Asia

  ASIA, Thailand
Thursday, June 14, 2007

  So the Asia leg of our trip is coming to an end, we are currently in thailand and will head to australia on Monday 18th. We have had a great time so far, and its really hard to belive that we are only gone just over 2 weeks- we have been to 5 different countries in that time,and our carbon footprint is such that we will be planting trees for months after we get back...

Note: if you are short on time, scroll down to Barrys cliff notes- otherwise, read on!

We started out in Hong Kong, a great city, but unfortunately we only got to expericence it for about 23 hours. It was a great start to the trip in the sense that it is a city that caters really well for tourists and ex pats, it was so easy making our way around, everything was so efficient, the streets were spotlessly clean and really safe. But the heat! Wowza! We thought because it was an island there would be a grand oul breeze around the place to cool us down. Not the case, our walks around the city were delayed by impromptu stops outside department stores to steal their cold air for a few minutes. It was a short but sweet experience, and definitely worth seeing again, if only for the skyline which resembles a colourful manhattan.
We flew out of hong kong at 3am, the only flight out of the airport that night, so it was really just us and a lonely janitor in the airport. Man, were those floors buffed to perfection!

Our next stop was Beijing which is a really interesting clash between old and new, on one side of the street there are fancy new shopping malls with starbucks, kfc and even oasis, and on the other side there is the old beijing with the communist grey buildings and the massive high rise delapidated apartments.The city is so crowded, so many people and so many bikes! If there are 9 million bicycles in beijing, then we nearly hit every single one of them in our various taxi rides. Neither the cars nor the bikes pay much attention to traffic lights and so there will be hundreds of bikes weaving their way through hundreds of cars, and apparently its very skilfully done, they just all do it very slowly. But despite all those bikes, there is a huge pollution problem in the city. it is hardly possible to see 10 feet in front of you, the smog in the city is really bad, so if there is a beijing skyline, we didn't see it! On our first full day we went to tien'man square, the forbidden city and to Beijing Zoo. We had walked from our hotel to tien'man square (about 45 minutes) and every time we stopped to look at our map or looked like hapless tourists, somebody came over to ask us if we needed any help, including a guy who was fascinated by Ireland and the clean air and high salaries. He asked us to tell him what 'thank you' and 'goodbye' were in Irish (it was a struggle..), and it was amazing to think in a country the size of china, so far away from Ireland, that some guy knew about ireland and its language. Tien'man Square was interesting, although the student bloke and the guy in the tank must have been off that day... There are really too many tourists on the square (of which we were two of course) to get a real sense of how monumental the place is. There are very impressive sculptures however, all depicting the communist struggle and how Chairman Mao was the saviour of everything. This guy seemed pretty egotistical, his face was all over the square and indeed all over the city.

Beijing Zoo was depressing, it's an old, run down zoo that has seen better days. All the animals, especially the pandas look stoned and all of them were asleep while we were there. The elephants were the worst. 3 beautiful elephants in this enclosure that consisted of a big grey building and a couple of balding trees. Actually, the most interesting experience in the zoo was when barry dropped a peanut off the top of his cornetto. Within minutes, an army of ants had assembled to carry the peanut off to their ant hut. To watch them was fascinating, they were so strong, and so resourceful!

The following day we took a trip to the ming tombs and to the piece de la resistance, the great wall. We had a guide for the day who gave us a really good insight into chinese culture. There has been a one child rule in china since 1979, and if families want to have more than one child they have to pay for them. Most families want their one child to be a boy, and as a result there are orphanages all over china full of unwanted girls. The other problem is that there are way more boys for every girl which means that lots of men will end up alone unless they reintroduce polygamy- for women! Also china has similar housing issues to dublin, and land is at a premium, resuling very often in 3 generations of family living in one apartment in beijing just for the location. Apparently in China, when a women is looking to marry, she doesn't look for a fiancee that she can get on with, but a mother in law. Mwah hah hah.
The great wall was a great experience, but do your stretches before you attempt it! The weather was quite bad that day, so the views werent great, but to climb it in really hot weather would have been unbearable. When we first looked at the wall from the ground, it looked so steep, and windy, as in those building it didn't take the most direct route from point a to point b but followed the edge of the mountain. Anyway, up we went alog with thousands of other tourists all clad with massive umbrellas and ridiculous latex raincoats. The steps are really uneven, and im sure accidents must happen regularly, especially as there were some very senior folk climbing the wall, and a few glam russian ladies in miniskirts and high heels. Back to the hotel later that day via a jade factory, a tea making ceremony and some brass type factory, where we were given the hard sell in each place to buy jade, tea and brass. We didn't bite- we were saving our money for tsing tao beer!!!

After Beijing we flew to Tokyo, another great city, full of clean living law abiding citizens. Smoking on the street is frowned upon in Tokyo, not for health reasons but to reduce litter. Smoking is restricted to 'smoking stations' outside train stations and shopping areas. Like Hong Kong, Tokyo feels so safe, bikes unlocked all over the city, cool kids walking around with their Louis Vuitton wallets hanging out of their back pockets.. (Barry left his wallet in the bathroom of Tokyu department store and it was still there when he went back for it 20 minutes later). Everything is done in glorious Technicolor and in cartoon form where possible. Of course Japan is the home of Hello Kitty, and we were greeted by her at the airport in a kimono with a little umbrella. So cute! We went to Shibakoen which is where all the cool kids hang out and the home of massive cross roads where the Killers video for 'Read my mind' was shot. The shops here were something else, and the fashion- the Tokyo chicks really dress up for Saturday afternoon shopping! City shorts, over the knee socks and high heels, and the boys; big hair, tight jeans and waistcoats. However, after the magnitude of the Great wall and the Ming tombs, we felt a little deflated in Tokyo (awwwww) it's a great city, but there really isn't that much to do apart from eat, drink and be merry. Tokyo tower is a remake of the Eiffel Tower and that is fun, and there are lots of temples and lovely parks, but it's a city break type of place, and a great place to go shopping etc, but malhereusement we had neither the rucksack space nor the cash to do so.

Abbey Road Tokyo Drift!

Eva and some girl in Green t-shirt!

Famous Crossroads

Bangkok the following day- I am probably not qualified to comment on the city, because I really didn't explore it very much, Bangkok was a sensory overload, the smell, the heat, the noise- and not in a good way. It was impossible to walk anywhere without being hassled by somebody and to me was such a strange experience. The airport is covered with pictures of the king and queen, everybody wears these yellow t shirts with pictures of the palace on it, and there seems to be a real respect(or fear) for the monarchy and religion (temples EVERYWHERE!) So much so that you tube and other file sharing websites are banned in Thailand because people posted anti monarchist files on them. So why does the place feel so dodgy? And seedy? PHOTO_ID_L=snc10281.jpg]

Bangkok Man

Bangkok View

A big thing which I noticed in Asia was the prominence of 'whitening' beauty products. All the cosmetics companies have whitening skin creams and make up which claim to reduce melanin. Michael Jackson would make a killing here with whatever he has goin' on. I thought it was really sad, but I guess it's the exact same as us wanting to be bronzed and beautiful. The grass is always greener....

In Koh Samui now and really not much to say other than it is hot, the beaches are nice, and Chaweng, the main beach on the island is the best example of the wests destruction of the east that I have seen. Chaweng has Boots, KFC, Starbucks... It has men carrying eagles and chimps and charging tourists to have their picture taken with them, the resort was never intended to have so many people on it so the sewerage is pretty bad, its just nasty. There are much nicer parts of the island, and probably much nicer islands too...

ko Samui View

One final story is that of Barry and the coconut. a mythical tale of a man wrestling fruit. A load of coconuts fell of the back of a truck (no, really) and Barry insisted on bringing one home. After many hours and copious tools he managed to prise it open to get the milk. bleugh, waay to much work for very little return, but still, Barry enjoyed it- he is man. He break coconut.



PS apologies for any spelling mistakes.


BARRY's Cliff Notes:....If you're short on time!

Hong Kong. Asian New york. But nice mix of old china and new world. Very nice and worth a visit.Hong Kong Harbour very cool. Hot!

Beijing. Loads of people, loads of bikes, Eva was like a celebrity with all the Chinese tourists taking her photo. V Funny. Tianamen square and forbidden city are very cool. The most polluted city I have ever been to, it is is disgusting. I hope they are ready for the Olympics as they are far from it now!

The Great Wall.... Brilliant and an ambition to have walked on it. Very very well worth doing. I lost all the photos of that day..Stupid camera! Also did ming tombs that day. Very intresting.

Tokyo. Lovely city, very clean and modern. All teenagers dress like Russell Brand. Mad! I had high expectations of how cool Tokyo would be but it is very much a american photocopy, shame it does not exude more of the culture that it has.


Bangkok.. Dirty and smelly.. Quite exilirating to walk around though, you could be in any decade in parts and in others you could be in the future, mad place. Stinks and won't be back!


Ko Samui/Ko Tao. Holiday Islands..Blah Blah,, HOTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Going Scuba diving tommorrow.!

miss you all xxxxx keep in touch!