Amsterdam: Most Sombre Moment

Waiting in the queue for the Anne Frank House, the bells of the church struck the hour, irresistibly reminding us of John Donne’s famous poem:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

And how diminished have we been by the deaths of so many? It was one of those moments when it was easy to feel despair at our frailty, the seeming pointlessness of human endeavour in the face of such evil.

The House is, unsurprisingly, a slightly odd place. To start with, the exterior is a modern box, which is bizarrely incongruous.

The tiny annex rooms still retain an interrupted atmosphere, despite the thousands of tourists who must tramp through them yearly.

But, I didn’t find it a depressing place, despite the horror of their years of incarceration in dark, airless rooms, betrayal and deaths. Despite my rather morbid thoughts in the queue, I came out feeling energised by our potential.

In Anne’s writing, in the pictures pasted to the walls, in the recollections of birthday gifts and dinners, in the fact that people helped them, there is the sense of possibility of the quietly amazing things that humans are capable of if we allow ourselves to be involved in mankind.

Learning to Speak American

flags in Bath Abbey

‘Can I bum a fag off you?’

Note to Brits planning on spending on a lot of time with Americans: this is not a good way of asking if you can purloin a cigarette from someone.

The shock on the fag donor’s face was nothing, though, to the silent horror I felt as, after knowing my fellow teachers for only a few days, they started discussing whether to take a fanny pack on our upcoming Beijing expedition.

My mind didn’t so much boggle as push horrified disbelief into as yet unchartered territories, as I thought: surely this is taking putting your money in a safe place a little too far?

In the end, I had to ask on the grounds that the mental images I was having were surely worse than any reality. When it was established that what they referred to as a fanny pack was my bum bag my relief was such that the inevitable question was ‘so, what did you think it was?’

And how we laughed when I told them that as regards fanny, American arse equals British vagina.

Tower Tour, aka Near Death Experience

I have sometimes wondered if we’ve completely missed out upon the consumption of hallucinogens in the Middle Ages. Certainly these slightly disturbing angels, based on the dream of Bishop Oliver King, which inspired him to rebuild the abbey, seriously makes you wonder what was in his evening victuals.

Quite frankly, after partaking Bath Abbey’s Tower Tour, I would have been glad of some of it myself. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a fear of heights, that however in no way prevents me from putting myself in terrifying situations, such as riding in dodgy Chinese hot air balloons. So I figured that a tootle up some spiral stairs would be a doddle.


I thought of this rather bitterly as I coughed and wheezed my way up the first set of stairs (yes, my Chinese ‘tuberculosis’ is still with me), without the benefit of any sort of handrail. Normally you find a rope hooked through metal eyes, on the outside of the spiral staircase, but here there was just a bellrope down the inside, pulled so tight you couldn’t actually hold on to it. Wonderful.

Our guides meant well, but were obviously very nervous and inexperienced. For example, I would tell you about the church clock, but I couldn’t actually catch a word our guide was saying.

As we were standing on top of the fan vaulting, we were told that it was ten centimetres thick. Fine. Then the guide reminded us of how high up we were, that the ceiling had last been restored in 1950 and that it would ‘probably not be a good thing’ if the ceiling collapsed right then. He might as well have just come straight out with it and told us that they didn’t know how stable the ceiling was and that we were ten centimetres from plunging to a dramatic and culturally destructive demise. Strangely enough, everyone started looking quite nervous and exited the room rather swiftly.



I can also tell you that visiting a bell tower is very interesting, but if you happen to be in there when the bells strike the hour, you can more or less feel your brain vibrating in your head.


The views from the top were splendid, although rather spoilt by the knowledge that we had to go down all 219 steps again. The atmosphere was that of people granted a temporary stay of execution. And there were only so many photos to take before we had to totter back down, trying not to think of how easy it would be to slip and subsequently break every bone in your body.

Having safely arrived on terra firma, we treated ourselves to a medicinal glass of wine in a nearby café.

Qingdao: Shooting the Bride

It's customary in China to have a wedding album made featuring shots of the bride and groom in a variety of settings. Whereas in industrial Shijiazhuang this is done inside in front of a variety of backdrops, Qingdao provides its lucky couples with a series of picture perfect backgrounds. The most popular location was German concession era church of St Emil, and the square in front was teeming with probably 40 bridal couples plus attendant photographers and assistants. Watching the shoots in progress was far more interesting than looking at the church!
 
A little historical snippet to finish with: during the Cultural Revolution, it was ordered that the crosses atop the spires be destroyed. However, plucky/suicidal local Christians removed them first and hid them in the ground until it was again politically safe for them to be unearthed.

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Saigon

stripey Saigon streets

Arriving in Saigon was a slightly strange experience because, although it was evidently an Asian city, the European style of the architecture coupled with the way the super skinny buildings are all painted pastel colours reminded me strongly of Lampeter, the Welsh town where I went to university. The laid back traveller hippy-ish vibe added to the whole effect as well. Perhaps this is why I took to Saigon immediately. I know it has officially been called Ho Chi Minh City since 1975, but I never once heard it referred to as anything other than Saigon when I was there. So that’s what I’ll stick with. It’s easier on the spell check too.

shabby chic a la saigon

My favourite way to get to know a city is by walking round it, so I was glad that central Saigon is compact enough to get around on by foot. Although it did mean that on my way from our hostel to the Reunification Palace and the Saigon Notre Dame Basilica I had to decline the offer of a motorbike taxi on every other street corner. The drivers, although naturally vociferous, were also friendly: my ‘No thanks yous’ were met with smiles and ‘Ok’s, and I was never hounded down the street. I even felt a bit guilty for not taking one, but it was so enjoyable wending my way through the back streets, occasionally happening upon wonderful, shabbily elegant buildings that no-one has yet thought to gentrify.



no wonder my passport stamp says 'socialist republic of vietnam'

The road to the Reunification Palace, lined with trees and communist flags, was more attractive than the Palace itself which is a spectacularly ugly concrete box. There is a wooded park between the Palace and the Basilica, which offered a welcome shady place to pause.

A couple came up to me and asked me to take their photo, and then we fell into conversation. They turned out to be cousins, on holiday in Saigon from Malaysia, and we chatted pleasantly about nothing in particular for a while. Then they asked me to come to a party at their friend’s house, and I kept having to politely decline, without actually coming out and saying ‘No-one but a maniac would wander off to the house of two strangers she just met that could be serial killers.’

saigon notre dame basilica

When I got to the Basilica, they were starting a service so I couldn’t go inside. Instead, I peered in through the grate and then started on my way back. This involved crossing what seemed to be the main road in the city by foot, without the aid of pedestrian crossings, via the grandest roundabout I’ve ever seen. I got stranded for five minutes on it, before bolding taking my life in my hands and dodging the buses and scooters to get to the other side.

roundabouts are taken seriously here

I tried my first Vietnamese curry that night, which seemed (unsurprisingly) to be quite similar to Thai, but less spicy. There were shoot type things in it (lemongrass perhaps? I’m a bit fuzzy on south-east Asian cuisine) that I chewed on once and then spat out in horror. The rest of it was delicious though, and it came with a free happy hour starter of garlic bread. Weird combination I know, but garlic bread is one of the Western foods I miss the most in China, and I was going to take every opportunity to stuff my face with it.

The Philippines: Manila

a jeepney, manila

As we trundled along Nathan Road, Hong Kong, in the semi-darkness to catch the first airport bus of the day, A was horrified to accidentally run over a homeless man’s foot with her suitcase. Then at the check in desk at the airport we were both asked if we were pregnant, which seemed a bit odd, and made me feel slightly paranoid! It was too early for the food shops to be open, so I was extremely glad when I got my airplane meal, which was amazing. I even asked for (and got) another chocolate muffin.

manila bay promenade

Arriving in Manila, I felt as if I was walking through a viscous substance rather than air, it was so humid. After seeming to spend the entire journey in a traffic jam, our taxi finally reached our hostel, the Manila Bay, where we found that the room we booked didn’t exist. This result in a long wrangle with the management, which after our early start was the last thing we were in the mood for, but eventually they agreed to let us have the room for cheaper as it lacked several of the facilities that we had been promised.

a street in intramuros

We went out to explore, and apart from amusement at the colourful jeepneys that crowd the street were not impressed by what we saw. The place is truly filthy, and bear in mind that the city I live in is one of the most polluted in China and I live in one of the more ‘ghetto’ districts. We were continually pursued by child beggars and aggressive hawkers. We wanted to have a relaxing walk along the promenade, but it was impossible to be left alone for more than a few minutes.

cathedral, intramuros

We had a long, hot walk to the Intramuros area, which is the historic walled area of the city, and seems to be the only thing not razed during the Second World War. We were only there for about twenty minutes before heading back to the hostel: it was not particularly interesting or attractive, we were continually harassed, and the combination of heat and exhaustion were making us feel quite ill.

When we got back to the hostel we both ended up curled up on the bed (we were having to share a double), sleeping like a pair of cats. That evening I squashed a giant bug on the mirror with my flip flop. We were both glad to be heading to Puera Galera, an island a few hours away, in the morning.

The second day in Macau: from the sacred to the profane

largo do senado

The next morning I took some time to meander around Largo do Senado, and popped into the pretty but not particularly remarkable baroque 17th century church of St Dominic.

The previous day we had seen a lighthouse from the vatage point of Monte Fort, discovered that it was on the Guia fort and thought it would be interesting to visit it the next day. After our taxi debacle the day before, we decided to take a bus there. Bus stops in Macau have a list of the stops made in both English and Cantonese, so by photographing the Cantonese sign of where we wanted to go we were able to ask the bus driver if we were going to right way. It’s a good thing we did this, as the first bus we tried to get on would’ve taken us in the wrong direction.

Lighthouse and Chapel of Our Lady of Guia, Guia Fort

We rode a very sedate cable car to the top of Guia Fort, and then had a pleasant walk through the park. The park includes a children’s play area with some swings: I couldn’t resist. I love going on swings, it had been absolutely ages since I’d done so, and I spent a very satisfying fifteen minutes seeing how high I could go, possibly much to the amusement of a pair of teenage girls.

I would not have thought that the top of the highest point in the city would’ve been a very sensible place to build an air raid shelter, but there was one there nonetheless, peopled with a selection of shabby and somewhat bilious looking mannequins.

Outside the rather appealing lighthouse and Chapel of our Lady of Guia, was this interesting display of what at first I thought was modern art, but turned out to be an old fashioned way of communicating weather conditions. Each one means a different sort of weather, although I’ve forgotten what exactly they symbolise, and would be hung outside the lighthouse to alert sailors.

weather warning signs, Guia Fort

The Chapel was decorated inside with a series of simple and seemingly completely non religious frescoes, although I suppose the lion in this one could be the symbol of St Mark the Evangelist.

fresco, Chapel of Our Lady of Guia

A short walk from Guia Fort is the charming and labyrinthine Kun Iam Temple. There is more than a hint of Mediterranean Catholic kitschness in the way the shrines are decorated with flower fairy lights, and the statues themselves are fierce looking red faced deities. The doorway lintels are decorated with fascinating and detailed carvings of gods doing their god thing. If you walk through the shrine rooms there is a quiet walled courtyard garden filled with various potted plants, although going back I got a bit lost and accidentally wandered into a private room where a monk was taking a nap!

shrine, Kun Iam Temple

That evening we took advantage of the cool night air coming through a hole in the wall at the end of the corridor our ‘rooms’ were on to sit out by the hole, play cribbage and having a few glasses of vodka. The reason that there was a hole in the wall is that they are currently renovating half of the guesthouse. The reason they are renovating it is because it fell down.

Cribbage is a north Mid-Western card game that A and her parent’s taught me on our trip, which is surprisingly addictive. Although it has probably taken me well over a month to remember most of the rules and even now I forget some of them, especially after a few glasses. The main gist of the game to collect 15s, pairs or more of the same card and runs of consecutive numbers. It’d be a great game to play in schools, as I’ve seen a real improvement in my mental maths skills since I started playing, but it would probably be inappropriate as the children would enjoy it.

After playing for a while we all got an attack of the munchies, so went out to forage. We found a little local restaurant, and using the ever useful skill of pointing at pictures on the wall, conveyed to the waiter that we wanted four plates of spring rolls. They arrived with a fluorescent pink sauce for dipping, which tasted like it might have been a version on sweet and sour. After scoffing them down, we retired, ready for an early start for Hong Kong in the morning.

The first day in Macau

I have a slight history in China of getting into cabs driven by complete maniacs. It seems that this extends all the way to Macau. Getting from Macau’s the ferry port to our guesthouse, the taxi driver obviously saw an opportunity to milk a foreigner, as he drove us round in circles pretending not to know where our guesthouse was, and then was surprised when we refuse to pay the whole fare.

I was still feeling stressed from that encounter when I went to check us in the Sanva Guesthouse. Even though I could clearly see my reservation written down in their book, it took ten or fifteen minutes of arguing until the owner, who spoke no English at all, agreed to connect the name written in the passport I was showing her with the same name written down in her book.

Then we saw the rooms. We had chosen Sanva mainly on the recommendation of Lonely Planet, which describes it as “the most charismatic lodging in town”. A piece of advice, if LP uses the term “charismatic” about a play to stay, go somewhere else. The ‘rooms’ were in fact cubicles, portioned by thin plywood ‘walls’ that stopped a good few feet shy of the ceiling: meaning that you could hear everything, no matter how intimate, that might be going on in the other ‘rooms’. The couple that owned the place weren’t very friendly either, and there was a bit of a scene when someone took an orange from a bowl in reception, that was apparently part of a shrine. This was an honest mistake: none of us had seen the whole bowl of oranges as religious offering thing before and thought they were for guests.

Our friends, K and W, came from Hong Kong to spend a day in Macau and met us at the guesthouse. They work in the same school as me and A, but had been travelling separately for a couple of weeks, so it was fun to catch up and swap stories. After a well deserved relaxing lunch, we went out to explore Macau. We started with the ruins of the church of St Paul, a seventh century church that, except for the frontage, was razed by fire in 1835. You can climb up to an observation deck behind the windows, and, like others, I threw a coin onto the lintel of the main window and made a wish.

Sunset climbing up Monte Fort

Then we strolled up to Monte Fort, enjoying the views of the sunset on the way. Owing to pollution and tower blocks, we’re rather starved of sunsets in Shijiazhuang, and getting to see them again was one of the highlights of the holiday. After an amble around the fort, we wandered around the many little side streets in the area, mainly trying out different types of beef jerky and biscuits that were on sale. Quite by accident we stumbled across a small shop down an alley selling absolutely delicious spring rolls and other snacks.

A typical Macanese side street

All this meandering gave me ample time to appreciate what makes Macau unique: the quite exceptional blend of East and West. In some places, like at the church ruins, it would be easy to think that you were in southern Europe, yet just a few metres away will be a quintessentially Chinese alley. Perhaps the best example of this was the main square, Largo de Senado, with its typical European architecture and surprisingly funky striped square, which was dominated by very Chinese New Year decorations.

largo do senado

Macau, is of course, known as China’s Las Vegas, so that evening we visited a random casino. First of all though, we celebrated the Year of the Ox by taking a clambering over the decorative Ox they had outside and getting shouted at by a security guard.

I’m not a massive fan of gambling, so I spent 10 Hong Kong dollars (just under one pound) on a slot machine game that I couldn’t understand to be able to say I’ve gambled in a casino in Macau. We all spent the majority of our time there sitting at the bar, making friends with/terrorising the bar staff, throwing large amounts of complimentary peanuts down our neck and watching the hilarious and terrible dancing of three rather unfit and unhealthy looking scantily clad Caucasian girls that was the sum of the casino’s entertainment.

Macanese biscuits. These were a bit too dry for my taste.