The R&R Big Adventure

From Asia to Africa

Our bus pulled into Phnom Penh earlier than expected, but fortunately our hotel room was ready, so we could dump our bags and have lunch. When we left London, on the 1st October,  Peter Jones had just installed its Christmas decorations room. Now, nearly four months’ later, the hotel was still playing Christmas music in the foyer. The season that goes on giving.

As we had already been to the landmine museum in Siem Reap, and The Killing Caves near Battambang, we thought we may as well go for the triple (and not leave it until our last day in Cambodia) and face The Genocide Museum that afternoon.

S21, or a high school (named Tuol Sleng) in more innocent times, was the infamous prison in Phnom Penh that, during the brutal regime of the Angkar (‘The Organisation’) 1975-1979, became a place of torture and death. The well curated exhibition told a gruesome story of what went on here – and it didn’t pull its punches. People were tortured several times a day for days and weeks on end to extract fabricated confessions (remember, just being a professional or educated person during the regime meant certain torture / death) that were then used to justify their – and their family’s – execution. Individual human stories brought the atrocities to life, including that of a New Zealand man and his friend who sailed into Cambodian waters during a round-the-world trip, and who shared the same fate as that of many thousands of Cambodians in this prison. I won’t go into the gruesome details here, suffice to say that never underestimate man’s (or woman’s) ability to inflict such torture and suffering on their fellow human beings. Some horrendous statistics included the facts that this was just one of 196 prisons in Cambodia, and that there were 343 killing sites across the country. What was interesting to understand was how the twisted ideology of Pol Pot and his followers eventually led to such paranoia within Angkar, that it eventually turned on itself, and torturers became prisoners themselves at S21.

After leaving the museum we needed some light relief, so we headed for a mall near our hotel to stock up on items for the next leg of our trip. Heading to Africa, and safari, our current wardrobe staple of blues, blacks and whites apparently wouldn’t do (blue and black clothes attract the tsetse flies) so we headed to H&M to stock up on some ‘sludge brown’ and ‘swamp green’ t-shirts and polo shirts.

Yesterday morning we headed to the Royal Palace. We made an effort to cover knees and elbows as instructed, but it seemed few other tourists followed the guidance. In a city that is crowded, noisy and dusty, it was lovely to have some peace and quiet in the grounds of the palace, and see some beautifully manicured lawns and flower beds. Apparently the 71 year old, confirmed bachelor, former professor of ballet in Paris, lives alone in the palace grounds. We asked our guide whether the Khmer Rouge had taken artefacts from the palace during the regime – he replied ominously: ‘they destroyed people, not buildings’. The Silver Pagoda, next to the palace, is so called because the floor is made of solid silver. It contained hundreds, if not thousands, of gifts and offerings to the respective Kings of Cambodia. In a well curated museum, this collection would have filled several rooms, but instead were piled up in one large space.

After the palace we added Phnom Penh to our collection of exotic locations for haircuts. Our respective barbers used to live in San Francisco for many years, to where their parents had moved post-civil war. Family commitments necessitated their return. It was interesting to get their take on modern day Cambodia. From there we walked through the upmarket area of Phnom Penh with modern apartment blocks and trendy restaurants back to our hotel for a brief rest, before exploring The Russian Market. We were told we could get major brands’ seconds here (quietly taken out of the factory backdoor), but it was the same old naff designs we had seen in plenty of other markets across Asia, with (lack of) quality to match. We didn’t linger, and headed instead to a Skybar on the 23^rd floor of a tower block, with views across the city at sunset. The views didn’t disappoint, but the bar manager clearly hadn’t worked out that the bar should be ready by 5pm (it was one of their USPs after all), and not have staff setting up and mopping floors (and being asked to lift our feet whilst they did so) as the sun was setting, and the city lights had begun twinkling.

It was our last night in Asia, and having had Cantonese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian food whilst here, we decided to go Japanese on our last night. I had some excellent sashimi and Wagyu beef, and R a delicious yaki soba. The service, as it has nearly always been during our three and a half weeks here, was excellent. Unlike Uber back home, the Grab app would deliver a driver to our doorstep in a minute or two – no five minute wait to find a driver, only for them to cancel on you whilst you are waiting for them to arrive.

This morning we had a lazy start, followed by brunch in a nearby restaurant, before heading to the National Museum. Here were stored many artefacts from Angkor Wat: having seen the temples, it was now interesting to see at close quarters the statues that had been removed, and appreciate the intricate detail and craftmanship. Part of the exhibition also told the story of Douglas Latchford, an unscrupulous art dealer who  – back in the day – had a network of Khmer Rouge thieves who would steal artefacts to order from temples across Cambodia. These items, thought lost for many years, have only been returned to Cambodia in the last year or two. It seemed apt that, at the end of our visit to Cambodia, we were seeing our experiences of Angkor Wat, and the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, come together in one exhibition.

And so to the next and final leg of our trip round the world: Africa. Probably one of the most obscure flight routes we will ever take – Phnom Penh to Nairobi, via Doha – we had managed to secure business class seats with Qatar Airways, via our Avios points. Given we would be travelling for nearly 24 hours door to door, we were looking forward to some comfort, after delayed buses, dilapidated boats and dusty tuk tuks in our travels across Cambodia. Both legs were great  – very efficient CSDs / CSMs / TTFN (whichever the abbreviation Qatar use), with delicious restaurant quality food. It was lovely to finally fly with a Middle Eastern carrier (Emirates, take note) where the crew have their own personality, and truly put the customer, rather than the operations manual, first. We were looking forward to enjoying the huge new business class lounge (The Garden)  at Doha, however due to the immense size of the airport, even with a two hour layover, we just about had enough time for a shower and a bite to eat before we had to start the hike to our boarding gate. The airport is nearly double the size of Heathrow, and a third of the size of Doha city. Since we were last there (probably at least ten years ago) they have built a transit system just to get people from one end of the same terminal to the other.

We arrived in Nairobi on time and thankfully (as we were both feeling quite befuddled) we could get into our room soon after we arrived at 9am. The agapanthus are back and in full bloom here. Other guests look the real safari part, and could well be joining David Attenborough on his next expedition. With our ‘safari’ wardrobe we look like we will be joining the mark down rail in H&M. I have no idea what the mobile data or wifi situation will be in hotels / lodges / campsites along the way, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t assume a rhino was to blame.

Peppers, crabs and mangroves

No sooner had I posted my last blog than the train pulled into Kampot station. When planning this trip I’ve tried to book hotels which are independent and/or have some character to them wherever possible. Kampot’s was no exception: we were staying in a converted 1930’s Art Deco cinema which a Dutch/French husband and wife team had lovingly restored over four years after they bought it in 2016. Aside from some great detailing which had all been recreated, we were most impressed by the wife, Pauline, who greeted us at check-in and clearly knew how to run a hotel. After ten minutes with her explaining what to see and do in Kampot, and what potential tuk tuk tour to do the next day, we felt very relaxed as we sipped sundowners later that evening by the river (two for one Pimms, for $4.50).

Having decided to take her up on the offer of sorting a driver for us at breakfast, she promptly arranged it, and half an hour later he was waiting for us in reception. First stop was ‘La Plantation’ – as the name would suggest, a (pepper) plantation half an hour from town. Kampot was famous for its peppers before the civil war, and exported much of its crop to French restaurants. The Khmer Rouge had other ideas, and killed the pepper farm owners, and replaced the crops with rice fields. With the downfall of the Khmer Rouge, pepper farming slowly returned, and in 2011 another husband and wife couple (this time French and Belgium) bought the land and started growing peppers and fruits. Today the place felt very much like a small winery – a professional operation with acres of pepper vines, visitor centre, and bar/café overlooking the beautiful landscape. Our tour guide first explained the work the company was putting back into the community – sponsoring a local school and students, and holding English classes in the grounds. French students were sponsored for six months to work here as guides – there were a lot of French visitors – which would be an ideal job if the students then wanted to go travelling for the next six months. Whilst we have been to many vineyards over the years, we haven’t seen pepper farms, so it was interesting to learn how they harvested the peppers (women do this – smaller hands, and more patient than men!), the different pepper varieties, seeing the sorting, drying and packaging operations, before finally doing some tasting of the different peppers, and spices, they sold. The ‘powdering room’ was especially fragrant with all the different spice and pepper smells. Of course we couldn’t leave without a purchase – hopefully these ones won’t end up at the back of the kitchen cupboard.

It was time for lunch, so we asked our driver to take us straight to Kep, a town further down the coast which is famous for its crab market. As we approached the seaside town (where Cambodians would come to holiday) we saw many open-sided covered platforms (like a permanent gazebo), each containing a couple of hammocks, lining the seafront. These were empty on a weekday, but I could imagine granny and grandad in the hammocks, whilst mum is cooking a barbecue of fish and rice for the family. We had been recommended a restaurant on the waterfront – Holy Crab – which served the most amazing (and beautifully presented) crab in sauce, for a fraction of what it would cost in London. We also had the option to eat in the crab market itself which we visited after lunch. There were stall after stall of fresh crabs, oysters, langoustines, and other shellfish of all description. Some of them were pre-cooked on grills, that could be bought and eaten in the market. We agreed we preferred our restaurant with a view, comfortable surroundings, and the bottle of French rosé that accompanied our crab dishes.

We wanted to go to a mangrove forest next, and our tuk tuk driver suggested we go on a boat to see it up close. He drove us to (another) dilapidated boardwalk, where, after some discussion between him and the local boat owners ,we boarded a just-about-river-going boat to take us into the mangrove. After about fifteen minutes he pulled up at another wobbly/rotten boardwalk where we could walk amongst the mangroves, before picking the boat up again for a leisurely cruise back through the forest.

It was a lovely relaxing day and ended with a return visit to the first floor bar we had found the previous day for some more sundowner Pimms. Watching the world go by I noted again how sometimes mum, dad and two small children were crammed onto one motorbike, as we had seen throughout Cambodia:  a world apart from the limousines we had seen clogging the streets in Phnom Penh.

We decided to eat in the hotel restaurant for dinner, and we were again treated to another delicious meal that day. We were the only diners, but the food was amazing there too. A western/Asian mix of tapas, all very fresh and flavoursome. This was a great little hotel. We got chatting to the expat barman who had arrived from Bristol several years ago and stayed, aside from a stint in the UK during COVID. He told us how the town had shot up in the last ten years after Chinese investment in Sihanoukville had forced up rents and pushed people out along the coast. Unfortunately the influx of single, older Western men had also brought with it ‘lady bars’ and massage parlours.

We enjoyed our brief visit here, but this morning it was time to move on, and we are now well on our way back to Phnom Penhm, where we will spend our last couple of days in Cambodia.

Slow train to Kampot

When I sent my last update I was on a 5hr bus journey from Battambang to Phnom Penh. I didn’t mention it as I thought with my ability to tempt fate we would end up pushing the bus the last three miles. Thankfully the journey was punctual, and the bus wasn’t that full. We were just in Phnom Penh overnight, with another bus to get the next morning. When we arrived in the city around 2pm we thought we would best use the afternoon to get our bearings, and save the longer sightseeing for when we return at the end of our stay in Cambodia. We were staying in a boutique hotel that was once the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador – hence its name The White Mansion. We had a very nice, but ridiculously large, room you could swing three cats in. It was interesting to see some of the original features of the former residence.

Walking round the streets of Phnom Penh we immediately noticed the contrast between city and rural life. We were expecting something similar to Hanoi, but there were more skyscrapers and smart restaurants, and we passed a gym that looked like it wouldn’t be out of place in Mayfair. I saw more Mercedes-Maybachs (c. £200K a pop) and Range Rovers in one day than you would in months in central London. There didn’t seem to be much of a trickle-down effect of wealth from the city here.

Having seen several of the famous monuments in the city, we got back to the hotel and decided we wanted a break from Asian food for dinner, and found a good French restaurant nearby. The area seemed to be popular with ex-pats, with one old Brit droning on endlessly at his (young, female) Cambodian dining companion at a table near us.

Friday morning we were up early again for our next bus to Sihanoukville, a port on the south coast of Cambodia, where we would be catching a boat to one of the islands off the mainland. This time we weren’t so lucky – the bus was an hour later, and full (it seemed) of bewildered older tourists (we had to stop as two of them had forgotten to take their bags off their pick up bus). Those two were part of a group of four real East End types. One was tattooed head to toe, and looked like you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to mess with him thirty years ago. I wondered whether Cambodia had an extradition agreement with the UK – or not (it doesn’t).

We fortunately had a couple of hours before we got the boat and so we made the connection and arrived at Koh Rong Saloem island late afternoon. We were going to have a brief beach interlude for a couple of nights before continuing our travels, and the small resort didn’t disappoint. Not many rooms, powder white beach, and a lovely sea view west towards the sunset.

Saturday morning we were up early and wanted to take advantage of being able to walk in the interior of this island, which we couldn’t do on Malolo Island in Fiji. Rather than pay for a guide, who would slow us down anyway, we used R’s Strava (running) app to look at the heat maps of trails people had been on to plot our journey. Once we left the resort we soon saw piles of rubbish in the forest – such a shame to see discarded old fridges, polystyrene containers, and loads of old plastic piled up everywhere. We saw this in Fiji as well – such a shame that people don’t look after their own environment, especially those on otherwise idyllic islands. One of the resorts on the other side of the island had fallen into disrepair and it felt slightly apocalyptic walking along the beach seeing abandoned beach huts and broken boardwalks. R thought we could get back to a main path by cutting through some undergrowth. It wasn’t far on the map, so thought we would give it a go. What seemed like a clearing soon disappeared, and we were battling to get through overgrown creepers and shrubs. Where was a machete when you need one. It was then we felt stinging on our legs, and looking down, saw large red ants were crawling over them (and biting at the same time). Fortunately they weren’t the smaller red ants which apparently really sting. That was it – back to the main path and start again. Working back on ourselves we picked up the main path and crossed over to the main part of the island, Saracen Bay. From a vantage point on a hill, before we got to the bay, we could large areas of the forest had been cleared – possibly for development that halted during COVID, but which had left large ugly scars on the landscape. At Saracen Bay we saw some cheap backpacker places (if someone were to boast of finding somewhere to sleep here for just $10 a night, believe me, they really do look like $10 places). After lunch on the water’s edge it was back to our resort – by small and fast speedboat – and to enjoy a lazy afternoon on the beach.

The day finished with another spectacular sunset, where we saw a Buddhist monk, in full garb, staying at the hotel. He was at breakfast the next morning, so it can’t have been a flying visit. He probably needed a break after the stress of collecting so many donations from the local people. The hotel laid on a short ‘fire show’ during dinner, which consisted of one of the gardeners we had said ‘hello’ to that morning, plus a mate, spinning flaming batons. I imagined how his interview at the hotel went: “So aside from your palm tree pruning experience, how are your baton twirling skills? Batons that may or may not be alight?” After the fire show there was an opportunity to light some traditional lanterns that are let off to float into the sky. After seeing all the rubbish in the forest that morning, we didn’t want to partake.

This morning we grabbed a couple of hours of sun, and R also tried his hand at paddle boarding in the shallow waters of our beach, and did very well, managing to maintain his balance. It was a shame we had to leave the resort today. Our transfer back to Sihanoukville was more timely today. We had plenty of time to get some lunch at Sihanoukville Station, before our train to Kampot at 2pm. Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing around the station, which doubled up as a freight depot. Sihanoukville is a terminus for the Phnom Penh – Kampot – Sihanoukville train service, the only train line now running in Cambodia. The whole journey takes 7 hours, far longer than the bus, but we wanted to experience the leg to Kampot which was a more manageable 2 hrs. The underinvestment in Cambodia’s infrastructure was clear to see – aside from the station being little more than a concrete box, with a ticket window and nothing else, the train departed late, after it took several men nearly an hour to inspect and reinspect the wheels. So now we are trundling (I think top speed is 30km/h) through the countryside to Kampot. The train carriage (we pushed the boat out and spent another $10 on First Class) is old Japanese rolling stock, and remarkably high tech. With the flick of a manual lever, each pair of seats can rotate 180deg to face the right direction of travel. The country is very rural, with views of acre after acre of fields on both sides. Hopefully Japanese engineering will keep us going all the way to Kampot with no further delays.

Dark Days

Of course I should have waited until we had actually arrived in Battambang before publishing my last post. Not long after we left our rest stop on the river, we slowed right down as the water level got increasingly lower. For about an hour we were practically punting, as one of the crew used a very large pole to push us from one side of the river to the other. We could see where this was going and eventually the crew called it a day. We all had to disembark onto the river bank, via a small boat pulled up beside us, forming a human chain to lift the luggage off the boat and up the muddy bank. As if by magic (it would have taken days for that water level to have dropped so much) a couple of dusty pickup trucks were there waiting for us. Somehow sixteen tourists, four locals, all their luggage and a couple of bikes were packed into the pickup trucks and off we trundled along the muddy track that ran between the river and paddy fields for the final 50km to Battambang. I wasn’t expecting to see this much of the Cambodian countryside on our trip. I was wedged at the back of the truck with one of the bikes strapped to the end. Its saddle was off, and the two sharp metal saddle supports were just a couple of inches from my abdomen, and every time the truck hit a hole in the dirt track (which was frequently) the bike would lurch towards me. I had to keep a tight hold of it to stop the sharp supports getting any closer. Together with having to duck at short notice to avoid being whacked on the face by the trackside foliage, it was an eventful two hours. As we drove further along the riverside we could see the water had completely dried up in parts. Clearly this wasn’t the first time this had happened: the boat company did not want to lose their valuable tourist dollars.

As a result of all this we essentially lost an afternoon in Battambang. We were only there for two nights so we wanted to make the most of yesterday. Armed with a walking tour map from the hotel we soon realized that the French colonial architecture in the old city wasn’t all that. Stopping at the market, I noticed a Buddhist monk, going from stall owner to stall owner, each of whom would produce a note for him in return for a very quick blessing. As we later found out, the monks can stop by shops and businesses seven or eight times a day. The monk was clutching a large wad of notes in his left hand. If one were being cynical one could call this a Buddhist protection racket.

We stopped by a humanitarian photographic gallery – ‘Human Gallery’ – which was recommended as a place to visit. What was going to be a short pit stop turned into a passionate 45min explanation from the owner / photographer. Trying to summarise as succinctly as possible: he was from Bibao originally, worked for UNICEF for a number of years, taking photos of humanitarian efforts all over the world, before he left to start his own round the world trip on a bike to take his own photos of human existence across the globe. He settled in Cambodia – not because he liked the country or people – but because of the need to address the continuing exploitation of children here, and the high levels of child prostitution. That is, parents pimping their own child to be abused by others in their neighbouring communities in return for money. He had teamed up with a local social worker who currently had 72 cases on her books in just two communities. They had intervened to try and support the worst 8 cases by raising money to support those children with extra education, support and family intervention. Taking the children away into care was not the answer as the state (un)funded ‘orphanages’ were the worse of the two evils (later that evening we ate at a restaurant supporting the Cambodian Children’s Trust which gave some sobering statistics on how children in those orphanages are far more likely to end up dead or in prison). This work had clearly taken its toll on him – his tired, drawn face reflected the grim stories he told us. As we left, another four tourists entered the gallery – prepare yourselves, I felt like telling them.

After lunch we had booked an afternoon tuk tuk tour, to take us to see some sights outside the city. After a short explanation of the legend of how Battambang came into being, we had our only light relief of the day: first a walk across a suspension bridge that wouldn’t have been out of a place in an ‘Indiana Jones’ film, complete with broken wooden planks and metal supports that looked like they would break at any moment; and then onto the ‘bamboo train’ – yes a train made of bamboo. Actually, it was just two wheel axles, a bamboo chasis, a large lawnmower engine and a drive belt (which linked one of the axels to the engine) that were all quickly assembled on the track as each tuk tuk laden with tourists pulled up. On we got, sitting crossed leg, and with a tug of the starter engine, the driver quickly had us speeding off up the track. I thought we would go at a model railway pace but it was far quicker than that. It was a single track, and after fifteen minutes or so we pulled up by some trackside souvenir stalls (of course) where the whole platform was taken apart and reassembled in reverse for the return leg. All silly fun.

The fun over, our guide drove us for forty minutes or so to the Killing Caves – the infamous mountain where thousands of Cambodians were executed during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge. Our guide, like the gallery owner, also liked to talk, and in hushed tones told of us how Cambodia had lurched from one corrupt regime to another in recent decades. Bribes were still endemic in public life, censorship was alive and kicking, and the current politicians (some of whom were ex-Khmer Rouge or had links to them) were selling off parts of the resource-rich country to neighbouring countries and the Chinese, no doubt in return for some healthy backhanders for themselves. And then we got on to the truly depressing stuff – separate caves for men, women and children who had been pushed, beaten or bayoneted off the cliff edge to their death (they were rarely shot as that wasted precious ammunition). Whole families would have been rounded up and taken here to keep communities under state control. But apparently these were just the caves the government lets the world see – there are potentially many more all over the country that share the same dark history. Before leaving the site of the caves, we paused at dusk to see hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of bats leave the mountain on their regular nocturnal sortie for food.

Given everything we had seen that day, I don’t know how the population, especially the young children  – who you can hear cheerfully say ‘hello’ loudly, before you even see them – keep smiling.

Slow boat to Battambang

Our first impressions of Siem Reap on Friday night weren’t the best. We went to explore the area near our hotel and stumbled across ‘Pub Street’, which, as the name would suggest, was filled with neon-lit restaurants and bars with competing music systems. I think the owners must have seen pictures of San Antonio, Magaluf and Ayia Napa and thought this is how westerners like to holiday. Beers were advertised at $0.50 a glass (everything is priced in $ U.S.), tuk tuk drivers asked if wanted to get drugs, girls, or both, whilst we saw hotels advertising room rates by both the day and the hour. No wonder we saw groups of British lads on the streets: even with the increased cost of the airfare to Asia, they could still have a much cheaper holiday here than a week in Ibiza. 

The next day we started our three day ‘Temple Tour’ and thankfully this lived up to expectations. Aside from seeing many amazing temples that made you wonder how on earth they built them in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and wonder at the feat of craftsmanship required for the carvings and stonemasonry, we also learnt a fair bit from our guide during the trip. Siem Reap means ‘defeated Thai’ so called because the city had suffered several invasions from, and ultimately a retreat by, the Thais hundreds of years previously. Seeing a village primary school empty at 11am we learnt children only go to school between 7-11am or 1-5pm, due to a lack of facilities, and that they often walk or cycle miles to reach it as there is no school bus. The rest of the day they will help their parents on their farm or family business. We got through seven temples that day – don’t ask me to name them – and it was fascinating to think most of these had remained hidden in the jungle for centuries once the king had moved his court to Phnom Penh.

Clearly tourism is an important part of their economy. I have never had so many cold towels and welcome drinks. Our hotel gave us all sorts of discounts and freebies with our room rate, including a free dinner at one of their sister restaurants, which we went to on Saturday night. It was very good food, and the staff were falling over themselves to serve us, but we could have done without the manager standing over our shoulders to make sure we gave them a good Tripadvisor review. In a saturated market they know the power of social media recommendations. 

On Sunday our guide took us to a national park north of Siem Reap and to some pretty waterfalls where the locals picknicked. In the afternoon we were moved by a visit to a landmine museum, established by someone who, as an orphan, was taken by the Khmer Rouge and trained to be one of their soldiers. His job was to plant landmines, but he eventually changed sides. He went on to clear them after the war finished, given his expertise, and he eventually established a training programme to clear mines and also the museum we were now visiting. The museum was filled with sad facts, including how the Khmer Rouge laid millions of mines across Cambodia and deliberately wanted them to maim, not kill, as it meant their enemy’s resources were diverted to hospitals and rehabilitation. Even today there are still millions of mines that have not yet been found or made safe, and every year hundreds of Cambodians die or are injured from stepping on one. Our guide told us they made the mines look like puzzles or toys so that children would deliberately play with them. When he was growing up in the late nineties and noughties he would hear an explosion going off around his village almost every day. In one room of the museum we saw large posters of smiling Cambodian children. Each one of them had one or more limbs missing due to a landmine explosion. 

Despite the adversity these people have faced over centuries of their history – constant invasions, occupation, colonisation by the French and then a brutal civil war and mass genocide – they seem remarkably resilient and are one of the friendliest people we have met on our travels. 

In the evening we ate in a lovely restaurant by the river – I’m not sure why many tourists went for the ‘authentic street food experience’, complete with those primary school stools again, when for $2-3 more for a main course you could eat in a decent restaurant.

Monday it was time for the big reveal, and a visit to the main Angkor Wat temple itself. We had actually had a sneak peak on Sunday afternoon, as the upper levels were closed on Monday due to a Buddhist holy day. However we were going to see the whole temple today and got up at 4.30am for the sunrise shot over the temple towers. It didn’t disappoint. The complex is vast and until you are up close, you don’t full appreciate the workmanship that has gone into it. No wonder it took forty years to finish. Every single one of the millions of tons of stone and rock used to create it had to be brought by elephants from many miles away. After seeing a couple of smaller temples, including one totally overgrown with huge trees and a root complex that looked like alien tentacles amongst the stone walls, we stopped at APOPO on the way back to the hotel. This is an organisation (it is a Dutch acronym for anti personnel landmine detection products) that trains rats and dogs to sniff out explosives and who can, with their handlers, help clear a minefield far quicker than metal detectors. I even got to hold one of their (giant) ‘hero’ rats as they are called. And they had some formidable success statistics to back up their achievements. Another sobering statistic we found out – Cambodia has the highest number of amputees per capita in the world. 

Monday afternoon was spent by the pool – more cold towels, free canapés and discount drinks, and an hour’s massage in the hotel spa for an outrageous $10.

Tuesday morning and we left Siem Reap, to head to Battambang, a town famous for its French Colonial architecture. Whilst it can be reached by a 3hr bus journey, we decided to opt for the boat instead – a six hour journey across a lake and waterways to reach it. We knew it would be a long journey but didn’t realise it would be quite as basic a boat as it is: wooden seats, a very noisy engine and making only one stop. We have seen a lot of floating villages – not sure though I would want to swim in the same murky brown water in which I have seen people both wash their clothes and empty the toilet. As I type this we still have over an hour to go before we reach Battambang. Thank goodness massages in Cambodia are also cheap. 

Good Night Vietnam

We needn’t have bothered to set the alarm for the next morning of our mini-cruise. Our cabin was in the port bow, and the noise of the anchor being weighed at 6am sounded like an articulated lorry being pulled slowly up the side of the boat. In any instance, we wanted to be up early to catch the sunrise, which we duly did, and were rewarded with spectacular scenery all around us. We were pleased we made the effort as, shortly afterwards, the sky hazed over again. 

More organised fun was had at 7.45am, as we took a tender to shore to explore some caves that had served a number of purposes over the years, including acting as air raid shelters for the local people during the Vietnam War. We had to really duck and contort our bodies to walk sideways through some of the narrow cave openings, making us feel like very ungainly crabs.

Back on boat, and after brunch, fun was finished, and we headed back to the Ha Long marina to catch our transfer back to Hanoi. The flotilla on water was matched by a land based convoy of mini-vans all doing the same thing, and all stopping at the same service station for their respective passengers to have a break. We got back to Hanoi in good time – a relatively new express way had halved the time it took to get to Halong when I was last in Vietnam – so we had the best part of the afternoon for further sightseeing. 

We first stopped at the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ – the infamous Hanoi prison which gained  notoriety first by the French for imprisoning Vietnamese revolutionaries, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then for its role in the Vietnam War for incarcerating American POWs. Whilst I’m sure the French colonists didn’t treat the Vietnamese at all well, there was just the teensiest bias in the museum narrative of how well the U.S. POWs were treated (with black and white photos of smiling prisoners playing ping pong and exercising), and no mention at all of torture or solitary confinement. John McCain was featured a lot, and seen smiling and being grateful to his captors. Conditions were no doubt equally appalling for anyone who had ended up in those dark, cramped unsanitary cells.

We had booked tickets to a water puppet theatre near our hotel for an early evening performance. These puppet shows originated from rice paddy farmers who would create characters that played out popular folk stories in their paddy fields. These days the action is played out on a stage in a recreated paddy field, complete with pool of water, through which the puppets are controlled on long sticks. The puppet dialogue was in Vietnamese, so we didn’t have a clue, but the puppeteering, musicians, and traditional singing were all very good. 

Whilst many Hanoi locals ate dinner in small pop-up pavement cafes, that used primary school-sized stools as dining chairs, and where the owner would wash dishes on the street out of a giant washing up bowl, we didn’t fancy putting our backs out, or catching salmonella, so we chose a ‘normal’ restaurant specialising in Cantonese food instead, and had quite a large peking duck between us.

After dinner we made our way back to the ‘train cafes’ to see the evening express pass by. There were more tourists than there had been when we previously went in the daytime. No doubt buoyed on by some evening drinks, some of them were feeling bullish about how long they could stand on the track before the train arrived. They soon scurried off it, after being screamed at mercilessly by the cafe owners, who didn’t want a death on their doorstep. It is difficult to imagine a similar scene at Clapham Junction, with commuters lined up in seats, inches from the track, as the 8.05 to Woking hurtles past them. 

This morning we paid a visit to The Citadel, a complex of old buildings and temples that first originated in the early Vietnamese dynasties, but which had been rebuilt several times in the intervening centuries. It was another popular spot for teenage girls to be photographed in their traditional dresses, and we also saw several school parties: many of the children wanting to practice their English ‘hellos’ as we walked past. There was a very sweet school party of nursery-aged children, no more than four years old, wearing traditional outfits and tethered together to stop them running off, being assembled for group photos in the culturally significant grounds. The most interesting aspect for us was seeing the military bunkers that had been built during the Vietnam War (or, as the information boards informed us, the ‘American War’) where the generals would plan their campaigns. All ‘heroic’ and ‘victorious’, of course.

 Our final stop in Hanoi was the famous Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake, which housed two enormous preserved giant turtles, animals which are spiritually significant for Vietnamese. We then headed back to our hotel to collect our bags before heading to the airport to catch our flight to Siam Reap, and the start of nearly two weeks exploring Cambodia. This is a new country for both of us, and we are looking forward  to our tour of Angkor Wat over the next few days. It was also our first flight with VietJets, a low cost regional airline, whose cabin crew uniforms seem to be a curious design mix of part Virgin Atlantic, part Viet Cong revolutionary. Thankfully there was no queue at immigration when we landed, so we are now speeding on our way to the city centre.

100th Day Milestone!

Our second and final day at the elephant camp was good fun. After breakfast we did indeed make (or start to make) paper out of elephant dung: the process involved mixing dried dung with water, drying it again, and then mixing the dried remnants with water over a sieve, which would then be left to dry in the sun. And yes, it smelt. We then got to feed the elephants again (some of whom did a little dance when they could see food was coming, and had also learnt to pose when they saw camera phones appear 😊), and saw them go for a little wash in their pool. Before we knew it, it was all over, and we were heading back to Chiang Mai for our final night there.

We had been meaning to get a massage since we arrived, but wanted to ensure we went somewhere reputable, and not in one of the places where overly made up ladies were shouting at any man walking past to ‘come inside’ (I’m assuming they meant the massage parlour). We found one that was part of a chain, and tourist authority certified, so booked massages for the two of us. I just wanted a simple head, back and shoulder; R decided he wanted a full body massage – with jasmine oil. My masseuse was pretty brutal  – kneading my back with her elbows for what seemed like an eternity, and then contorting my body as she cracked and prodded it. I had no idea how she wanted me to cross my legs (and she spoke no English), and she could have been a police officer in a former life the way she pulled my arms behind my back. I was quite relieved when my hour was up; Robert however emerged all zen-like and relaxed.

After dinner we paid another visit to the Ram Show bar: quieter as it was a Sunday, but still great performances. They certainly didn’t skimp on the costumes. This time though, R wasn’t just up dancing with the ‘girls’, he joined them for a rendition of YMCA on top of the bar. My highlight was when the maître(sse?) d’ announced ‘I no lady, I lady (then dropping three octaves) boy’ before laughing hysterically.

Monday morning we were off to the airport again, this time for our flight to Hanoi. I had last been to Vietnam eighteen years ago, just as I met Robert, and had travelled up and down the country. This time we were squeezing in Hanoi and Halong Bay into our trip, as this was a new country for Robert. As we left the airport for the city centre, we saw many people on mopeds lining the motorway, furiously waving the national flag. Some of them were letting off fireworks as our taxi drove past. At first we thought was this the start of a people’s uprising, but then later found out Vietnam had beaten Thailand in the football final of the South East Asian cup, and the celebrations were still going on two days later. As we started to explore the city I certainly saw the changes since I was last there: the many mopeds on the streets had been multiplied by a factor of two, and were now joined by cars that the rich Vietnamese were now driving. Gone were the regular tannoy announcements by the communist regime, but instead neon signs had proliferated, and hotels were everywhere (each seeming to have their own roof-top Skybar). Many clothing shops in the old city were selling knock-off North Face garments, clearly knowing their backpacker market. A couple of times we got stopped on the street by what we thought were legitimate Grab moped drivers (Grab is the Asian equivalent of Uber) but then, when they showed us photos of weed on their mobile phones, we realized what their game was. Crossing the road is an acquired skill: no lane markings, mopeds coming at you from every direction – sometimes eight abreast at a time – and no-one in the mood to break. The trick is to start walking slowly across the road, keep eye contact, and hope every driver is equally as good at judging relative velocity. The air was also smoggy – talking to some tourists, they weren’t wearing face masks for fear of COVID, but to stop getting a sore throat from all the air pollution. And forget getting around the old city if you are infirm or in a wheelchair: the pavement is either non-existent, disappears without warning, or has mopeds triple parked on it. I pitied the driver whose moped was parked nearest the wall and had to leave work early. Despite the noise, the pollution, the traffic and the hassle, it was all good fun to experience.

Yesterday we wanted to make the most of our full day in the city and started with a walk across the famous Câu Long Biên bridge – a decrepit bridge that has a train line running through the middle, and thousands of mopeds tearing past on either side. And a few loose concrete slabs perched on rusting iron supports for the pedestrians to walk over. We walked half way across (probably half a mile or more) and were fascinated to see that in the middle of this overcrowded city, beneath us were allotments which women in traditional outfits were tending to. Back in the city, we walked to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum – a grand, brutalist building that had a huge open square in front of it: perfect for parading tanks or troops, for example. Lots of men in military uniform would bark at anyone who had the temerity to sit down or linger for too long in the square. Unfortunately the mausoleum itself wasn’t open, so we continued to The Hanoi Temple of Literature, which contained a series of manicured squares. Next to these flower beds, full of red salvia and yellow marigolds, the colours of the national flag, were many local teenage girls, wearing traditional tunics, and clutching bunches of flowers or cherry blossom, posing to have their photo taken by an obliging boyfriend / relative / friend. We thought this was marking some special occasion or graduation event, but no, apparently it is just regular ‘Insta posing’ for the young ‘uns here.

After lunch we headed to Hanoi Train Street – as the name would suggest, a narrow street in which a train passes by a few times a day. Enterprising local café owners take advantage of this event, and stack chair upon chair along the route so that enthusiastic tourists can whoop and cheer as a train passes within centimetres of their legs as it hurtles past. We took a seat on the first floor for a better view, and we were surprised that even at that height how close (and how fast) the train passed by. Proof yet again that the words ‘health and safety’ don’t translate into Vietnamese.

Having eaten Asian food for the last few meals, we agreed between us – almost guiltily – to have a pizza last night. How could we, when we were in Vietnam! But it was good, and the fact several Italians were also eating there vindicated our decision. On the way back to the hotel we were stopped by another Grab moped rider who pulled up next to us: I thought the picture on his phone didn’t look like drugs, and then realized it was a woman rubbing her naked breasts (or, for Anna B, boobies!) together. I guess he wasn’t selling fake North Face. This morning we were up early for our transfer to Halong Bay, and an overnight cruise. I had done this when I was here previously, but on a cheaper, one-day excursion. It was a very efficient production line that processed tourists from their transfer vans, to the harbour front, to their respective tender boats. I wondered why we all had to put on life jackets as we approached a piece of random land, before we got to our boat, and realized it was for the benefit of the uniformed guy who was there checking (I assume) the passenger manifest. Life jackets off again, we could finally reach our assigned boat. I had heard that following the devastating typhoon that hit this region in September, several of the boat companies had literally gone under, so I was expecting fewer boats out on the water. If this was less crowded, it must have been like the M25 in rush hour previously. A flotilla of boats, like a Vietnamese reenactment of the D-Day landings, all headed in the same direction to reach the ‘Dark and Bright cave’ (I am reading off the itinerary) where R and I used our new found kayaking skills to paddle off into the caves. Unlike Samoa and Fiji, the current was a bit stronger here, so we soon learnt how to complete an emergency stop with our paddles, before we hit the dozens of other kayaks that were all heading the same way. I have not been on a ‘proper’ cruise before (Milford Sound in New Zealand was the nearest I have got to it) but if every cruise has a tannoy announcement informing passengers of when the next ‘organised fun’ activity will be, it is not converting me. I just keep thinking of Ruth Madoc and her xylophone. We made it for happy hour on the top deck, but as it is unseasonably cold at the moment (we have hoodies on and are still cold) we decided to skip the cooking demonstration to get some warmth in our cabin. Apparently there is squid fishing after dinner. As long as it is fishing – and not games.

Nip(ple) and Tuck(ed)

Neither of us have been to Chiang Mai before – our planned trip to Thailand in 2020, which included Chiang Mai, was a casualty of COVID – so we were looking forward to going somewhere new in the country. With only a few days here, we didn’t want to waste time when we arrived and so took to the streets after we checked-in. The city apparently has 300 Buddhist temples, and it certainly felt we were stumbling upon one every few street blocks. We went into a couple of the larger ones, and as dusk was arriving, there were far fewer tourists. The fading light made the golden temples look more majestic. We saw a sign saying that women couldn’t enter one part of Wat Chedi Luang as their menstruation ‘humiliates and ruins the sanctity of the city pilar'(!).

Compared to Bangkok, Chiang Mai is more laid back – restaurants are much more casual (and cheaper), streets have more character, and in some parts of town the shops seemed to alternate between medicinal cannabis shops, tattoo parlours, and cheap massage places (which were mostly all heaving). You can see why it is popular with back packers. And probably divorced middle-aged men. It does not have a reputation for being a late night place (possibly because people are either stoned, or too relaxed after their massage) and the streets were certainly emptying by 9pm, which suited us as we were tired after our travels and sightseeing.

The next day we were feeling the most refreshed we had done in a while. We explored more of the city on foot, including several markets and a couple more temples. R had booked us on an afternoon’s excursion which took us to a famous temple, set high up on a hill just outside town – Wat Phra That Doi Suthep – and the so-called ‘hidden temple’, Wat Pha Lat, further down Doi Suthep hill. We travelled in a famous Chiang Mai red car (songthaew), a basic van with bench seats and an open back. There were three other couples travelling with us, all American: one younger couple on honeymoon, and two retired couples who were friends. One of the wives was fascinating – she was semi-retired and had arrived in Asia via teaching on a boat chartered by Colorado State University. Called ‘Semester At Sea’, for one semester it travels from Amsterdam to Thailand via the Cape of Good Hope, with students being taught on board, and going on field trips when it docks every week or so. The faculty get a ‘free’ trip to Asia, and free time to explore when they are in port. She was very interesting to talk to – she lectured in Russian and Ukrainian history so was unsurprisingly devasted by events there in recent years. Her and her husband were well travelled; they were also looking at countries to potentially re-locate to, given the imminent change in the U.S. political landscape. That is now the second family from the U.S. we have met on this trip who have been looking to move abroad because of the political situation – the first being a family (with young children) from Iowa we got chatting to coming back from Malolo Island in Fiji.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep was essentially more of the same we had seen in the old town, except on a grander scale, and with panoramic views of Chiang Mai. The ‘hidden’ (except to coach loads of tourists) temple was more interesting, set amongst the jungle undergrowth, with decaying temple buildings, a waterfall leading to a natural infinity pond, and steps leading down from one temple to an old viewing platform, which had great views of the city. I kept thinking this would make a perfect site for a five star hotel, glazing over when our tour guide was talking, but instead picking out in my head which different bars and dining establishments would go where on the temple complex.

We found a lovely Thai restaurant on the river front in Chiang Mai for dinner – with dozens of lanterns illuminating the terrace area. After dinner we headed to town for a post dinner drink and stopped by the Ram Bar – a review show bar which was very good. I didn’t inherit the gay show tunes gene (musicals do nothing for me) but the performers were actually very good – the kathoeys (‘lady boys’) were stunning, lip-synched brilliantly, and their drop splits caused more than a few gasps from the audience. R was in his element. Aside from seeing some tape-covered nipples, it was tame burlesque. We stayed later than intended so were feeling tired this morning for our early start to get to an elephant sanctuary two hours south of Chiang Mai.

We chose the camp we are staying in for one night as they had a good reputation for looking after the elephants, with acres to roam, and are well looked after by their mahouts (keepers). This afternoon we got to both prepare the food, and feed the elephants. They didn’t like the boring old grass we had as part of their meal, preferring instead to sniff out with their trunks the freshly quartered pineapple we had in our baskets. They were very cute, and liked having their trunks stroked as well. We also saw a traditional Karen village – no, not a village full of Karens, but ancient tribes originally from Myanmar – and saw how they prepared food, wove clothes and cooked. We all took part in helping to prepare a chicken curry – including sifting rice, grating coconuts and making curry paste. We got to eat the product of our labours and it actually tasted very nice. Tomorrow we will be seeing the elephants being washed and cared for, and apparently will be making paper out of elephant dung.

Fun fact from today – if you are caught on the plains of Africa, severely dehydrated, and with no available drinking water, drink the water squeezed out from elephant dung. It has few bacteria in it, and won’t harm you. I assume someone on death’s door first discovered that.

Happy New Year!

Monday morning and we could finally meet up with family and friends from home. R’s brother David, his husband Tony, and a good friend of theirs, ‘Tetley’, were in Bangkok for a few days for NYE, before continuing their Asia trip via Chiang Rai to Laos. We met up with them after their trip to the Jim Thompson House (the former American soldier who famously revitalized the Thai silk industry in the 1950s) and went on a boat trip along the tributaries of the Chao Praya river (‘no stopping, no shopping, no Chinese’ was the saleswoman’s pitch to passers by). We had the boat to ourselves, and it was an enjoyable way to spend ninety minutes seeing a side of Bangkok you don’t see from the roads. Back on land, we went our separate ways back to respective hotels to get ready for a night out (NYEE). The evening started with a delicious Thai meal in a local restaurant close to the Night Market, before we headed to the famous gay bar district in Silom Alley. We did a bit of a bar crawl – one of the very smiley barman took a shine to Tetley before we left and headed to DJ Station – a bar/complex down the road. I don’t think we have seen a place quite so packed the night before NYE. It was a later finish than any of us had planned, but we all had a good time.

Unsurprisingly we had a late start on Tuesday, and met for lunch at D&T’s hotel. Smiley barman had been texting Tetley, but it hadn’t progressed to colour swatch stage for his potential room in Clapham. We headed back to our room for a rest, before getting ready for the big night. We were going to be spending the evening at the Four Seasons Hotel which was well positioned by the river to see the firework displays. The hotel was an amazing piece of architecture in its own right – a towering entrance lobby with reflecting pools, huge concrete art installations, and vases of all shapes and sizes, clustered together, full of amaryllis and ilex berries that would fill several florist shops. There was an army of staff ready to greet, assist and walk guests to the various areas that would be in use for the evening – they must have employed at least a couple of people just to light the hundreds of candles that lined the walkways and corridors. The evening started with cocktails by the riverside, followed by a delicious Thai tasting menu, and finishing with more drinks, a band, DJ and fireworks by the river. It certainly was an eclectic crowd – some very wealthy people (a few ‘Berlin Bankers’ in lounge suits; extremely glamourous women wearing something that clearly wasn’t from a chain store) and quite a few very attractive women, with some very ugly men, looking very bored. A few second wives looked like they were on the prowl for husband number three. One guy looked like a smaller version of Rudy Giuliani, replete with statuesque blonde on his arm. The evening was amazing – the staff were brilliant (and it was great the hotel let them stop working and celebrate midnight with a glass of bubbles with everyone else) and the fireworks were spectacular – there were about three or four separate displays going off around the city at one point.

Like anywhere else in the world though, it was impossible to get a taxi afterwards (despite pre-ordering) so we all ended up walking part of the way back before eventually we could get cabs to pick us up. It was lovely to spend a short but sweet 40 or so hours with D,T&T. They went back to their hotel, as they had a flight the next morning, whilst R and I decided in our wisdom to drag the evening’s celebrations out with a few more drinks in Silom Alley (where clearly several glitter cannons had gone off at midnight) into the early hours.

We really did feel it yesterday morning – the sum total of our day was to wander round the enormous shiny new shopping centre opposite our hotel for a bit (clearly a lot of money around for some people in Bangkok) and walk round Lumpini Park next door (and see a few water monitors on the banks of the lake), before heading back to our hotel. We didn’t linger after dinner and had an early-ish night (relatively speaking for the last few days). We certainly felt refreshed this morning.

Whilst we did miss the UK in the build up to Christmas, we certainly didn’t miss it this morning, thinking of those having to face the back-to-work blues on 2^nd Jan, and a long, dark January ahead. Oh well, the forecast is looking good for Chiang Mai, where we will be spending the next few days.

Ho Lee Fook

After I posted my last entry, R and I had dinner in the restaurant of the airport hotel in Fiji (there was nowhere else to go in that wet weather). Our lovely waitress remembered us from when we stayed there a few days previously. At the end of the meal she assembled some of her colleagues to sing us a traditional Fijian farewell song (special treatment!), similar to the one we had had when we left Malolo Island. It was very touching and personal, and made our final memories of Fiji very positive ones, despite the atrocious weather we had endured the last few days.

The morning of our departure on Saturday it was of course sunny with blue skies. We had a long, ten hour daytime flight to Hong Kong, and I ended up watching ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’, just for the one liners. (‘I’m all out of devil’s dandruff and now I’m shaking like an angry vibrator’ was one of my favourites). We are in Hong Kong for little more than 24hrs, as a stopover before we fly to Bangkok where we will be spending New Year with Robert’s brother and his husband (a total coincidence, as they had booked their trip before ours). Hong Kong is one of the few places on this trip we have been to before and we were interested to see what its ‘SAR’ (Special Administrative Region) status actually meant now, especially given events over the last few years. I first came here in 2006, just after I met Robert, and back then it still had a very British influence; now there are far fewer Caucasian faces around and the Chinese influence has become increasingly more noticeable: for example, far more of the famous neon signs on the skyscrapers  written in Chinese, more (very boxy) Chinese cars on the streets, and more Chinese retailers. We noted that many British retailers we had previously seen no longer had a presence here. Hong Kong still has many luxury shopping malls: Chanel and Tiffany (amongst other luxury retailers) have outlets everywhere, possibly due to Hong Kong apparently having the largest numbers of ultra-high net worth individuals of any city.  The shops here must rub their hands with glee, especially as Chinese New Year is in just a few weeks’ time.

We arrived late afternoon and decided to make the most of the short time we had here by hitting the streets for some sightseeing. We took the iconic Star ferry across the water to Kowloon and admired the Island skyline as the sun was setting. After a couple of hours walking I was definitely flagging from jet lag, and I could tell from the look of terror R has on his face when he is really shattered that he needed sleep as well. As we could finally enjoy a Saturday night out in a city that actually had nightlife – our first proper night out since Medellin in early October – we took a tactical disco nap. It took a while to rouse ourselves from the very comfortable hotel bed, but we managed it, and thought we would try to get a table at Ho Lee Fook restaurant (say it out loud) which was recommended to us. Despite not having a reservation, we managed to get the last free table. It was a bit touristy, but the food really was delicious, especially their signature pork dish. Their curated ‘80s playlist (ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Heaven 17, to name but a few) was a real trip down memory lane. If I had one criticism, the sharp-suited waiters with identikit pencil moustaches could have done with a little less flouncing, and a bit more waiter-ing. We then went to a couple of bars and ended up in a local gay club which had a good DJ (and sound system) and, unlike New Zealand, quite a few customers.

This morning was a bit bleary-eyed, but we got ourselves together to get NYE haircuts (a considerable step-up from the ones we had in Samoa) and do a bit of shopping. I noticed this last time we were in Hong Kong at Christmas – and it is still the case – this city fully embraces poinsettias at Christmas: every office block foyer, public area, shopping centre and restaurant has poinsettias everywhere. They are even in random flower beds and central reservations. We rode the tram this morning and stopped off at a market where the fish were so fresh they were still flapping on their ice blocks, whilst a shrimp had made a bid to escape from its tank, and was slowly expiring on the pavement ☹. Given we have been away from home for nearly three months now, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of one of the M&S Food outlets, still dotted around the city, for our lunch. Sitting on a bench in the sunshine to eat our M&S sandwiches and pork pies (bliss), we noticed a sign telling us not to do pretty much anything. We had to double check eating in public was still ok. I saw a similar sign was on one of the waterside piers later, informing readers of an Act introduced in 2020, and warning that anyone playing music ‘for the annoyance of any other person’ (define?) would be fined the equivalent of £1,000 and imprisoned for two weeks. Maybe TfL should follow by example.

We took another ferry this afternoon to enjoy a drink on the Kowloon waterside, before it was time to head back to the hotel to pick up our bags and return to the airport for our late flight to Bangkok. I was engrossed by the size of the stewardess’ lips as she was talking to me. They were clearly doing a BOGOF when she got her last collagen injections. Pete Burns would have been jealous.