Quick escape to China...

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  Hong Kong, China
Saturday, March 6, 2004

So our second to last day in Delhi was enough to convince us we needed a little break from India... We decided to walk to Old Delhi from our hotel in Paharganj; an easy 2 km stroll to see the famous Red Fort and the enormous Friday Mosque and soak up the general bedlam of the city's older part. Halfway there, while searching for a street to take us across the train tracks (some foreshadowing here: we were trying to go to the OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS. Insert Music of Impending Doom...), we were accosted by a group of five or six young boys, maybe 8 or 9 years old, who tried to pickpocket us. Phil removed one of the more industrious hands from his back pocket and said, "No! Stop it!" in his best firm parental voice. They responded by throwing rocks at us. Fortunately, there was no future major league pitcher in the bunch; they hit us, but missed all the kill zones, and they also hit the Indian man walking in front of us, who then turned around and started after them. We retreated, a little shaken, to the relative safety of Paharganj, which has it's share of furtive walk-by gropers, but no rock attacks

Hong Kong street

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Fortunately, our actual last day was much better. We ate at our favorite hole-in-the-wall in Connaught Place, stocked up at Wenger's bakery on treats, and drank our weight (and more) in masala tea. By the time we got to the airport, a little after midnight, we were in blissful food comas, and waved a contented goodbye to India.
Part of our plan was a 24-hour layover in Bangkok so that we could stock up on supplies that are more expensive in China (like, pretty much everything), visit May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurant again, and just have a day of a well-known city before we started our China adventure. The best made plans so often go awry... Everything was fine until I pulled a Mr. Bean-style fall after we had checked in to our hotel: I slipped in a public (gross!gross!gross!) bathroom, feet up in the air, and landed with my back ON THE SQUAT TOILET! As I lay there, bathroom-floor-water oozing through my clothes, I was thinking, "Ok, Sarah, time to stand up. You need to STAND UP! GET OF THIS NASTY FLOOR! YOU'RE LYING IN A SQUAT TOILET, FOR GOD'S SAKE!" After a couple of other more motivational phrases, I peeled my soaked self off the floor, limped, Igor-like, to the table where Phil was eating his spicy Thai chicken gut-burner breakfast, and said,"I fell in the bathroom. I think I'm kind of wet." This turned out to be an understatement. My first impulse was to burn the clothes, until I remembered that I only have two pairs of everything, and bathroom-water-saturated clothes are still more socially appropriate than naked, even on Khao San Road.
We still got through our "To Do" list in Bangkok, but I spent the whole day complaining...I mean, frequently informing Phil of my rib pain, so he spent the whole day trying to make me laugh as much as possible. He's a cruel, cruel man. But his punishment has just begun: now that I know that the rib is broken (confirmed after consulting the imminently accessible Dr Rob West while in Hong Kong), I get to complain for another three to six weeks. I choose six. Poor poor Phil.
Hong Kong is like a shinier version of Singapore. It's just one huge shopping extravaganza, which is great if you're rich, but when $20 gets a hotel room the size of an apartment closet, you find yourself wishing for the budget paradise of Thailand (it wasn't quite small enough to make me nostalgic for India...not yet). Phil and I had to take turns going into the room wearing our packs, because we didn't both fit. In real estate language it was definitely cozy, but it had a monsoon-strength hot shower and a TV with an English language station (showing a marathon of "Boston Public" reruns. Hey, it was in English. We were grateful.). The contrast with India was dazzling. The shocking cost of living increase means Hong Kong has insanely clean streets and breathable air, the people stand in actual lines to obtain their fixed-price goods and services (a relief: I am the world's worst bargainer, and somehow end up paying double the original asking price; what can I say? It's a gift), and the only "beggar" we saw was playing his violin for spare change. The downside is, of course, that there is no visible culture in Hong Kong. I mean, the signs are in Chinese (and English, almost everywhere) and the food is Chinese, but it has a very sterile shiny-mall-feel to the whole area. Even Hong Kong Island, which used to house the infamous red-light district in the 1940's and 50's, has been razed and rebuilt into chrome and glass highrises and shopping areas. And everything is connected by above-street walkways, so you don't even have to touch ground. We only stayed long enough to get our visas for China.
Our first stop in China: Guangzhou...

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