Archive for May, 2008
Do you remember the first time you had your heart broken? I remember mine. It happened in Dublin in 1999 but like an idiot I didn’t learn from my mistakes and I went back for more and more. There were so many broken promises and so much unfulfilled potential. Years pass by, my heart mends and indeed breaks again a few times along the way and now once again with hope in my heart I go running back into the arms of George Lucas. I wish I could tell you that I’m done, it’s over and I’ll never be caught again. I can’t. I know, I just know as soon as I see a trailer for the Star Wars TV show that I’ll be excited. I just know that when the next Indiana Jones trailer comes along (though of course it’ll be a Shia LaBeouf movie with a two minute cameo by Ford) and they play the music, I know that I’ll be looking forward to seeing it.
Some things you just can’t learn. George Lucas has learnt how to make good trailers, trailers that promise so much (Darth Maul! Duel of the Fates!) and yet delivers so little. I was wary of Indy but the trailer wasn’t bad and the word of mouth wasn’t too bad though to be fair with the V down and the limited net access I hadn’t got much to go on. There were some good moments of course but as soon as you see that first prairie dog, you just know that something is going to go wrong. I gave up at the Tarzan scene. That was when I knew there was no hope for the rest of the movie. I didn’t actually think it could get worse but that George, he’s always got something else for us!
Alex dropped me a line on tipping in China which basically said don’t, it’s really not a tipping culture and it was just stupid Americans that tip. Makes sense really and fits in with everything I saw. I was going to send her back a quick mail but it turned into a rant and so I thought you could all enjoy it!
FUCKING AMERICANS!
I hate hate hate American tourists. They are the reason that you cannot walk down streets without people coming up and trying to sell you anything from bananas to rolex’s or full suits. When the fifty billionth random guy came up to me on the street declaring that he was a tailor, he looked somewhat taken aback when I replied “congratulations you are a tailor now fuck off”. That was the point I decided it was time for headphones and the ignoring of people. I astounded that people who jump in front of me as I walk down the street and offer me cards or pamphlets or try to talk to me think that I’m going to slow down and pay attention to them. Most of them realise it’s a lost cause and move out of the way quickly but a few of them get the shoulder.
I don’t normally go down the street walking into people but I do think that anyone jumping into my way is fair game.
Of course the fucking Americans stop to talk to every one of them! “I’m sure you have nice suits sir, but not today thank you” or perhaps even “ohh yes I’d love a suit sir, can we go to your shop?” What on earth makes anyone see a guy standing on the street and thrusting a business card at passerbys is going to make you a quality suit? I say again, fucking Americans.
Ignore them, keep walking. Don’t take their card, don’t look at their wares, do not collect $200, just keep going. Then perhaps in a short time it might be safe for tourists to walk the streets unmolested!
Alright rant over.
Rewinding…
So a bus from Yangshou to Guilin station and then an overnight train to Shenzen. That was all fine. It was a quiet enough train ride. I did some reading and slept more than I thought. Once we got there it was a fairly simple process to follow signs to Hong Kong and through border control. I still get a kick out of doing that. I’m not sure how Hong Kong/China really works here but as I needed my passport and I got a new stamp, I’m going to consider this a new country and thus it is number 7 on this trip. Hurrah! Train into the city centre and then taxi to the hotel.
It’s mainly good, the beds are not really beds, at least they don’t feel like it. It’s something like a plank of wood with a sheet over it but it’s somewhere to sleep I guess. Yesterday afternoon I just wandered. I picked up some books as I mentioned and importantly I got my Lonely Planet Australia so I have some reading to do before next week to help me decide on my first stop off.
But back to Hong Kong. The light show is alright, it’s worth seeing simply because it’s a great viewing spot for seeing the skyline over the water front, that’s impressive. It’s enough that I’m thinking about buying a tripod for some photos. Really really photogenic stuff. The ferry across is pretty sweet. It’s nothing special, it’s a commuter ferry, but it’s just nice to do. The central travelator thingy is odd, none of the walk is that tough and it just screams laziness though it can bring you from pub to pub I guess.
I did find an Irish pub, actually I lie. I walked past it without noticing. It’s a very small door leading to a basement and I was distracted by tailors! Anyway it was pointed out to me afterwards and I headed there today for a decent pint and a pretty good lunch. I’ve had more than one person recommend Delaneys so I’ll check that out over the next few days.
Christie, one of the girls from the trip is staying on here for another week or so too. Tomorrow we are heading for lunch somewhere around Central and then going to check out the Peak. I don’t hold out much hope for photos given the weather but I shall lug the camera kit anyway. I did manage to get my DVD burner working again, or more so I think that my Mac just didn’t like the local (shitty?) quality DVD’s I had been using. I found a proper computer shop and got a pack of TDK and of course they worked fine first time. So good to get some photos backed up.
I am reading John Connolly’s latest; The Reapers. Angel and Louis take centre stage and well it’s just not working too well. I’m about two thirds of the way through and well it’s more of your standard crime book than the darker (gothic?) crime I expect from Connolly. It’s not bad, it’s just not all that good which is a shame. I was hugely excited to find a new Alastair Reynolds House of Suns on the shelf. I had no idea he had a new book coming out. I’m looking forward to getting into that.
Also nice to grab the latest issue of Wired in the week it came out and I was amazed to see an issue of JPG there so I grabbed that too. Leading nicely onto cameras. I have never seen so many old cameras. There are dozen’s of camera shops around and they must do a roaring second hand business. I’m avoiding going into any of them but there is great window shopping to be done!
I’ve been staring at the page for a while now. I’m flicking between windows and doing some stuff and well that appears to be the lot for this evening.
00.04 Hong Kong, China Friday May 30th.
I am alive and well and in Hong Kong. I have about a week here so I’m very much going into downtime mode.
I may have bought way too many books yesterday (new Alastair Reynolds!!!) and I’m going to spend some time reading and relaxing. Nice to have full net access back and to be able to get newspapers and things like that. Also food, lovely lovely food.
First impressions of HK are very favourable but I shall get to all of that in due course.
It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m sat in a bar overlooking the Western street of err somewhere in Gulin in China. The beer (Li Quan #7) is bad but the view is good. I’m at the corner table so I have a decent enough view. I have my 200mm lens on with the intent of taking some people shots but of course I just feel skeevy and so I thought I’d update instead.
Yesterday was a travelling day. We set off at 08.30 and drove for around four and a half hours to get to a train station. Then we took an overnight train to Gulin where we arrived around 05.00. Then it was onto a bus to wherever we are now and a short walk before getting to our hotel around 06.30. So a long day but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I had my DS to keep me going and then on the train I settled down and watched the season 4 finale of Boston Legal which was pretty good and nicely self-aware before watching a bootleg of Vantage Point. It was okay, mainly saved by the cast but of course being a high quality bootleg it was missing two minutes towards the end. Then I slept for most of the night though by the time we reached the hotel I was only fit for bed and slept till 11.30.
A comfortable hour getting up and having a shower and then asking the hotel to pretty much wash everything I own then found me wandering the streets looking for some food. Along the river I found a little cafe that promised sandwiches. I had been considering killing just for a bacon sandwich over the past few days so I had to check it out. Even better they had a full breakfast menu and all thoughts of a sandwich went out of my head when they offered me scrambled eggs and toast. The eggs were okay but combined with a double helping of toast they became glorious and all was well again in Daveland.
I’ve seen more Westerners here in Guilin today than I have on the entire trip. I think it’s fairly close (in China context) to Shanghai and Hong Kong and so easier to get to. It’s kinda got a riverea feel to it too.
I’m very much looking forward to Hong Kong and Australia for the food. I like Chinese and I’ve had some great meals here but after three months of rice and almost nothing else I’m getting pretty sick of it. A proper burger and chips would go down like a house on fire. Nearly there I guess!
Backing up another couple of days I forget to mention some more about the boat cruise. The Three Gorges were less than impressive. I very much enjoyed the cruise and the downtime and the easy going that came with it but the gorges weren’t really all that much. Not so bad but just nothing jaw-dropping. The Three Gorges Dam on the otherhand should have been jaw-dropping. It’s one of the greatest engineering feats of modern man and looks to be a site to behold. However that assumes that that part of China is not permanently covered by low lying mist…which it is. So what should have been around a 2.5 hour tour around the dam was over and done in around an hour and we saw maybe 100 meters of the dam. Massively disappointing. A few bits around it, the 5 stage locks, the under construction ship elevator, the core samples and all that were impressive enough but without the dam it wasn’t great. It didn’t help that it was raining down too. So I can say that I have been to the Three Gorges Dam but I cannot say that I have seen it which is a shame.
It didn’t help that the group were, for the most part, moaning constantly and staying the bus and just complain complain complain. I nearly lost it at more than one point before I went off on my own. Yes it’s raining and yes it’s misty and yes you can’t see very much but you can still see *something* and to come all this way and to be there at the site of such an achievement and not to take to the chance to see what little you can just pissed me off no end. I’d love for it to have been a clear day and I’d love to have been able to take hundreds of photos but shit happens and you just need to make the best of it!
Then we did the local village with the boat trackers. This was about a 3k ride up and down a tributary of the Yangtzee using tradiatoonla methods which involve the crew getting out and pulling the boat along with a bamboo rope. It was okay.
Now to move on to some moaning of my own. This may take a while, I have a list!
I honestly don’t know what I’ve spent my money on for this trip (earthquake aside!). The trip cost around about 1200 sterling for just over 3 weeks and I’m really not feeling value for money. I just can’t tell what the money has gone on. Looking at the price of train tickets (around 15) and the price of entrance fees (at most 8) and having each hotel displaying the cost of the room (20-30 for two people!), I just don’t know where the money has gone. What little private transport we have had I suspect has been pittance and certainly public transport is next to nothing (14p flat fare for bus rides). Above all that, the tour has been hard work. It really doesn’t feel like it would have been much more of a stretch to just have done it myself. The only impact I can see is that I’d have eaten in mainly McDonalds and KFC and the like for most of the trip as ordering food is a significant hassle. I think that once here I could have done it, and done it better, for half the price. It’s annoying.
Tipping. I still have no fucking idea how it works here. Intrepid have a new policy not to run one in China. Apparently there has been a low quality in the local guides and so Intrepid found it easier to simply leave it up to everyone in the group to tip if they want. You cannot imagine the confusion this has left when there wasn’t even an explanation as to whether there is a tipping culture or not. I’ve found myself overtipping the times I have tipped and then feeling like I should have tipped on times when I didn’t. It’s really not made life easier for any of us. It would of course not have made more sense to change the local guides, no that wouldn’t have been helpful to anyone!
I really feel like China was awesome for about 2 minutes. The Great Wall and the Terracotta Army and since them, it’s just been hard. That’s not what I want and is the main reason I did it on a tour! I almost feel like I’ll be glad to get out which I hate saying and I hate thinking because it should have been so much more.
I certainly have a lot of feedback for Intrepid once I’m done.
The Chinese are almost uniformly, by my western standards of course!, rude. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had people try and push and shove me out of the way. It’s quite something to feel something try and push you and turn around to find it’s a little grandmother about a third of the size of you and she’s just pushing. I’ve stopped moving. I’m happy for them to push me, they can do what they like. It doesn’t work. I can just stand there and wait my turn and quite simply use my presence to make sure that I’m served next. It’s something to see when two student type fellas try and push past, one on each side and I just put out my elbows and take a step forward. They look up and up some more and then just wait behind me. Man it still pisses me off though and that’s before we even get to the spitting and the starting and all the other things.
Moving along. I was chatting away with our River guide on the boat yesterday and he was saying how they had a unexpected week off once we left the boat. The Chinese government has stopped trips upstream as it’s sailing towards the earthquake area. Makes perfect sense. Also he was telling me that tourism bookings were already down due to the terrorism in Tibet. I’m going to tell you that he’s a smart, well educated young man with a lot of contact with foreigners. I tell you this not so that you can laugh at how in your (perhaps our) western opinion he believes his government and how he sees his people being attacked on the news but because as I have mentioned more than once before, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Equally, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It’s always food for thought.
So all this, along with some other stuff, has reminded me how much I hate people. I could do with some extended time just working to the beat of my own drum and so it’s good that’s coming up.
Now to revive an old tradition, today’s word of the day is: insipid
adjective
lacking flavor : mugs of insipid coffee.
• lacking vigor or interest : many artists continued to churn out insipid, shallow works.
15.48 Guilin China Sunday May 25
Fast forward and the nice Dutchman who owns the Flying Dutchman cafe assures me that today is in fact Tuesday and that I am in Yangshuo in Guilin. I really like it here. It’s a nice middle ground between East and West. That sounds wrong and is very unfair on the place of course but it’s just been nice to get eggs and toast and bacon and other such things. It’s been nice to be able to wander on my own and find that most people have some English or are happy to work with you until both understand. I got my haircut this morning and it’s all good. The shave is a little closer than I liked but I had been thinking about getting rid of the beard anyway. I’ve been thinking that for a while but I won’t. Not for a while longer anyway. It’ll just be short for a while!
Yesterday was a pretty good day. We went for a bike ride, for maybe 10k. That doesn’t sound like much until you remember that it’s over 35 degrees and there is just so much humidity. I was able to wring sweat out of my t-shirt but it was really good. Once we got going there was a nice breeze from the cycling and it worked really well. The only problem was that our guide was either a slow cycler or was more concerned about the back of the group. Those at the front had to stop at every junction and wait for him to catchup or gesture the direction. It wasn’t very good to be honest, I was most unimpressed. It was only when we came back on our loop and we knew that way that we got to break away and do some cycling. I tell you the cold shower after that was pretty damn good.
Then it was time for a night out. We got most of the group out and while it wasn’t all that drunken let me just tell you that we started at 4pm there was sambuca by 9.30. I have no idea what time I left, not that I was too drunk but simply because I don’t bother with a watch that much anymore. I’d say it was around 11ish. The place we are staying is really nice, it’s got the best beds I’ve slept in for a long time. I can never remember but is the bed size between a single and a double, a queen size? It’s one of them anyway and when the a/c has been running for a while and the room actually feels cold it’s been so nice to be in a proper bed with a warm duvet. I’ve slept well here, certainly caught up on some missing sleep!!
Today is the last day here, this evening it’s another overnight train. This time to err Shinjen (something like that) and then straight onto Hong Kong early tomorrow afternoon. Hurrah! I’m looking forward to it, not as much as I was, this place has been good for me but still.
Net access is pretty limited here. I’ve not found a wi-fi connection yet, hence this stream of thought getting longer and longer. Most of the pubs and cafes advertise free internet but this means a single terminal in a corner and the one time I used one, I was so badly firewalled I couldn’t get to anything. So the world is passing me by even further!
I’ve read two books here, both basic crime thrillers. The first one was Greg Illes and I can’t even remember what it was called. It was alright. I won’t rush out to read more of his but it was good airplane reading. The second was a Robert Burke (I think he is?). It was a Spenser novel and I’ve been meaning to read him for a while. I remember when DS9 first started one of the only things that I knew about Avery Brooks was that he had played Hawk in a tv show called Spenser for Hire. I’ve never seen any of it but always kept an eye out. This one was called Potshot and it wasn’t bad. I’m not entirely sold but I’d give another one a try at the least. I had managed to get my bag down in size when I just bought four big books. Oops.
Oh yes I watched Atonement and I enjoyed much more than the book. I hadn’t quite picked up on some of the subtly early in the book but it’s rammed towards you in the movie and adds a little bit. Also I think that the ending of the movie, while the same as the book, works better. It’s done very very well and packs a bigger kick. I’m not going to be hunting down any more of Ian McKewen but I’m glad I had read it before seeing the movie. A rare case where the movie is better than the book!
Now speaking of DVDs. I believe that the fourth Indiana Jones came out on Friday. Being cut off, I have no idea if its any good or what the general sort of consensus is. However last night on the streets here, the DVD seller was offering DVD quality copies. I cannot begin to tell you how tempted I was but tomorrow once we make it to Hong Kong, you better believe I’m off to a cinema. If I had a net connection, I’d have booked tickets already. I’m excited enough by the propsect of another Indy movie (and the trailer promised so much!) but the idea of arrviving in Hong Kong and heading to see it just adds more. I loved Iron Man but you can be sure it was a better all around experience by the simple fact that it was a welcome slice of normal life in the midst of all the travel chaos. I have high hopes for Indy.
So yeah I’m still kinda all over the place about China. I’m going to have to think on it a little more. I feel like saying that I wouldn’t come back but I think that would be really unfair. I dunno, it’s odd. I wonder if there is culture shock at play again. I didn’t really feel it through the past couple of months and indeed the only place that it really hit me before was in Japan a few years ago. I haven’t really thought about it like that and indeed I don’t know what to look for to just say oh it’s culture shock but it’s got to be playing a part. And with that, readers around the world say “doh”.
Still for now it’s killing a few hours. I want to pick up a few more souvenirs. I need to go to the post office later on and getting a package out would be good. Save me carrying more stuff. Then again I should be able to get a lot of it in Hong Kong and nah that’s that.
Neither spell checked nor sanity checked as I’m short on time!
13.15 Yangshou China Tuesday May 27th
I should type stuff and more so run through some email but I’m tired and a little cranky. Tomorrow is over 19 hours travelling so I may get to some email then. I may not. New photos up!
Doug writes in (thank you Doug!) with the following article from the Times Online. Note my added bold!
Aftershocks create panic in China’s earthquake region - May 20, 2008
Chinese television read an urgent notice to the public today not to believe rumours of aftershocks from the earthquake that has killed as many as 70,000 people, in a bid to prevent panic taking hold.
The six-point notice was broadcast by newsreaders on Sichuan Television, after a warning last night of strong aftershocks sent terrified residents rushing from their homes of Chengdu, capital of the province devastated by last week’s massive tremor.
A statement on the provincial government’s website said: “There is a heightened possibility of an aftershock of between 6.0 and 7.0 magnitude on May 19 and 20 in the region of the Wenchuan 8.0 magnitude quake.”
A 5.0-magnitude quake rattled Pingwu county, about 125 kilometres (77 miles) north of Wenchuan county, the epicentre of last week’s earthquake. The aftershock at 1:52 a.m. (1852 GMT) jolted Chengdu residents.
Thousands of residents poured onto the streets of areas near the epicentre and in Chengdu, the provincial capital. Large crowds camped out overnight as far away as Chongqing, 270 kilometres (167 miles) from Chengdu. Chengdu residents carried bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions as they left their homes seeking the safety of open ground.
Giant traffic jams developed as drivers headed toward the suburbs or open spaces such as parks, construction sites and stadiums. It was almost impossible to use mobile telephones as frightened residents deluged the system with calls to relatives.
A middle-aged couple strolling along the riverside said they had deposited their elderly parents in a public bus made available as a place for residents to sleep if they were too afraid to go home. The husband said: “There’s no room for us. So we are just going for a walk. We’ll see later where to sleep.”
On one Chengdu street, a huge line snaked out of a store selling camping gear this morning. Chengdu resident Cheng Wenjun said: “I slept in my car and my family slept in a tent. Those who had tents slept in them and those with cars slept in them.”
The notice from the Seismological Bureau said only county-level government departments were allowed to issue warnings of aftershocks and warned people to ignore any other notices as pure rumour.
It said: “Any ‘prediction’ of an earthquake at a certain time and in a certain place is certainly a rumour. Because currently in the world the level of earthquake prediction is impossible to achieve this kind of accuracy.”
One earthquake expert’s reassurances were broadcast repeatedly today on Sichuan television. He said: “The great Wenchuan earthquake did not cause damage in Chengdu. The difference between magnitude 8.0 and mangnitude 7.0 is 30 times. Since no damage was caused in Chengdu by that earthquake, then nothing is likely to happen from this.”
I just turned on my Airport on the off chance I could pick up a network from the shore and here I am! Hurrah. So:
Alrighty. I know, I know, I keep trying to think of something else to start my posts with but pretty much everytime I sit down that’s all I got.
I’m on the good boat Sissi cruising down the Yanghzee river. How awesome is that? Its been nice for a whole number of reasons. To start with it’s been on a river moving away from the earthquake zone. About the only chance an earthquake has to kill me is if it’s strong enough to break the Three Gorges Dam. Now to be fair from what I understand that’s probably only a 4.something in the right area but that’s neither here nor there (well it’s here but you know what I mean!).
I’m still trying to get my head around the quake warning. Nothing happened (at least nothing that I know of as I type this) but I have never been in a situation where there was actually panic in the streets. I mean really panic in the streets. I was on the tube when the London bombings happened but there wasn’t any sense of panic. There was a degree of British stiff upper lipness but it wasn’t quite the same as a government warning and people just didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t until several hours later and I was caught on the very periphery.
Panic in the streets. I’m not sure it’s something that I understood until now. I could never have imagined in the three cities that I’ve lived in anything happening that would cause the government to warn people to get outside or anything remotely approaching that. It just doesn’t happen. I have nothing to compare it to so while it’s easy to judge reactions by the fact that nothing happened, it’s pretty hard having been on the ground to be anything but glad that I’m not on that ground anymore.
To a degree it’s left me, actually I should say to a small degree as the language barrier here is so extreme and such an extra complication, wondering what I’d do in such an event in my home (where-ever that next be!). And I just don’t know. It’s an alien concept or at least it was. I guess that it makes sense in some way to take some of the, seriously mainly bullshit it must be said, government advice about having a emergency kit happening.
I mean lets face it I was seriously lucky. What was I to do in a situation where I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know how to get there and I can’t speak the language? That’s pretty scary. I was lucky that I was in an expat bar and there were English and Chinese speakers. I was lucky that someone was there to give me a lift to my hotel and I was lucky that I was with a group where I could wake someone to literally be my translator at going on 2am in the morning. Had I been in a Chinese bar without anyone to help and with taxi’s not stopping, what was I to do? It’s a sobering thought.
Now one thing to do back to. On Monday afternoon I was faffing around online. It was 14.37. The reason that I can tell you that so precisely is that I was on BBC News (via a proxy) and I was reading an article about how China had declared three days of official mourning for the victims of the earthquake. It had struck at 14.38 seven days beforehand. I read, at 37 minutes past that there was to be a 3 minute silence at 38 to pay respects.
What I was not expecting was every siren in the city to sound. Every store alarm, every car horn and most of all every boat horn began within seconds and grew to this astounding wall of noise. People stopped, traffic stopped, boats stopped and for a moment the city was both silent and impossibly loud. I later found out the sirens included old air raid sirens. Walls and walls of noise - amazing.
Anyways it’s now Wednesday and the boat is great. Things are going really well. It’s an easy going cruise with a good chunk of free time. We have just spent the afternoon and indeed evening drinking and chatting then I introduced Werewolf to the group and then we ended up playing Dark Murder with the crew. Huge amounts of fun. I usually (and still do) dismiss most silly games out of hand but I’ll admit they can work pretty well in a disparate group of folks who don’t really know each other and most importantly after a couple of drinks.
I’ve also taken the chance to catch up on some more TV. House is always the same but that makes it fairly reliable and Hugh Laurie remains hugely watchable. Battlestar Galactica remains just so uneven that it’s a shame. If it managed to stop having just such brief moments of being really good and keeping the pace up then it could reach the heights that so many folks seem to ascribe.
I finished reading Atonement and it improved significantly. The last half in particular the last quarter reached a whole new level of quality and I enjoyed it. I’m now looking forward to watching the movie at some point. I’ve moved onto a total opposite, Cowl by Neal Asher. I’ve been meaning to read him for a while now and I grabbed this in Dee Dee’s. I’m only about 3 pages in so I have nothing to report just yet.
This morning we went to see the Ghost City which was pretty cool. It’s certainly a good point for China to pull a bit of a recovery on us. It’s pretty churlish to complain about the past week but it’s really put a dampener on my China adventure and I’m hoping the next week or so brings it back up to scratch. At the same time I think it’s pretty safe to say the entire experience will be unforgettable though if not for all the right reasons. It’s all me me me here huh?
23.24 on the Yangtze River Wednesday 21 May
And the next morning arrives. Today we are due to sail through the Three Gorges before going through the lock this evening. There is a trip somewhere this afternoon, a local village I think and then tomorrow morning (I assume) we visit the Three Gorges Dam. That should be quite cool, I’m looking forward to it. In fact I think the whole thing is pretty cool and working well.
I know that we just went through some downtime in Chongqing but it doesn’t really feel like that to any of us. It just wasn’t a nice city and then with the earthquake threat hanging over us, I don’t think that anyone had a good time there at all. So getting out of the city and somewhere that we can sit and read and laze around and play silly games is quite a relief.
It’s raining outside though which isn’t great. When I say raining, it’s more drizzle from the mist. It does mean that I’ve had to take refuge inside to type this up. Then the karaoke started and I’ve had to take refuge in my cabin.
09.48 on the Yangtze River Thursday 22 May
Okay so here we go. We are sheltering in Starbucks. Don’t laugh. It’s the only single story building around, it does not help that Chongqing is built into the side of a cliff.
Rewind to two nights ago. I went and checked out Dee Dee’s bar and had a pretty good night. I met the owner and some expat locals and chatted away till the early hours of the morning. I reported back to the group and so we decided to all head there last night. And so we did. The good was great, it was the nicest burger I have had in years along with a few beers and some all around good company.
Now forward to around 1am and the driver of one of the expat couples gets a text message saying there has been an official government announcemnt that there will be an aftershock of between magnitude 6 and 7 within the next few hours. Around the pub a number of people get this text message and then the cell phone network goes down. After a few minutes of joking around about a hoax or a rumour we go out onto the street to find hundreds of people bedding down outside for the evening. Dee Dee goes and gets her hard hats and survival kit and well at this stage we are onboard with the panic.
No taxi would take me back to my hotel. The two that stopped to let (push) people out said no they had to go home to their famlies. Thankfully a Chinese guy who had been in the bar offered to drive me back. So as an aside that was my first trip in a full size Hummer and it’s bigger than most of the apartments I’ve lived in!!
About 10 minutes later we get to my hotel and by now there are thousands of people on the streets carrying bottled water and setting out sleeping bags. I’m not a happy camper. I go into the hotel and reception just wave blankly. So straight up to my room where Matt was still awake. Explaining the situaton I turned on the TV and the net looking for any sort of real news. No joy at all. Matt goes to see everyone on the street and is slightly coming on board with the fact that something might be happening. After some discussion we decided that we should wake our guide because quite frankly neither of us can speak Chinese and we want some details. So we go to wake her.
On the way we meet that Chinese woman and Matt realises that this isn’t just something small going on, there is a proper panic brewing outside. So we wake Bobo and she’s got nothing. She talks to reception and she looks up the Chinese news and she can’t find anything. So slightly calmed by this and figuring that it was go outside and sleep on the street based on what looked to be rumour or just to sleep and hope for the best.
So we sleep and survive the night just fine. Then the first thing I do in the morning is of course go online to see the news and am greeted with headline news on the BBC about panic after a warning of an earthquake to come. I’m slightly relieved as it means that I didn’t really overreact last night and I’m happier that we woke Bobo. Of course there isn’t much information on the Beeb and there is even less on the English version of Chinese state news and so here we are not knowing what to do.
Well in an hour we leave for the boat where we’ll be crusing down the river through Three Gorges. No net and no phone. Assume the best!