the trail to Ao Nang

I've been in Ton Sai about a week and a half now. The climbing is quite stiff for my abilities and tends toward the overhanging, physical, and pumpy. When not being humbled by the routes, I've taken up slacklining for enjoyment. It took me about three sessions over as many days before I could stand up with my right foot on the line. It then took another few sessions before I could take two steps to return to the right foot on line position. It was actually quite difficult because the first step requires you to balance completely opposite of how you've been accustomed to balancing when you hop on the line with your right foot. Currently I'm up to about six steps or so and can only marvel at the more experienced climbers who can do jump mounts to get on, turn around on the line, walk sideways like a crab, and other stunts.

Ton Sai is situated on a peninsula with a more upscale resort, Railay, the next cove over. Railay is accessible at lowtide by an easy walk around the headland by the sea, or at high tide by two jungle trails. Although both towns are geographically attached to the mainland, they are practically islands as all supplies and persons are ferried by longtail boats. Today I decided to test this isolation by going on a supposed jungle trail from Ton Sai to Ao Nang which has road access and a large assortment of stores and internet cafes. The scramble up from Ton Sai was muddy and rarely attempted as there were several crawl throughs and only one or two old retired climbing ropes tied to a tree and slung along the trail to aid in the ascent. The mosquitos took on plague proportions once I crested the rise and saw the planned resort next to Ao Nang town proper below me. Luckily I'd brought my headnet and a long sleeve shirt: I could stay mosquito free so long as I sweated like a pig in my "Therma-Tech" polypro garb. The scramble down was even more heinous. There were more rope handrails, but the increase in steepness and muddiness made the trail even harder. I did happen across a gibbon-siamang while descending. It was snow white and about 20 meters above me obviously quite perturbed over my materialization. He swung away through the tree tops and out of sight.

Eventually I reached Ao Nang and bought a sliced pineapple for half the going rate in Ton Sai. I'm mulling over trying the jungle trail on the way back or bailing and catching a longtail boat back to Ton Sai. Decisions, decisions...

hello again

The month-long hiatus in postings is over: Thailand doesn't censure blogs! I'm writing from rainy Bangkok after catching an overnight bus from Yangshuo to Macau, and then flying from Macau to Thailand.

Macau was more interesting than Hong Kong: where Hong Kong felt like a wealthy Chinese city with discordant British street names, Macau still had a European legacy in the architecture, street planning, mestizos (those of mixed races), and Portuguese expats. In terms of financial importance, Macau serves as a gambling and sin city destination for China and Hong Kong, and pales in comparison to Hong Kong's financial and business center status. Overall both cities can amuse during a layover or visa run, but I wouldn't recommend them as destinations in and of themselves.

Today I walked around Bangkok. Kho San is as touristy as backpacker areas get: banana pancake stalls everywhere. Walking around Bangkok proved far more interesting and I eventually found my way to Lumphi Park in the heart of Bangkok. I tagged along for a lap with a group of roadrunners doing a marathon along the perimeter of the park and then joined an al fresco complementary aerobics class with a techno beat.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Krabi and the crags at Railay.

The Peak (nee Victoria Peak) and Protests

I hopped on the ferry to Hong Kong Island at around 2 PM today with the intention of climbing Victoria Peak. There's been a "Typhoon Flag 3 Hoisted" since I arrived, so I packed my raincoat and headlamp. At Typoon Level 5 the schools close, Level 8 public transport stops, and at Level 10 you meet your maker. My guidebook naturally didn't have a map depicting the walking route up to Victoria Peak so I borrowed a Lonely Planet from another boarder and attempted to memorize the route.

I got off the 2 HKD Star Ferry from Kowloon and made my way through the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, then through the Zoo and Botanic Gardens, and finally beneath tall pink residential towers before finding a sign clearly labelled "The Peak Walking Path." Apparently "The Peak" is preferred to "Victoria Peak" in the Chinese-controlled political climate. The walk was extremely interesting: it follows a meticulously maintained paved trail with extensive concrete drainage systems to prevent land slides and settling. I was rapidly at eye level with the pink residential towers a few hundred meters distant. The trek went perfectly until I took a wrong turn (another group behind me made the same mistake) and found myself at a green metal bar fence that displayed "Hong Kong Freshwater Treatment." I retraced my steps and found the correct path-road to the peak. I arrived at the "summit" approximately 1.5 hours after leaving the ferry at sea level. The elevation is variosly attributed to be 396 meters in Let's Go or 590 meters in Lonely Planet. The "summit" was actually the depression of a saddle between two true summits approximately 20-30 feet higher than the saddle. Both of these true summits are surrounded by fences enclosing radio towers. I took another path up to the fence where there was a door identifying the radio tower as property of the Hong Kong Police. On top of the welded steel fence was razor wire so closely spaced it may as well have been a cylinder with glinting protusions. I backtracked from this area and found a pleasant park bench to watch the clouds fly around the peak and the mists obscure the container ships. The bench was at the end of a trail that was delineated by another wall of the concrete variety but with only the relativey pedestrian variety of barb wire atop that settled the American West.

It had drizzled on me on the way up, but not to the point of discomfort. While whiling away the time on the bench, it began to pour: the rain came down in sheets and had I no raingear, I'd have been soaked as thoroughly as after a swim within a moment. Just as I was starting on the road back in this tempest, a black Peugeut pulled up alongside of me and offered a ride. I shared the back seat with a girl of about ten while her parents navigated in front. The couple were business people and spoke passable English by way of their dual Hong Kong - Canadian citizenship. The wife worked as a buyer at a Pokemon toy importer. They lived in the New Territories of Hong Kong and had just come to Hong Kong Island for Sunday. Unfortunately the typhoon interfered with their plans to see the expansive view from The Peak. I was quite interested in accepting the ride because I had yet to have any real tete a tete conversations with the locals (and because I'd given up any sense of a clean ascent after being stymied by razor wire fences). I would say the couple represented the upper middle class of Hong Kong: a rarity in that a disproportionate number of the non-taxi cars on the road are Mercedes.

Hong Kong

I arrived in Hong Kong around 11 PM local time and deciced to overnight in the airport as I was uneasy about finding a room at that late hour. I found some comfortable plush chairs in the Departures Area and used my backpack as a footrest to grab maybe an hour or two of fitful sleep underneath the terminal floodlights. I caught the first bus in the morning at 6 AM and made my way to Tsim Sha Tsui where there are cheap accommodations and a plethora of travel companies offering visas and transportation coordination to mailand China. It took me several tries at 7:30 AM to find cheap accommodation, but I eventually settled in at Traveler's Hostel in the Chungking Mansion building complex. I plan to depart Monday to the Shenzen border crossing and then catch an overnight bus to Yangshuo.

So far I've managed to stay up until 1AM after not sleeping in any significant sense for 48 hours. Walking around the streets of Hong Kong is quite an experience and a tourist attraction unto itself. Small shops and street stalls are de riguer. The Chinese eat every animal in creation and leave little for the dogs (which they also eat). If walking around Hong Kong doesn't convince you to become a vegetarian, nothing will: on nearly every street and back alley there'll be a small stall with a bubbling pot of brown liquid and sundry body parts beyond recognition all ready to be served over top of rice noodles. Personally, I've stuck to an Indian stall on the ground floor of Chungking Mansions where I'm staying, fruit, and snack buns.

I went to a night market full of crap (tack as described by my English backpacker acquintances). Carpets, table runners, fake Rolexes, cheap watches, sex toys, bracelets, anklets, novelty lighters that seemed to melt when ignited, T-shirts, skirts, and more were all availble for haggling over. I'm told a good rule of thumb is to offer 25% of the asking price. After watching a few transactions take place I'm convinced that 10% of the asking price is still more than what a local would pay. I've yet to try my hand at this activity as I found not a single item in the entire night market of interest to a backpacker save for perhaps the lighters were they of good quality and lighter fluid. I have however gotten shopkeepers to reduce pre-posted prices by pulling about 1 HKD less than the asking price out of my pocket and claiming this is all I have, thus saving perhaps fifteen American cents.

The half hour of internet I paid for at Traveler's Hostel is coming to an end; cheers and goodbye.

I'm off

Just purchased the final miscellaneous necessities: first aid items, film, and cigarettes for tobacco diplomacy. I'm off!

Final Preparations

Just testing this program. Packing and making crucial obsessive-compulsive decisions: how many tent stakes, slings, carabiners, et cetera.