweet and sour pork incident' in which a plate of meat so enormous it could have fed the people's army

.

was served with a rice in a wooden bucket you'd think they'd stolen from the community well, and for some reason i forced my self to devour every last grain. the agony and nausea that i experienced while crawling home that night...i wouldn't wish it on anybody.

.

hand washing facilities in these stalls are non-existent, so i was hoping to be struck down and washed out by some virulent faeculent parasitic infestation, but i was thwarted yet again: it turns out that in my short 26 years, i've put so many different kinds of food and fomite in my mouth that it seems i'm now immune to everything :( (paging dr freud)

.

rather than have a sleazy night (as the name of the city suggests), i spent it at a boxing stadium watching muay thai (thai boxing), in which two perfect specimens of male youth (and i mean perfect - 0% body fat, thin as rakes, but rippling with muscles) battle each other with fists, elbows, feet and knees in 3 minute rounds. if there were rules, i had no idea what they were, and though i abhor violence in all its forms, i found myself getting excited when things turned ugly, and thinking evil thoughts like 'kick him again' or 'hit him harder'. it was an interesting night.

.

the great paradox of muay thai is this:

.

whilst you wouldn't want to meet any one of those boys in a dark alley, you'd want to meet every single one of those boys in a dark alley.

.

let's all assume lotus position and ponder that until next time.

.

love live his majesty king bhumibol rama IX!

.

pics (i took no pictures in thailand)

.

1 - ondrej in front of the world's largest bronze statue of a seated mcbuddha, hong kong.

2 - shaolin monks perform kung fu at po lin monastery. more on that later.

3 - thought it couldn't get any more tacky? an enormous display of hello kitty weds dear daniel at central station, hong kong. alright - i loved it too.

5 - his majesty king bhumibol rama IX - a monarch you can't help but worship.

gong xi fa cai!

a happy spring festival to you all! gong xi fai cai (i hope you become rich!)

and so my adventures in kenya have come to an end. i have seen life, i have seen death, and i have seen a rhinoceros. in a few hours i will be walking through the airport turnstile sideways. good bye east africa! (hello ondrej!)

mama josephine's medical clinic

so what exactly have i been doing since phuong abandoned me?

after languishing for some days on lake naivasha and being forced to endure the sounds of nightly exorcism 'practice' in the adjacent church, i was ultimately driven out by an inconvenient sleeping arrangement and into what i can only fathom was a brothel attached to a nightclub in the nearby slum town of naivasha (with unusually splendid views of the lake and nearby rubbish tip)


i managed to scale the summit of a volcanic crater (longonot) during a thunderstorm (making the experience that much sweeter), but to get home, i had to wait for some time flagging down potential transport vehicles in the rain on a nearby road, only to discover that one week earlier, in that location almost exactly, two american tourists had been shot in the head by bandits while parked on the side of the road.


i then undertook a journey of epic proportions: a bus to nakuru, matatu to kericho and then to kisii, another matatu to an un-named location at the side of the road where i was transferred into another van headed for homa bay, and from there an old bus down a dirt road to the frontier town of mbita. it was there, after taking off my shoes and running through shallow water, that i just managed to scramble aboard a long boat being pushed out into the waters of lake victoria. an hour or two later, i arrived on mfangano island - a remote part of kenya with no running water, no electricity, no cars and no good reason for a tourist to be there.


it was here on mfangano island that for one week, ondrej became a primary school teacher.

was it one of those amazingly positive, eye opening, life changing experiences? yes and no. yes in the sense that as a self-confessed experience junkie, my cup definitely ranneth over. no in the sense that one week later, i was pretty happy to jump back on the boat at the crack of dawn and get the fuck out of there.

every morning and afternoon, as i walked between my place and the school, younger kids would lie in wait, ambushing me as i passed and battling for the privelege of holding my hand. usually i had 3 on each side - a thumb or two fingers each - and though i have been known to publicly denounce children as 'sub-mammalian', i must admit that my little heart of stone did melt somewhat. alright fine - it gushed.


on one occasion, however, the children got out of hand and chased me right down the street and to the door of the cell where i lived, which i closed in their faces and cowered behind while they stood outside chanting what i could only imagine were words to the effect of 'little pig, little pig, let us in'. it was most disquietening.

lessons were quite difficult until i realised i was getting dumped with the dud class (number 7) all the time, and when i changed i had some really awesome teaching experiences.


the adults on the island were a mixed bag. though they were invariably super-friendly and went out of their way to make me feel welcome, the situation on the island is dire: abject poverty, wide-spread drug and alcohol abuse, and HIV rates among the highest in the country (38%), so i couldn't shake the feeling that at any one time i might be violently robbed (or else thrown into the nearest body of water and violently baptised).

i wasn't just a primary school teacher, however:


1) i can't deny my background, so it was with some pleasure that i skipped class on one day and went and saw patients at a local clinic. it was called mama josephine's (centre of excellence), and consisted of one room with a cupboard full of out-of-date, out-of-use medications. highlights included seeing malaria for the first time!

2) i helped concrete a floor of one of the classrooms at the school. highlights included putting my back out.


3) i attended a seventh-day adventist church service under an enormous tree on a saturday morning. for even the most hardy among you, you'd have to agree that i a five hour service is not just ad nauseum, but ad vomitareum. highlights included sitting on a hard wooden bench. in fact, i almost left after 4 hours secondary to genuine concerns about sustaining bilateral ischial tuberosity stress fractures. in layman's terms: i almost broke my arse.


i gradually made my way back to nakuru (basking for a few days in the gorgeous tea plantation-filled countryside around kericho on the way), and it is here that i will spend my last few days in kenya.


pic 1 - mama josephine's centre of excellence
pic 2 - longonot crater peak
pic 3 - washing on the shores of lake victoria (bilharzia)
pics 4, 5 + 6 - wolves in sheep's clothing
pic 7 - sorting the night's catch
pic 8 - dawn from mfangano
pics 9 + 10 - workers picking tea near kericho
pic 11 - just couldn't get enough of those tea fields!

this brother of mine

not even sunrise from uhuru peak compares to the shadow of how good it was to have done it all with the big P. i love you phuong!

there will always be two cups at my table.

pre-abandonment

we'd seen enough of tanzania, and it was time to get the hell out.

we boarded an early morning bus and made our way to a shanty border crossing with kenya at some un-named location. the whole place had the feel of a cheap movie set, and rather than process visas, seemed purposely built to explode in the background of a b-grade hollywood car chase.

the bus continued on to nairobi, and phuong felt nauseated the whole way there. but rather than nairobbery's reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in the world provoking anxiety and fear in his heart (as it did mine), phuong claimed that it was my socks that were 'setting him off'. i tried to prove his folly by stuffing them into his face at irregular intervals with limited success.

*(diversion!) let me pause now to explain one of most common forms of transport in kenya - the matatu. take a standard white van with bald tyres and no shock absorbers, gut it, pack in fifteen seats, add twenty-one people and all their luggage, travel at high speed down a road so full of potholes that all your sphincters give out simultaneously, and what do you get? pure exhiliration. how do you say that in swahili? matatu.

we travelled by matatu to a YMCA on the southern shores of lake naivasha for our last supper together. phuong took bread, broke it, and said "eat this, it is my body..." whoops. hang on. i'm getting my stories mixed up.

the following morning we took some mountain bikes and headed over to hell's gate national park. unlike the previous 5 days of craning our heads out of the back of a safari van to check out the animal action, in hell's gate you go solo - walking or cycling through fields of grazing gazelle and zebra, or plonking yourself down in front of a corps of giraffe and just watching.

we saw lots of big-cat footprints, but none of the predators themselves. being attacked by a lion is a distinct possibility at hell's gate, but as phuong was having trouble with the gears on his bike and couldn't get moving as fast as i could, he thankfully provided the more obvious target. (i promised him that if he were to be eaten alive, i would take awesome photos of his priveleged wildlife experience).

but the day ended early, and everything fast-forwarded to a snapshot in time of phuong's smiling face in the rain as he waved goodbye and boarded a crowded matatu back to nairobi and home.

in a month that never sees rain, locals were astounded when it poured for almost 48 hours following phuong's departure.

pic 1 - border town
pic 2 - heading down the main gorge in hell's gate
pic 3 - still life with zebra
pic 4 - a tower of giraffe and a zeal of zebras
pic 5 - phuong takes a tumble while a lion licks its lips (off camera)
pic 6 - P+O at the end of their adventure together

the land of endless space

in august last year i promised you "pictures and stories from exotic islands, equatorial glaciers and national parks teeming with large game". one and two have been ticked off, so it's time to deliver on the third and final aspect of that promise.

phuong and i went on a 5-day safari as the well-earnt relaxation branch of our tanzanian adventure.

with us were cosmos, our wonderful driver and guide, and yusuf our cook, in a safari van whose top popped open so that we could stick our heads out and gawk at the animals.

we were under the impression that we would be joined 2 dutch people, but had no idea as to their age or gender. phuong wanted the dutch to be two hot straight chicks. i wanted them to be two hot gay boys. in the end we compromised on one hot gay boy and his best friend hot straight chick who would turn up with their insatiable sexual appetites, find us irresistable, and the rest would be discovery channel all day and all night long...

.

where was that damn magic lamp when we needed it?

instead, on the second day, we ended up being joined by a guy called zdenek. 3 guesses as to where he was from. so whilst it wasn't exactly the sort of work-out for my lips and tongue that i desired, zdenek's borderline refusal to speak english meant that my czech skills were really put to the test.

on our first day, the road to arusha national park provided beautiful views of the massive ice and snow covered crater of mt kilimanjaro in the distance.

we were smitten with our recent experience, and had to stop the car on a number of occasions just to get out and gaze at the mountain-god-beauty. phuong in particular was transported to another level and it was a pleasure just to behold the gallery of awe-struck facial expressions that crossed his face. we both agreed that the climb had been uber-amazing, and were glad for each other's confirmation of the experience, as alone it would have seemed too improbable, too dreamlike, too wonder-fucking.

geo-history lesson. 8 million years ago, africa's continental plate crashed into eurasia's, and as they pulled apart, africa almost snapped in two, creating a giant rift valley that stretches from the dead sea to mozambique. one of the many volcanoes that formed was ngorongoro, which spewed forth megatonne upon megatonne of ash and lava. this flowed westward, creating a vast open plain of super-fertile soil too thin to hold trees (the serengeti plain), and the largest volcanic crater in the world, which collapsed in on itself, only to be later filled with lush green grass, hordes of wild animals, and rabid groups of safari-struck tourists (the ngorongoro crater).

i won't labour over the details of each day. but suffice to say: imagine stopping your car because 33 giraffe had decided to cross the road? watching a group of 28 elephants playing in patches of mud and tearing down trees? a leopard lounging languidly on a tree branch? a lioness peering out at you through half closed eyes from atop a rocky outcropping, as dozens of vultures circle overhead? or over 60 hippos snoozing, shitting and fighting in a river at whose edge you're sitting? even the world-famous werribee zoo couldn't prepare us for it.

serengeti comes from the maasai word meaning 'the land of endless space', and there were times when we could only see grass and sky - not even a single tree or any other feature - all the way to the horizon, 360 degrees. it was that that really overwhelmed the senses, even more so that the animals.

the reason the serengeti national park and ngorongoro conservation area are so important is that they specifically protect the area used by the wildebeast on their annual migration - the last great animal migration in existence. over 2 million animals participate in this movement - south during the wet, and back north during the dry.

we were lucky enough to witness it on our last day - hordes of wildebeast running through the plains to join their cousins that grazed the land all the way to the horizon and beyond.

at night we slept in designated campsites which were visited by the odd elephant and lion, heightening the safari experience. there were little drop holes to shit in, but the smells that emanated from them induced central chest pain radiating down both arms, and were best avoided.

in the evenings, zdenek taught us new czech card games and we played these as the african sun set over the serengeti and the myriad giant insects emerged to suck our blood and drink our beer.

on the way back to arusha on the last day, we stopped at the olduvai gorge - a site where many of the earliest fossilised remains of human ancestors have been found: up to 2.5 million years old. even more exciting was a discovery at nearby laetoli of 3.5 million year old hominid footprints, which show a foot shape, great toe position and arch possessed by only one animal on earth today - us.

we looked at the cast of part of the footprint set (in its entirety it stretches to almost 30 metres). it shows two sets of footprints side by side, and a third set inside one of the others, where a third, medium sized hominid walked exactly in the footsteps of the first, larger one. to look at the actual footprint that one of our own ancestors made 3.5 million years ago is mindboggling.

of greater concern is that the fossilised remains of plant and animal species in the same ash layer are almost identical to the plant and animal species living in the same region today, some 3.5 million years later. but these plants and animals are now becoming extinct because of what current hominids are doing to the planet. sapiens sapiens? i don't think so. have we got any idea of what we're getting ourselves into?

we arrived back in arusha, and so concluded our tanzanian experience. it was time for the next adventure: kenya.

.

pic 1 - phuong gawking out of the gawking wagon

pics 2,3,6,7,8, 10, 14, 15, 16 - animals animals animals!

pic 4 - wildebeast all the way to the horizon

pic 5 - the team on the ngorongoro crater - cosmos, phuong, yusuf, zdenek and ondrej

pic 9 - the land of endless space

pic 11 - the wildebeast migration

pic 12 - the sign says it all

pic 13 - serengeti sunset

no hurry in africa

Did you hear the one about the narcissist with the sore hip and the fat asthmatic who tried to climb mt kilimanjaro? if not, read on, but be warned: liki kili itself, this entry will be huge.

at 5896 metres, mt kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in africa, the highest free-standing mountain on earth, one of the largest volcanoes in the world, and P+O's next super-adventure :)

the interim period between zanzibar (which is derived from the arabic meaning 'land of the blacks' would you believe) was a circus: a nauseating flight in which the plane seemed to be gradually spinning counter-clockwise at all times, an endless bus-ride from no-where to no-where that provided the definition of 'are we there yet', a pre-booked hostel room that was given away to someone else, and an emergency stay in the wrong part of town where one of the drunken and drug-fucked staff snuck up from behind and gave my tits a damn good squeeze.

day one - we were picked up from the crack den by the tour company and taken to their office, where we handed over vast sums of american dollars and hired some things we didn't have - most importantly waterproof, down-feather jackets for the sub-zero nights and summit climb.

after registering at the national parks office, we drove around to the north east side of the mountain to begin our trek from a town called rongai. this route is less popular and slightly more difficult, but covers more of the mountain. we decided to climb over 7 days (rather than 6 or even 5) to maximise our chances of making it to the top without getting acute mountain sickness, and just to take it easy and have a great experience. by the time everything was organised and we had arrived in rongai, it was almost 4pm. it started pouring with rain about 10 minutes before we began our hike.

phuong was the first to discover that our water-proof, feather jackets not only didn't contain a single feather, but actually absorbed every fat, african rain drop that hit its surface. 20 minutes later he stood in his swollen red coat with water pouring out of the sleeves looking like something…untoward. not to mention very unimpressed.

that night, after wringing out out socks and undies, we crawled into wet sleeping bags for a well-deserved first night's sleep.

day one fact - our climbing party consisted of 11 people - P+O, our guide merdardi, and eight porters. it seems like an excessive number of people, but it turns out that it's absolutely standard.

day two - our things dried completely (even shoes!) as we lay them out in the african sun. we ascended to 2nd cave @ 3200m. it rained all afternoon.

day two fact - we ate like kings! no dried apricots or 2-minute noodles on this trip. we had hot porridge, sausage and scrambled eggs from breakfast, fish and chip lunches and dinners of spaghetti bolognese and beef stew, all the way up and down. and all cooked fresh - no wonder we needed 8 porters.

day three - we ascended to 3rd cave @ 3800 metres and went on an acclimatisation hike to 4750m. it started raining just after we got back. every day took us closer to the snow-capped crater of mt kilimanjaro, which we could always see ahead of us, and away from the vast, lush east african plains below.

day three fact - december 2006 had the first major snowfall on kili in 5 years. before that, there was no snow except inside the crater. we were very lucky!

day four was a foggy acclimatisation day in which we got up early to watch sunrise from a nearby rocky outcropping. it was majestic. upon our return an hour or two later, we found that a strange silence had descended over the camp. people refused to make eye contact and our guide was in tears, sitting on a bench staring into the middle distance. we were taken aside and informed that we had been naughty little boys and shouldn't have run away all by ourselves. there were hush tones, sideways glances and discussion about being eaten by lions, falling down cliffs and calling in a search party. everyone was disappointed. phuong felt really bad and i felt bored and hungry. we went on a quick acclimatisation hike before it rained in the afternoon.

day four fact one - our guide was a slimey little bastard who provided the absolute minimum of services, didn't answer any of our questions and was unavailable most evenings because he was passed out in his tent either stoned or drunk (unconfirmed, but high index of suspicion).

day four fact two - phuong and i spent most rainy evenings in the tent chatting and playing cards. unfortunately, we were both struck down at an early stage by quite severe symptoms of altitudinus polymegafartinus, a rare condition in which the decreased atmospheric air pressure causes a compensatory and exponential increase in intestinal gas volume. this led to a disturbingly frequent number of harrowing olfactory near death experiences.

day five we ascended to kibo hut at 4700m - the 'base camp' for kilimanjaro. the plan was to get there early, eat early and sleep immediately so as to wake up fresh at 11:30pm for a midnight start to the summit. the getting there and eating part was fine, but our tent was generously placed right next to the only drop toilet in the whole camp, and for some reason sleep was not forthcoming. we talked to half a dozen people at the camp who had attempted the climb. only one had made it to the top! 2 hours before getting up, we finally slept.

day five fact. acute mountain sickness can strike above 2700m, but is especially prevalent above 3500m. at almost 6km above sea level, kili is a big-time danger zone. mild symptoms include nausea and vomiting, headaches, insomnia and muscle pain. more severe presentations include pulmonary oedema (in which you feel breathless at rest, your lungs fill with fluid and blood which you then cough up and die) and cerebral oedema (in which your brain swells, you become odd or psychotic, lose balance, go into a coma and die).

*phuong would like mention at this point that his job of monitoring my mental state for signs of cerebral oedema were made virtually impossible because 'it was unclear if signs of brain damage were new or had in fact existed since birth', and i would like to mention that my job of checking for signs of pulmonary oedema in phuong were equally hard because if you're carrying around all that extra weight, why wouldn't you be breathless?

day five quote of the week - at one point phuong asked our favourite porter sistus whether we could have some more water. he took our bottles and was going to get some when phuong called out 'but sistus, no hurry!'. sistus paused, turned around, and with a smirk on his face said "...no hurry in africa'. we loved it.


day six - the day of the ascent.

after 2 hours of fitful sleep, we woke up breathless with excitement. we joined our guide and an assistant guide for the long trek to the top. officially, it's a 6 hour trek to gillman's point - the part of the crater directly above kibo hut camp, where one might see the sun rise just after 6am, and then a further 2 hours around the crater rim to uhuru (freedom) peak - the highest point in africa.

not everyone reaches uhuru peak, and only a fraction of those who do reach it by sunrise. but i am proud to say that among those who did reach it by sunrise were two proud and excited australian doctors, crying and hugging and celebrating in the morning sunlight on africa's highest piece of land! special mention must be made of phuong, who had no previous climbing experience, battled with fatness the whole way up the mountain, but just kept going and going and going, and showed more determination than any other person in the whole world! (gush!)

imagine this – above you, an atmosphereless sky burns with the visible light of every single star in the hemiuniverse. you can’t feel your feet, your hands, your face, as the cold is so intense, and is whipped by winds so strong that it threatens to freeze your very core. but then: the african sun bleeds into the sky, and your surroundings take shape: an enormous blue glacier clinging to the mountain on one side, the massive snow-filled crater of the dormant volcano on the other, and looking down from the single highest point in the whole continent, the vast green african plains stretching to the horizon in all directions. that our hearts and minds did not explode with emotion!

the way back along the crater rim was a paradise, but the descent was a nightmare – the slope down was so steep, and consisted almost entirely of slate-grey volcanic dirt, that we slid, ran and telemarked our way down in a hideous simulacrum of agony. when we reached our tent, the hike wasn’t over – we had to pack our things and walk a further 6 hours to a lower camp.

we were tired when we finally reached that night’s base, but after climbing through the night to almost 6000m and back down for (15 hours’ walk on only 2 hours sleep), we were remarkably full of energy. in fact we were firing with both engines.

day six fact – we actually reached the peak just after 5am – and were the first people on the mountain to do so! our guide tried to force us back down the mountain, but we didn’t come all the way from australia, risk freezing to death (with wind chill it would have been at least –20 degrees celcius on the top), and actually reach the top only to watch the sun rise at some irrelevant place on the way back down. our collective foot came well and truly down.

day seven – the last day we made the quick walk to the end, celebrated with a few beers with our team, and made our way back home. we only had one evening before we started safari, so we spent hours scrubbing all the clothes we owned (before walking around the corner and discovering the washing machine), and relishing our only shower in 2 weeks. it was time for the next adventure: safari.

pic 1 - the terrible two: P+O on the climb

pic 2 - setting up camp on day 1

pic 3 - breakfast in the shadow of kili

pic 4 - ready to set off day two

pic 5 - dawn musings on the slopes of kilimanjaro

pic 6 - the way up

pic 7 - food glorious food!

pic 8 - doxy sandwich

pic 9 - moonscape in the alpine desert below the peak

pic 10 - view towards mawenza peak (kili's second peak) from the base of the crater

pic 11 - P+O just before midnight on the day of the ascent - excited!

pic 12 - P+O, merdadi and lyimo at uhuru peak

pic 13 +14 - views from uhuru at sunrise

pic 15 + 17 - the glaciers

pic 16 - the crater rim

pic 18 - the way down

pic 19 - group shot of our climbing team

pic 20 - this is it: the moment of glory - 5:12am on 23rd january 2007 - phuong and ondrej arrive first at the highest point in africa - uhuru peak