On the night train

The hectic travelling starts again. First a train out of Hong Kong back into mainland China and back to the hell hole of Guanzhou. It was so humid there and we had to spend most of it on the dirty streets before heading to the train station once again. We had spoiled ourselves in Hong Kong so we had to start pinching pennies again to make sure we would survive the rest of the trip.



So in an effort to save a few bob we got a third class ticket bound for Nanning. These tickets are not given to "westerners" so we had to get a Chinese man to buy them for us. It was an overnight train and all we had were seat tickets. Not too bad you might think...but there is a reason why the tickets are not sold to westerners. These carriages are packed to the gills with people, smelly, dark, damp and pretty dangerous. There were standing tickets too for the people who couldn't afford to sit for 12 hours. The conditions were appauling. We had to tie our bags around ourselves and we had to take turns to sleep as even if we looked away there were hands pulling at our gear.



People got drunk as the night went on and thats when the fights started. There were people shouting and pointing at us. We stayed together. We tried to ignore them. I couldn't. I just wanted to scream...FxxK OFF!!!!!!. But I knew that it would make no difference. The pointing and shouting turned to poking and shouting. I lost it. I will not repeat what I shouted and probably would be locked up if i did. But after my rant things seemed to quieten up. I had beaten China.....for now!

1st September: Hong Kong Sing Song

I woke up feeling like I was sleeping in a shoebox. But it felt great. Knowing that a good breakfast was soon to pass my lips. I think this is what Muslims must feel like at the Iftar as their fast is broken. The difference was that I hadn't had a fry in over a month! We almost skipped down to Delaney's Irish pub with it's sign outside:

Full Irish Breakfast $99.

The price didn't matter at this stage. I wanted to fill my belly with sausages, rashers, bread and orange juice and all washed down with an extra cold pint of Guinness, well, I am on holidays afterall!

We could barely move after the feast and trundled down the road towards the water. The ferry over to Hong Kong island would have been nice but for all of us fearing of our breakfast reappearing like Jesus did, only this would have been less of a miracle. We fell in love with Hong Kong island. I don't know if it was purely the fact that we hadn't experienced consumerism for a month or the fact that it sparkled like a new penny. We hopped on the tram up to the top of Victoria peak to get a view of the place and were in awe at the cities skyline. Very impressive.

We took a walk around the top of the hill and each of us picked out which mansion best suited our personalities. My one had a pool, a wine rack, a cheese board and a modelling agency! I didn't take a photo.Then it was time to go to the pub. It was the first real session we had been on for a good while.......and it was great. Good food and good beer. There was dancing and singing and jumping and shouting and whispering loudly and even a drinking competition. I was the first to enter and won my round hands down. This is me warming up Richard for his round. Poor Richard got a raw deal though as he had to drink through a straw. As you can see I'm a bit merry here.

When we eventually left the pub we had to get the boat back across the harbour but it broke down half way bobbing in the water for half an hour and for the second time that day we felt like throwing up all over the boat. Once again had all been self inflicted.

I don't remember falling asleep.