Cambodia is an optimistically sad place. Now this might seem like utter gibberish, but it’s hard  to really put your finger on what the nature of the country exactly is. However, one thing looms so large in Cambodia’s not too distant pass that no one visiting here can escape from – namely the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian genocide. From 1975-1978 and estimated 2 million Cambodians were murdered by their own regime,  the Communist Khmer Rouge. Yet this recent trauma, which is still being brought to justice through a specially appointed UN-Cambodia court, seems not to weigh heavy on these naturally smiley, chatty, sunny people.

Wherever you go in Cambodia you are sure to come across mass graves and meet people who lost family to the regime. There are even people our parents’ age who were involved first-hand in the slaughter, who now live out in peace in the rice fields today. But the nation still laughs, jokes, forgives and overwhelmingly looks to the future. There’s lot’s of poverty and torturous history, but people are ambitious and quick to smile – hence an optimistically sad place.

On the way to Phnom Penh we passed a small shack by the side of the road which was rather grandiosely signed, ‘Cambodia National Business School’. Inside were two fellas asleep in matching hammocks. I think this says as much about the pace of life here as 1000 incoherent words on my part.

As a country it’s beautiful.

The majority of Cambodia is actually underwater. We’re not talking Atlantis style, rather it’s part of the mighty Mekong river flood plain and spends the majority of the year lightly submerged. For hundreds of years the people of this land have skillfully managed the floods and extensively cultivated the land for rice. So as our bus trundled along to Phnom Penh on a raised highway we passed through endless dreamy green rice paddies dotted with huge palm trees. In every field water buffalo, naked kids and old Khmers shaded by round hats toil the fields in a way which probably hasn’t changed in a millennium. In Cambodia we really got a sense of where South East Asia has come from.

We decided to stay in Phnom Penh, the capital, for a couple of nights before heading up to Siem Reap, where the temples of Angkor lie hidden in the jungle. Phnom Penh has that same South East Asian feel of a city going places. The major difference is that in the race for growth, it’s starting from the back… with a ten second penalty. It’s another crowded city, except the buildings and infrastructure seem to be struggling to cope. The streets are, in general, filled with people, market stalls, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, stray dogs and rotting rubbish. It’s loud and dirty, but people smile and genuinely seem happy. As a tourist everyone still wants your dollar but they’re happy to say ‘no problem’, if you’re not interested. This was pretty refreshing after cut throat Vietnam.

It’s a sign of the often sad nature of Cambodia when the major tourist attractions in your capital city are a former prison where tens of thousands of people were tortured and the fields where they were subsequently sent to their deaths. It’s indeed a strange thing having tuk-tuk drivers cheerfully banter for your business, promising to take you to the place where it’s quite possible that their mothers or fathers, brothers or sisters were tortured and killed.

We headed to S-21 which is the code name for the prison which housed many unfortunates during the regime. Estimates put the number of people who were ‘processed’ here at around 30,000 – wandering around the complex is an uneasy experience. From the outside it looks much like the school it was before the Khmer Rouge converted the building to a prison. But once inside the complex the claustrophobia of the place closes in.

Initially you walk around the interrogation rooms. These are left near empty except for a solitary iron bed with heavy restraints. On the wall is a large photograph of the previous occupant in a gruesome post-torture state, blood and all. In other parts of the complex you see the cramped cage-like cells which housed the prisoners. Most are less than a meter wide and no longer than 6 feet.

On the bottom floor of the last two blocks you are presented with the ghostly photographed faces of literally thousands of previous occupants. As we wandered around the pleading faces of young girls, boys, men and women, long low rumbles of thunder shook the building from a storm outside. You are moved by the stark brutality of the place.

The most chilling part is perhaps reserved for the final section. Here you are shocked by the display of hundreds of skulls, brought to the museum from the nearby killing fields. Large lacerations and gaping bullet holes are clearly visible on the skulls – even those of children.

What’s most surprising is the testimony from former guards and employees of S-21 which leave you feeling conflicted. Most of the employees of S-21 still alive today were children or young party members who were forced to work there. It’s a mark of the terror of the regime that these people knew what evil they were part of, but felt it was kill or be killed. Many of those who worked at S-21 were eventually held as prisoners and killed as well. It goes some way to illustrating the mindless and paranoid nature of the regime which never knew who was its friend and who was its enemy. In the end, nearly everyone suffered.

With the depths of humanity preying heavy on our minds we headed out for an antidote – Cambodian culture. This came in the form of some beautiful temples and the impressive imperial complex. The exquisite buddhist architecture was just the tonic for the more sober day’s beginnings.

We enjoyed some good food and drinks with a lovely couple from England we met on the bus and found out they were also heading to Siem Reap. We decided to get the bus up together as travelling into Phom Penh as a foursome gave us a bit more security and bargaining power at the hotels.

On the way up to Siem Reap Hollie and I made our first fatal error of the trip, and it came in the form of an innocent mango. Stopping halfway for some lunch, Hollie and I were enticed by the roadside stalls selling fresh fruit – or at least it looked fresh. Getting into Siem Reap, again as a foresome, we found a hotel and negotiated a good rate on the rooms. All together we’d be there for five nights, as we’d heard it was a great town and that you need a couple of days to see the Angkor temples and recover. Luckily for us it was five nights. 

Settling into some beers on our first evening Hollie excused herself from the revelry early, not feeling well. Not thinking too much of it I told her I’d be in after a few more beers and to my credit I was. I found Hollie a sorry sight spread out across the bed. Her stomach was hurting. This wasn’t anything too abnormal I said, she often felt this way after a big dinner – except she didn’t eat much that evening.

It was about two hours later when Hollie went for her first vomit. Oh dear. At that point I was feeling a little bloated from my beers and food, but otherwise I thought Hollie was suffering from the mango she had on the road. I had opted for pineapple and seemed to be doing OK. Things got worse for Hollie and for a good four hours she was regularly throwing up, but by around midnight she seemed to have nothing more to give and settled a little. That’s about the time my delayed illness kicked in…

And so that was it for three days. Hollie and I in the depths of acute food poisoning, our symptoms exactly the same but separated by six hours. We ate next to nothing for the duration and could not leave the hotel

By the third evening we were feeling a little bit better and decided it would be now or never for the temples of Angkor. We headed out by tuk-tuk that evening to get our tickets for the next day and to watch sunset at one of the temples (which they allow if you have a valid ticket for the next day).

Well if getting to that place meant we had to go through the food poisoning, I’d have to say it’s worth it. The temples of Angkor are everything you expect and so much more. I say temples, because I naively thought it was just one – Angkor Wat, turns out there are over a thousand in an area which covers miles of jungle.

Going up for sunset was a bit of a fight with the thousand other tourists, and the temple at the top a hill resembled the Titanic in its last pitch with people clinging on to any part for dear life. But it’s worth it. Once you’re up there – and these things are really steep – the view is breathtaking, especially with the sun set.

The next day we took a tuk-tuk for a full one day tour of all the main temples. The sheer size of the place is overwhelming. At the height of the Khmer empire (800AD – 1100AD) Angkor was home to over a million people. To put that into perspective London was only a city of 70,000 around the same period.

The temples are beautifully ornate, crafted with unbelievable skill and rise up high out of the jungle. There are ones which are still in use and can compare to any religious building in the world and there are other temples which have succumbed to the wilds of the jungle, with huge trees cracking up through the walls. It’s a wonderfully spiritual place – and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t put much stock in organised religion. In short it is one of the most amazing places I have ever been to.

After the excitement of the temples Hollie and I had a couple of nights of continue our recovery and slowly get back into the delicious Khmer food.

We’re now in Malaysia and fully recovered. If we’ve been on a bit of a food odyssey across the Asia continent, then we’ve definitely saved the best for last. But more about that later…

As soon as we crossed the border it was clear we were in a  completely different country. The landscape, language, architecture, sounds, smells and colours all conspired to give us a new experience. And I have to say, a preferable one to China.

The first thing that strikes you about Vietnam is the richness of colour. After the grey of China maybe this was amplified, but it was still an invigorating sight. A hundred shades of green gave the hills and mountains a cryptic depth. The sky seemed less choked and every building was painted a bright colour, with the architecture clearly influenced by a pillared French colonial style.

China was crazy busy, but it’s clear they have the guiding hand of the state – building roads, railways and generally trying to order the chaos. In South East Asia there is no order – just chaos.

The moped, or motorbike, is the prefered mode of transport out here. And contrary to size order these little drones of the roads seem to rule the roost. It’s amazing to see what some people can get on the back of their bikes; beds, stacks of tractor tyres, sacks of rice, double bed mattresses not to mention the whole family. To drive out her takes a special skill, an over judicious use of the horn and balls. The movement and interplay of the traffic is like some drunken tango – ungraceful, but it gets the job done.

Our first stop for the week was Hanoi – Vietnam’s capital. As most people are probably aware, since the Vietcong defeated South Vietnam and the USA, Vietnam has existed as a one party Communist state. Although Vietnam is embracing economic reform as eagerly as China, it definitely has a more stereotyped Communist feel to it.

Hanoi is a pretty cramped and hectic city, but at the same time a beautiful one. It has its fair share of thoughtless concrete development, but crucially it also has a wonderful central old town where the tiny streets and blend of Vietnamese and French culture combine to give a sense of the exotic orient which I’d been searching for since Shanghai.

Layered on top of this colonial-Orient feel is the clear presence of the Communist state. Ho Chi Min propaganda posters, the star of Vietnam and the Hammer and Sickle are never too far away from your gaze. There’s even a park dedicated to Lenin – although it’s far from charming and used more for school PE lessons. 

In Hanoi you can touch, feel and smell the country’s culture… and you can shop.

It turns out Vietnam is the global centre of the world’s replica trade. Whether it’s a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, shoes, sunglasses, DVDs, software, hardware, computer games – the stalls of Hanoi have it all. A mixture of busy markets, the smell of delicious street food, the temples, the tree-lined colonial streets and a vibrant coffee culture left Hollie and I very fond of the capital.

But not being able to linger too long we set out for Halong Bay and Cat Ba island in the Gulf of Tonkin for some beautiful beach action.

They say South East Asia is a barter economy. Well from what I’ve seen that applies to mainly tourists on the premise that prices for us are often doubled, or more. Getting to Cat Ba island was a case in point.

Having caught the train from Hanoi to the coast Hollie and I needed to get a connecting ferry to the island. Our guide book reckoned the going rate to be around 100,000 dong, or $5. We arrived at the train station and began our walk to the docks about a kilometre away. All along the way we were followed by an amusing looking lady who kept dispensing helpful directions, clearly concerned we were going to get lost and obviously acting out of altruism. 

When we finally got there we found out that we had just missed the midday boat – bummer. Luckily for us though our friendly guide had the solution. Claiming that the only way left to get there was by a speedboat at another docks, she offered to introduce us to an acquaintance who could sell us a ticket.

I didn’t trust her one bit and my ‘tout’ suspicions were confirmed when her mate quoted us 300,000 dong for the speedboat.”

“That’s outrageous,” I say,  ït says 70,000 dong on that board there”.

“That’s Vietnamese price, you 300,000. Insurance,” she shrugs.

After debating the existence of such an inflationary insurance we haggled the price down to 250,000 dong. With no other boats leaving for the day we were in a poor bargaining position and had to accept. While we waited for the bus our helpful sage tried to sell us some postcards. When we politely declined the tout complained that she helped us for free, directions and all. I turned to her in response, “commission?”". A wry smile crept across her face followed by protestations of innocence.

We got on the bus which would take us to another dock for the speedboat. Tout lady handed over our tickets. There clearly stamped is the price – 130,000 dong – we paid nearly double. Gamely she continued to try to sell us postcards. My friend Sam summed things up perfectly when he was telling us about his travels in South East Asia, “You’re constantly being screwed. After a while it takes the shine off things.”

In the end it was probably worth paying the extra money to get to Cat Ba island that day as the place itself is absolutely stunning. Halong Bay is home to over 3000 limestone islands which thrust up sharply from the sea. Cat Ba is one of the biggest islands in the bay and is the only one which is permanently inhabited.  

For three days Hollie and I chilled out on the beach amongst beautiful scenery. A lush tropical interior, karst limestone formations plunging into the ocean  and picture perfect golden beaches made Cat Ba a great place to take things down a notch or two after the urbanism of China and Japan.

Getting back to Hanoi we decided to miss out on central Vietnam due to massive flooding in the region. Hearing that this was also affecting transport links to Saigon (or Ho Chi Min city as it’s now known), we decided to take a cheap internal flight rather than risk getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.

If Hanoi is the exotic blend of colonial and native culture I’d been searching for in the Orient, then Saigon, unfortunately, was more Asian Tiger city syndrome. 

It seems Saigon is also racing full speed ahead towards western-style development. I guess there isn’t anything wrong with that. The millions who live here in vastly better conditions than those in other places in Vietnam would probably laugh at me when I say I prefer Hanoi. But as a traveller, I’m here to say what I liked about places, not what I was impressed with from an economic or development point of view. And in that respect north Vietnam is a lot better.

Again not affording the luxury of staying anywhere to long Hollie and I booked a bus to Phnom Phen, the capital of Cambodia. We’re winding down to two weeks left, but there’s still a lot of ground to be covered. Let’s see how we get on.

Where to begin. We headed to the train station from Carrie’s place in Nanjing to catch our train which was scheduled to leave at 10pm. We arrived at the train station with not too much time to spare and legged it to the platform with full packs on.  Needless to say in the 25 degree evening heat, we were sweating… a lot.

Arriving at the platform we were greeted with the sight of our noble steed for the next 32 hours. It was massive, stretching the length of the platform as far as the eye could see like some giant Amazonian centipede.

We asked the nearest train attendant what carriage we were in. He looked at our ticket, laughed slightly to himself and then proceeded to gesticulate wildly into the distance at the other end of the train.

After a 10 minute walk we found our carriage at the very front of the train. There had to be at least 20 carriages in total, all packed to the rafters with Chinese people. Bar our sweaty bemused reflections in the glass windows, there wasn’t an intrepid westerner in sight.

We climbed on board with a major sense of trepidation heading into the murky unknown.

Being short on a bob or two Hollie and I decided to go for the ‘Hard Sleeper’ option, which was cheaper by maybe $20 per ticket – a not insignificant sum. This, in retrospect, was a mistake.

Our hard sleep car was a little more cramped than I expect. Picture the scene. A long carriage of maybe 50m separated into possibly 20 compartments of six bunks - or roughly 160 people per carriage. There must have been at least 2000 people on this train.

The bunks were about 5ft 10 long, because my feet definitely stuck out of the end of the bed into the corridor. The height between bunks was roughly 0.5m. And the train was RAMMED with each bunk hosting  a man, woman or child. Needless to say Hollie fell silent as we got to our bunks.

Our travelling companions for the trip were a mixture of young and old Chinese. Above us were a young Chinese couple, or possibly brother or sister – although when I woke up in the middle of the night to the image of him groping her above me, I prayed couple. Below us were two older gentlemen; one a quiet type, the other a loud, brash and judging by the bronchial nature of his cough, quite ill man.

I turned to a white-faced Hollie. I told her it was all good and that it was an adventure. Initially she didn’t quite see my point, and I have to admit, secretly neither did I. 

30 minutes after we left the station, without warning, the lights went out. Temporary loss of power I thought. But no, the darkness persisted. Hollie groped for my hand across the divide between our bunks. I gave her a reassuring squeeze, “must be lights out”.

A minute later our ‘train manager’ walked down the aisle barking forceful orders at all the Chinese whilst closing the curtains. At least we knew it was lights out time and not some prelude to one of those horrific train crashes you occasionally glance over on BBC News. It was amazing to see the power that this throwback to the Communist era train manager held upon the chirping masses. No sooner had she marched the length of the train, the place was silent. Maybe sleep and the morning would bring a better take on things. At least we had peace and the gentle repetition of the train’s wheels on the track. Or that’s what I thought.

Then the guy in the bunk below started to cough. Now this wasn’t your English style concerned-about-waking-up-your-fellow-passengers cough. No, no no. This was a full on Chinese style I-dont-give-a-fuck-about-who-is-around-me hack. A deep guttural embolism of the lungs which brought up what sounded like a tidal wave of phlegm. What to do with such an oral load? Why, spit it on the ground of course, right next to the beds. And then he lit up a cigarette. Brilliant.

After a poor night sleep Hollie and I were rudely awakened by our train manager – whom I was now calling Stalin. Just as abruptly as she had declared bed time, at 7 am she opened all the curtains and barked maternal like orders to get up out of our beds. Expect we had nothing to get up for, no school, no work, nothing. And neither did the unwashed masses – literally unwashed.

We spent the day counting down the hours on our bunks, reading and generally trying to ignore the ludicrous situation we found ourselves in. Everytime I went to the toilet it was like I had ceased to be a simple traveller and was in actual fact the train’s cabaret entertainment. No matter where we went on the train people pointed and laughed at us. Clearly they found the humorous side of our situation we couldn’t quite grasp!

In the end our train rolled into Nanning, 32 hours after the fact. I think we’d sort of come to terms with the travelling conditions by the end of things, but needless to say we were happy to be off the train.

Except we weren’t at our final destination. We were still 250 kms from the border, and it was 5.15am. So, following the advice laid out in our 2 year old Lonely Planet China guide we made for the long distance bus station.

Pointing to the area on the map, I thought it would be a breeze for the taxi driver. But he just looked at me in confusion and then laughed shaking his head. Well, after 32 hours in transit and very little sleep I think my response amounted to something helpful like, “well fuck you then”. So we decided to walk - it was only a mile away.

After walking for 25 minutes with full packs on in the drizzle we came to a green area where the bus station should have been. I asked around a few locals who gave pretty much the same response as the taxi driver. Then it dawned on us. This is China where development is the word of the day – the bus station didn’t exist at this location anymore. After a 32 hour train ride and mile walk this came like a slap to the face. Fast running out of ideas we headed back to the train station, it was now about 6.30am and getting light at least.

Back at the station we discovered we could take another 3 hour train ride to the border town itself where we could catch some other form of transport to the check point 20km away. So with weary bodies and minds we hauled ourselves onto another overcrowded, noisy and staring train.
Heading towards the border the scenery started to change noticeably. We were leaving the concrete behind and  heading into a world of limestone monoliths covered with dense green jungle where the air hung thick with humidity. I was immediately feeling better about this, this was progress.

We arrived at Pingxiang, another concrete nothing town in China, but this was near the border so we were happy. Getting out of the train station a young man accosted us. “Friendship Border. Friendship Border”. Again our spirits soared at this indication that we were in the right place. “Just take us their mate,” I replied.

He led us to his steed. I wasn’t quite what I expected. We were faced with a motorcycle which had what can only be described as a small shed welded to the back of it with a few extra wheels for balance. In our state of tiredness we acquiesced to this primitive and no doubt dangerous form of transport,while also forgetting to negotiate the price, much to his delight.

Handing over the exorbitant fee our driver pointed up the hill through a gate. Here was the crossing at last, if only we could get into Vietnam everything would be OK.

Having grown up crossing the border between the UK and Ireland near Derry in the late 80′s and early 90′s, I was no stranger to the militarised nature of land crossings. Unfortunately for Hollie this was her first time, and it’s fair to say she was a little apprehensive.

Things were going smoothly for us until Hollie tried to exit China. Now most of you will be aware that Hollie has recently had a drastic re-styling of her hair, from long flowing locks to short sassy hairdo. And it looks great, or at least that’s what most people think. Not the Chinese.

As I was ushered through I turned back to see Hollie stood at the exit checkpoint. Her border guard was scrutinising her passport photo and then Hollie in the manner of someone who couldn’t quite believe what he was looking at. Oh no.

After a few minutes of looking I could see Hollie was getting increasingly agitated - as anyone would be. Clearly believing he had cracked the latest ‘white tourist people smuggling ring’, he called over his colleague and gestured at the passport photo. His colleague, a woman, looked hard at the photo and then at Hollie. She told Hollie to smile, which Hollie obliged in a faint sort of way. Not convinced, she called over her supervisor, obviously the head Honcho. Again the same procedure, long stares and shakes of the head.

At this point Hollie began to get a bit upset, but to her credit she manage to keep her cool and explain she had a haircut. From behind I offered an obvious hair cutting hand gesture to which the Honcho responded in clear and perfect English, “I think you better go outside”. I nodded, and then got nervous.

I walked off away from the checkpoint desks but managed to find a seat in the building where I could keep my eyes on Hollie. Now more border guards had come to offer their sagefull wisdom – no one thought this an acceptable likeness. With much gesticulating and increasingly sad eyes Hollie remonstrated with Honcho. Eventually he relented, but informed Hollie she should update her passport photo if she didn’t want further trouble.

Apparently when they were talking Hollie said she had recently cut her hair and that the photo was at least 5 years old. Eyeing her up suspiciously Honcho had replied, “Yes, the hair… But here, around the cheeks you were very fat no?” Brilliant, not content with disclaiming her identity he calls her fat. It was crazy to think that we had so much trouble just leaving the country, what would the Vietnam border hold?

In the end nothing. Our passage into Vietnam was busy, but smooth. No questions of double identities or international espionage – all good. Feeling elated to finally be in Vietnam we were swiftly brought down to earth by the realisation that we were still 250 odd kms from Hanoi. Luckily we found a bus which would take us directly into central Hanoi for a reasonable price. We were on the final leg of the journey.

Our mini-bus whizzed us to the border picking up people along side the road as we went. At one point we had 24 people in a mini-bus with 16 seats. Welcome to South East Asia.

The scenery on the drive to Hanoi was beautiful and already there was so much more colour in everything. After the grey monotony of China it felt refreshing to be somewhere new.

We arrived into Hanoi central and were dropped off at the bus station. Not caring about the cost of anything, we jumped into a cab and headed to the Old Quarter and our selected accommodation for the night. The sound of the key entering the lock to our room was as sweet as anything I’ve heard in a while.

Hollie and I flopped out on the bed. 42 hours in total, we were done. The bright colours, exotic smells and hustle of the city drifted in from our bedroom window. We had survived the journey from hell and had made it to Vietnam.

Getting off our train – which was both comfortable and quick at 205 kph – it was clear to see that even the so-called ‘smaller’ cities on the east coast are, in fact, monsters. We hadn’t passed through any countryside on our two and a half hour train ride, just more chimney stacks and tower blocks. Getting off the crowded train Carrie greeted us through the throngs of commuters with a smile and a wave. It was nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of Shanghai, even if Nanjing is a major metropolitan centre of nine million.

On the way to Carrie’s flat the differences between Shanghai and Nanjing were immediately noticeable. Whereas Shanghai looked and felt like a rich and brash city, Nanjing gave me the impression of a city more closely connected with its Communist past. Here there is less steel and much more concrete – basically things look a bit shit. Now it may be prejudice of me to associate Communism with drab, soulless concrete monstrosities, but I’ve travel all over the former Eastern Bloc and for me concrete is Communist architectural heritage. It’s really busy here, yet people seem to take the time to acknowledge your presence.

Carrie informed us that Nanjing is the education centre of China, and that most kids will be sent here to learn English, or other European languages. As a result it has a much more lively expat community and a great student vibe. It certainly feels a lot friendlier and more accessible that Shanghai.

Over the last few days we’ve eaten like kings and drank to our hearts content. Carrie has taken us on a magical mystery tour of cheap street food establishments which have served up amongst other things; fantastic dumplings, deep fried savoury buns, exquisite duck and Ramen noodles bursting with flavour.

We’ve explored old areas of the city which are just about surviving the development plague. It’s amazing to see people, largely old, living on the fringes of civilised society in the middle of such change. Walking down one street was like taking a trip through a bombed out street in a museum dedicated to the horrors of aerial warfare. And this was quite possibly a legacy of the horrific Japanese invasion and occupation of the city. But the point was that people still live, eat, work, sleep, gamble, get their hair cut and even shop for salacious publications in ancient houses with no roofs or in some cases no walls. Walk down one of these street, turn right and you’re greeted with a shiny new shopping mall promising punters a slice of western fashion. What a truly remarkable place – how long it will stay this way is another point altogether.

Nanjing is not an aesthetically offensive city, but it is certainly no oil painting either. Like Shanghai, smog has shrouded the skyline for our duration, but we were able to escape the clutches of concrete for an afternoon by heading to a mountain which nestles in on Nanjing’s east side. Here in the tranquil wooded hillside Ming dynasty tombs and the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat Sen – the founder of modern China – offer a cultural respite from the city.

The highlight of the park was a large ornate pagoda rising nine stories above the tree line. This gave us spectacular views of the Purple Mountain, and would have given us an unrivaled city visa had it not been for the murky unyielding smog. Still it is a beautiful place which gives you a hint of the city’s glorious imperial past.

On our final day we headed to the shocking Nanjing massacre museum. It’s a sad indictment of the city’s past that most people probably connect Nanjing with the word ‘rape’. The city earned this tag from a seminal work of history, ‘The Rape of Nanjing – WWII’s unknown holocaust’ which details the horrors of a six week murderous binge perpetrated by Japanese troops after their invasion of China.

The museum is macabre to say the least. From the start to the finish you are bombarded, if you’d excuse the military tones, with horrific images of murder, rape and wonton destruction. It’s a sign of how powerful the exhibition is that I must have read the word rape a hundred times and at no point felt desensitised. They reckon that over 300,000 people were killed in six weeks, although the sad thing is that no one will ever know the true extent of damage such was its uncontrolled fury. It’s amazing to hear that certain portions of the political right in Japan deny either the existence or scale of the massacre. You’ve only got to looks at the pit of skeletons or the pictures of Japanese soldiers holding up severed heads to understand some of the bile that exists between the two nations.

Feeling thoroughly humbled, Hollie and I headed back to Carrie’s and out for some western Chinese cuisine which was very yummy and helped ease away some of the horrific images from the museum.  We were then off to catch our 32 hour train ride towards the Vietnamese/China border with the final destination Hanoi. It was the beginning of an EPIC journey, one with deserves a whole blog in its own right. I’ll be crafting that story over the next few days, so watch this space.

So, after six days in the Middle Kingdom I’ve had time to distill the mayhem, and I’ve decided that the current state of the Chinese nation can be summed up by what’s going on in their highways and roads.

Like the development of their nation, the Chinese operate at breakneck speeds on the roads. The kind of disdain shown for the hallowed highway code is the kind of disdain for bureaucratic health and safety red tape which clearly permeates development. On the asphalt it’s every man for himself with aggression and strong decision-making rewarded. Those who can’t keep up are left behind, or in some cases ploughed directly through. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out on the streets, and I think the same can be said for China in general.  In fact, in a book I’m reading a Chinese peasant who’s interviewd sums up the modern spirit of China perfectly – “It’s a man-eat-man world”. 

It’ll be interesting to see what the place will look like in ten years. Things are inexorably moving forwards, but it’s clear that a whole underclass is currently dragging with the gap between the ‘haves’ and have nots’ widening. Rumblings of discontent abound from the countryside. According to a great book I’m reading – ‘China Road” – the peasantry feel like the party, who promised them so much 70 years ago, have abandoned the unfulfilled revolutionary promise of more land and less taxes. Breakneck urban and economic development has come at the price of rampant corruption and rural stagnation. Where China goes from here is a direction the whole world will be looking at with interest.

From a personal perspective I’ve been at the same time overwhelmed and disappointed with China. The sheer scale of development is unbelievable and the east coast is the busiest, most dirty place I’ve ever been to. But underneath there is an ancient culture with colour and depth which is slowly being suffocated by the desire for everyone to get rich. I think if I had more time to explore the ancient cities and get out into the vast countryside my perception would change a little. But it’s the whole nation’s preparedness to demolish the old in favour of the new which has most irked my historical and cultural sensibilities.

We’re in Vietnam now and I hope to blog on this wonderful place as soon as I’ve shared with you our 42 hour transit ‘experience’ !!



This, of course, is rapidly changing.

Unlike the USA post 1945, it’s fair to say that  the rest of the globe is not drowning under the  weight of Chinese cultural or intellectual exports. However, it is clear that all eyes of the international business and political community have their gaze fixed firmly East, on a economically emboldened ‘Middle Kingdom’.

If you cast a glance at a copy of ‘The Economist’, ‘Newsweek’ or any decent broadsheet newspaper over the past ten years, the one driving piece of analysis regarding this area of the world is neatly summed up by a line from the comedy Fr. Ted. As the hapless Fr. Dougal peers out from the Craggy Island parochial house one episode, he announces in some worried fashion to his long suffering priestly colleague, “Ted, the Chinese are coming”.

And come they shall, literally in their millions to the major east coast cities of China to seek a better life. And it was with this knowledge of the roaring Chinese economy which Hollie and I steeled ourselves in the run up to our docking at Shanghai.

Having spent two days on a boat from Osaka, and at least a day on the open ocean – albeit strangely a clam ocean, it was with some excitement we looked forward to seeing our first glimpse of China. The irritating tannoy in our cabin announced at 7am on the second day that we were now traveling up the Yangtze estuary. Shunning an extended cuddling session, much to Hollie’s displeasure, I jumped out of our cabin and raced up to the observation deck.

Well, what a disappointing and at the same time thought provoking moment. After the clear blue sky and dark inky swell of the ocean over the previous two days, I was greeted by the foul smelling brown swill of the Yangtze estuary and a sickeningly thick haze of pastel coloured smog.

All around us surrounded ships of unimaginable proportions probably carrying even more inconceivable cargoes. Through the murk of the smog I could make out giant tower stacks exhorting their no doubt highly polluting fumes into the already scarred atmosphere. Behind these factories sprung even bigger tower blocks to accommodate the hordes of urban workers. In other places what seemed like a thousand cranes grabbed relentlessly and greedily at the piles of containers stacked up on these large ships like blocks of lego.

As we moved further down the estuary the busy dock and industrial scenes gave way to a commercial and urban sprawl alive with the sights and sounds of fresh construction. The skyline literally crawled with activity and gave off the appearance of an ant hill, solid from a distance, but alive with the movement upon closer inspection.

It was a shock to see all this, even after coming from Osaka – Japan’s most industrial city. The sense of progress is palpable, everywhere is moving.

By the time we arrived into central Shanghai the skyline had matured into something actually quite impressive. In other cities I’ve been to around the world there is a clear connection, or at least architectural heritage, shared by most of the buildings. Be they skyscrapers or more traditional buildings. In Shanghai this isn’t the case.

Everywhere you look in the central city a building with its individual architectural merits stares back. In a land of supposed Communist collectivism this  represents a radical form of individualism, a sort of crass one-upmanship culminating in the development of some truly arresting building designs. This would  be the first of many times when my idea of Communist China was shattered.

But it’s not just the skyscrapers which impress. An area called ‘The Bund’ is home to scores of beautiful buildings which hark back to Shanghai’s less talked about colonial past. With each of these ‘European style’ buildings harboring multiple Chinese flags aloft their roves, and new place names erasing past areas such as ‘The French Concession’,  it seems as though China – and non more so than Shanghai – has cast off the ghosts of its imperial past and is blazing a new trail for itself.

But there is a clear contradiction in this forward progression – Communism.

Officially China is still a Communist country. It is a one party state, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and has little to no semblance of democratic institutions (God I hope the Chinese censors aren’t as efficient as they’re supposed to be!). But it is also undeniably a capitalist country. You can see this all around Shanghai. The place reeks of wealth, progress, consumerism, development, GDP miracles and all manner of things capitalist. People walk around wearing the latest fashions, drive flash cars, call each other on the latest mobiles and appear to live in very nice apartments. What have you done with the China of my school text books?

But it is here, bubbling underneath the surface. Much like a magic eye picture, when you stare long enough you begin to see it. It starts when I notice old fellas wearing red CCP armbands sitting around eying up passers by with suspicion. Then you notice the young boys in green military uniforms standing to what must be agonising attention on wooden stages outside the subway. Off the flashy main streets squatting old women gaze at you in amazement through their one good eye as they look up from cleaning some undetermined tentically animal once of the deep. Scores of open fronted restaurants seat even more scores of down and out looking folk. There is, in short, a great wall of poverty behind the great wall of gleaming new skyscrapers.

I sense that this impression will deepen as we head out into the countryside.

In more tangible reporting, Hollie and I have spent a good two days exploring this city. Here are the highlights, lowlights and things which have generally amused us.

The city is infinitely interesting and I find the architecture really impressive. We’ve had some amazing food already and it’s so much cheaper than Japan. The Bund and French Concession are lovely areas of the city to wander around and The Shanghai Art Museum is a great place to top up on Chinese culture.

Coming from Japan, where customer service is paramount and people are generally really friendly, China has been a bit of a shock to the system. I can say, with no reservations, that the Chinese people are, in general, rude. Or at least after Japan that’s how it seems, or maybe it’s been too long since I was in Paris.

They spit on the floor in front of you when you walk down the street, they stare at you blankly when you’re trying your best to order and they refuse to acknowledge your poor attempts to speak the language. Ahh, that was better, now I have it off my chest I feel my liberal sensibilities are kicking in…. To be fair, I have come to their country and expected to get a response when I can’t speak the language. And I’m acutely aware that the use of the word ‘they’ is possibly a jingoistic generalisation. Nevertheless, these observations stand true, let’s see how they develop in a week’s time.

It should be warned in every guidebook, and on every foreign service assessment of China, that while the Chinese have been recently developing an economic miracle – they can’t drive for shit.

This is no exaggeration – red lights mean nothing. Walking to our hostel from the ferry terminal nearly resulted, in footballing parlance, ‘an early bath’. Innocently, and perhaps naively we decided to cross the road when the man turned green only to be nearly impaled by a speeding moped which screamed past us by just centimeters. In shock I looked back up at the man. Were my eyes deceiving me or was he green. The jolly green giant stared back at me, so I looked at the traffic lights – must be a malfunction. But nope, it was red. As I was musing this strange behavior another bike nearly crashed into me, so we decided to not cross the road at this point. But this was no intersection ‘black spot’, turns out the whole city loves to just ignore the lights and drive on through an intersection at their peril. Mental.

If you can envision the danger presented at cross roads, then it came to an even greater surprise when Hollie and I watched a trio of mothers wheel their babies in prams in the middle of the road from one side, across two three lane highways and through a maelstrom of cars and bikes. Truly astonishing.

It’s also weird to arrive in Shanghai expecting , as a student of history, to revel in CCP propaganda posters with Mao, only to find the likes of George Clooney, Michael Owen and Nicole Kidman staring down at us from giant billboards demanding we buy shit we don’t need.

We’re off to Nanjing tomorrow to visit our friend Carrie who lives there. It’ll be nice to get an expats perspective on living in China, and perhaps we’ll begin to get our heads around this maddeningly frustrating land.

That a change in pace. We’ve arrived and had a week in Osaka – the world’s 8th largest city. Our life in New Zealand and the life our friends who live here, Sam and Mai, are polar opposites.

Japan is a crowded place and non more so than Osaka. Getting the bus from the airport I noticed we were 50 km from the city centre. Yet the twinkling lights from a vast urban sprawl lit the surrounding darkness for the duration of the 40 minute ride. Coming from New Zealand this was a big change. In fact upon seeing my first street vending machine, and getting unnecessarily excited about it, Sam informed me that there were four times as many electronic purveyors than there are people in New Zealand. That’s 20 million machines to NZ’s 5 million people. Different worlds.

Our first impression is incessant, hectic and urban, but at the same it’s a place of efficiency, order and politeness. This is illustrated by our first day in Osaka which was a heady mix of neon lights, arcades, hordes of young people, all counteracted by quiet temples offering sanctuary from the city.

Armed with our Lonely Planet and few Japanese phrases we ventured out into the concrete jungle in search of a cultural conversion. Well we got it.

We spent the majority of the day in a clear and constant state of disorientation. This might sound like a bad place to start, but we quickly remembered that this is what travelling is all about. That old feeling of accomplishment when you navigate the subway system, or managed to order your lunch along with the other locals is priceless.

The north side of Minami (which confusingly means South in Japanese) is mental. Long shopping arcades dissect this district and harbour every shop, eatery and neon sign you could imagine. Agonisingly fashionable teenagers strut their stuff along the arcade like its some kind of giant outdoor catwalk. This is the Japan you come here and expect to see: big, bold and brash.

The following day Sam takes us for a tour of the city on bikes. With a little apprehension Hollie and I jump on our metal steeds and race off after Sam through the maelstrom of people and cars.

Osaka by bike turns out to be an inspired decision. We pedal like crazy all over the city, our trusty guide Mr Crofts taking us to places even he hasn’t been. Our favourite area of the day has to be the island gardens in the middle of a river dissecting the northern part of the city called Umeda. Life seems pretty good drinking a beer in the warm sunshine and eating awesome food from a stall in this little slice of greenery amongst the towering concrete and steel monoliths.

Later that evening Sam and I engaged in a bout of heavy life-mechanics and decided more beers were in order. Leaving the sensible ladies in their beds around midnight Crofts and Smyth hit the town. Our preferred mode of transport after a skinfull of drink at the flat? Why, bikes of course.

What came to pass is conjecture now. But of the night, we both enter ‘blackout-ville’ at around the same point; namely playing Pop-up Pirate for whiskey shots in some dive bar with two Japanese people.

Now at some point in my drunken stupor I decide that enough is enough, no longer shall a plastic pirate shooting out of a barrel determine my fate. I was off home and managed to slip away without Sam noticing. The problem for me was that my bike was locked upstairs on the street. Rather than give the game up to Sam that I was heading home, I think I got a little over-confident about my navigation skills which, at 4am in somewhere in a city of 25 million people and thoroughly ‘Pirated’, were probably not up to scratch.

So I got lost. But not just the kind of lost where you can wander around for a bit and find your way home, but the kind of fear educing, ‘oh shit I’ve lost the breadcrumb trail kind of lost’. What to do?

But of course, the answer was right in front of me in the form a black shiny taxi. I jumped in and the driver turned around saying something ineligible to me, presumably the Osaka cabbie equivalent of, ‘where to mate?’

Shit. I don’t speak Japanese. Shit. I don’t know where Sam lives. Shit shit shit. Oh drunken brain, please provide me with the answer…

And then it hit me like the proverbial pop-up pirate in the face. ‘Sam lives next to Osaka’s premier strip club. And one of the only Japanese words I’ve learned that sticks in my mind is Oppai – TITS’ So I began to shout the Japanese word for ‘tits’ at the cab driver, repeatedly. Initially the cabbie just stared blankly back at me, what a sight of Western decadence to behold. But as I repeated the word ‘Oppai’ to him in ever more desperation something clicked.

“Ahhhh, Oppai Apollo?”

APOLLO!! That was it, that was the name of the strip club across the road from Sam’s apartment block. I grabbed his hand through the window and thanked him profusely. Yes, I was off to the tits bar, and home to the safety of the flat.

In the morning Hollie said I came in unable to speak and Sam followed 5 minutes later. It occurred to us that the reverse of what I had done – a Japanese guy jumping into a taxi in London and shouting tits at the driver, might not have got him as far as it got me. To add to the mayhem of the previous night Sam woke up to find that he too had also made his way home without his bike. The only problem with this was that when we traced our way back to the Pop-up Pirate bar only my bike was to be found.

Obviously in his own personal stupor Sam had taken the bike for a wee spin at 4 am and locked it up somewhere else, presumably deciding he was in no fit state to ride. Of course we couldn’t find his bike on a trace of possible routes home. But still it all makes for a good story.

For the rest of the week we’ve been making the most of our Kansai Rail Pass and hitting the regional sights. A very rainy afternoon was spent wandering the old Imperial capital of Nara. The big draw here is a Buddhist temple, said to be the largest wooden building in the world. Well, it’s pretty big – big enough to fit a 60ft bronze Buddha inside. My old man the engineer would have marvelled at the construction methods, all the more impressive considering Japan’s seismic tendency.

To us Westerners Kyoto is perhaps synonymous with binding global carbon emissions targets – unless you’re American or Australian. For the Japanese, it is the spiritual and cultural heart of Japan. A much larger city than Nara, you are forgiven for thinking the guide books have got things spectacularly wrong as you step out of the impressive glass and steel station building. The 180 degree tower block view does not relent. But casting a glance at our map it’s clear to see some walking is required to search out the real Japan.

And walk we did, spending most of the day in the beautiful eastern part of the city where temples and shrines rise high up on the mountains flanking the city. Our graft is rewarded with stunning old Japanese temples, beautifully crafted with the most intricate designs. All manner of trinket shops and teahouses line the meandering alleyways in this district. We even saw a couple of women dressed as Geishas, which Hollie got inordinately excited over.

Not content with one day in Kyoto we headed back the following morning. This time we headed north out of the city to a small village nestled in the steep mountains. We hiked up an old trail to a monastery founded by some holy fella back in the 14^th Century. It’s still a working monastery to this day and local people still make the steep pilgrimage up to pay their respects and offer their prayers. It was an amazingly calm and peaceful place, yet only 30 minutes by train for the hustle and bustle of central Kyoto.

Our other trip into the region was out to Yoshino on my birthday. Yoshino is an ancient pilgrimage sight and Japan’s premier cherry blossom viewing area. Luckily for us we were heading there in the low season. Apparently things get rather hectic for this mountain town in Spring when every man and his dog heads out from the cities to check out the streaks of pink cherry blossom trees dotting the mountainside. But we were more than content to swap the crowds for deep greens and tinges of red as the landscape headed into autumn.

Yoshino is a beautiful village that stretches along a mountain ridge and rises up to 800m from the valley floor. Quaint teahouses and restaurants line the main street which snakes its way up to the temple perched atop the mountain. Hollie and I were particularly taken by the loving devotion displayed by the old Japanese locals who were gingerly tending to the various temples’ gardens.

Our highlight of the day has to go to the lunch we had. Welcomed in by a kindly old Japanese lady we were invited to take our shoes off and sit at a traditional dining table by the veranda. The view out into the valley was spectacular with the fragrant smell emanating from exotic looking flowers intoxicating. Our old dear brought over sweet tea and took our order. The food was tasty and served up with a level of detail rarely seen in comparable UK establishments. Hollie’s mackerel sushi was wrapped in persimmon leaves – a local trick for keeping the sushi fresh in the height of the summer. My rice bowl was stuffed to the brim with unidentifiable yumminess. An altogether a pleasing afternoon made even more pleasing when Hollie spotted the two old ladies of the restaurant checking out my arse when I bent over to put on my flip-flops.

I guess we’ve found food the most impressive thing about this country. Everything, from bottom to top, is bloody tasty. Hollie summed things up nicely when she said today; “The thing about Japan is, I’m always thinking about the next meal”. Touché Cruickers, touché.

Jingles are another thing the Japanese have laid down. It’s sort of a cultural cliché to view Japan as a high-tech nation. But cultural clichés are obviously driven by thin strands of reality. Over here it’s less a thin strand than a thick wedge of reality. Everything is electronic, efficient and introduced by a jingle which invariably sounds like you’ve just reached level 4 of Super Mario Brothers. Whether it’s getting on a train, ordering some food, or flushing the toilet – there seems to be a jingle for it all.

So, it’s off to China via the Sea of Japan and a two day boat ride. Should be interesting.

Dan and Hols.

After five months getting to know the operations of a large hotel I’ve come to look fondly upon the scene. There is a definite work hard/play hard culture amongst the staff and when you throw in the heady mix of nationalities and cultural nuances it combines to give the place a restless but effervescent atmosphere.

The essence of any hotel is the humble bedroom. People travel far and wide from the furthest reaches of the planet to come to Queenstown. When they get here they expect their hotel to provide clean, comfortable and homely accommodation. And at the risk of sounding like a brainwashed corporate minion – I think our Novotel does a very good job at this.

Just an average day at work

The hotel itself has 273 rooms and can accommodate up to 800 odd people. Novotel Queenstown is the granddaddy of the hospitality industry here. But for me it’s the staff which are the soul to the building’s shell, and the people I worked with at Novotel make it a colourful and interesting place.

Off the top of my head there are 20 nationalities at work here: British, Irish, Kiwi, Dutch, Austrian, French, Thai, Philippine, German, South Korean, Canadian, Chinese, Brazilian, Argentinian, Chilean, Indian, Czech, Japanese, Australian, Vietnamese. It’s a cultural and linguistic melting pot.

I’ve loved working with such a diverse range of people. It’s enabled me to pick up essential snippets of other languages which will no doubt be invaluable on our South East Asia travels. Here are some of my favourite phrases and their translations.

Japanese

Anata-Wa Chi-kan – “You are a pervert”

Thai

Pom My-Shy Falang. Pom Kon Thai, Lot-Knoy Dai-Mai. – “I’m not a white boy. I’m Thai. Give me big discount.”

Dutch

Klompen – “Clog”

Portuguese

Pussetta Malavada – “Stinky P**y”

German

Ich bein ein spiegaleye – “I am a fried egg”

So, you can see my time at work was spent productively exploring the subtle differences between languages and cultures. But the best thing about picking up little bits of another language is saying good morning or hello to a guest in their own language. The look of pleasant surprise is always a heart warmer, even if it is followed by a look of pleasant incomprehension from myself when they take the conversation beyond the greeting stage.

Hotels are a 24 hour business and their rhythm is very much based around the natural sleep, eat, sleep cycle of people. Things get busy in the morning and then again in the evening. For the most part guests of the hotel come and go with great satisfaction. They are, after all, on holiday and as anyone who has been on holiday knows you are generally buzzing from the time your plane touches down to the time is takes off again to deposit you back to your drab 9-5 existence.

However, there are exceptions to the rule: people who are born to complain and like nothing more than the joy of highlighting the most inconsequential things. I’ll give you an example. The other week one guest complained to the duty manager about the quality of their stay. The concerned manager was of course eager to rectify any problems the guest had with the staff, accommodation or hotel in general. When the guest insisted that the hotel compensate them because the weather was crap our dutiful manager politely reminded them that while they were at liberty to compensate them for any indiscretion on the hotel’s part, they were not in the business of compensating for God.

It’s also remarkable how many people request the concierge to come to their room to fix the ‘broken’ TV set in the room. This invariably results in the following scenario:

Daniel knocks on door.

Daniel: “Hello, concierge.” Door opens. “I understand you have a problem with you TV?”

Guest: “Yes, do come in. When I press the ‘on’ button on the remote nothing happens.”

Daniel: “Have you tried switching it on?”

Guest: (sightly offended) Of course I’ve tried switching it on, I’m no idiot.”

Daniel: (as he switches the TV on directly) “Yeah. You just need to switch it on, have a nice night.”

Hotels are very hierarchical places, especially big corporate ones like Novotel. This produces a musical-like stratification of the staff akin to Grease or West Side Story. Each department has its own identity and gang-like culture, and there is constant well-natured banter between the various staff groups in the hotel.

At the top you have management. These shadowy figures lurk out the back of the hotel, the faceless puppet masters of hotel operations. They remain a bit of a mystery to most of the staff and are only seen at large staff functions where they talk endlessly about corporate targets, visitor numbers and health and safety. This clandestine breed of hotelier is undoubtedly earning more in one week than about 10 front line staff put together. For this reason they remain umbrageous and anonymous, fearful of the people’s revolution boiling up from the massive wage disparity. Despite this, they rule with an iron fist and are instantly deferred respect by everyone lower down in the food chain.

Next in line is the humble duty manager. They straddle the dividing line between management and your lowly front line staff. This overworked and horrifically underpaid no-man’s-land is respected by all the front line staff. Duty managers are usually young, so they form great bonds with their fellow front liners. They are the engine room of the hotel: the Gary Barlow to Take-That. They keep operations running smoothly and deal with those unhappy customers we discussed earlier. In short they are the undervalued fulcrum of the hotel.

After this you have the glamour crew of the hotel – concierge. Due to the physical nature of the job – carrying luggage etc – the concierge team is made up exclusively of lads. This results in a machismo kind of culture. We’re the T-Birds of the hotel; always strutting our stuff and puffing out our chests like peacocks who’ve won the lottery and developed an overinflated sense of their own self-importance.

Me and the Commander

Other tribes of the hotel, while no doubt irritated by our strutting, play up to the image because everyone loves to have a chat with us. We are after all the schmoozers, the boozers, the geezers and the pleasers. Guests love to talk to us, and we love talking to them. We are more often than not the ones who get all the praise from guests on their comment cards. We’re a little bit arrogant, but everyone loves it.

If the concierge are the T-Birds of the hotel, then reception are the Pink Ladies. Although there are a few token blokes working in this department is has a distinctly ovarian feel to it. These ladies and gents are the face of the hotel, the checkers in and outers. The first point of contact for the guest and the last. They harbour the uncanny and remarkable ability to wear a smile even if they’ve had 2 hours sleep and are taking a verbal assault from disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. True to the film there is a good bit of banter between the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds as they both share the lobby habitat. Together they are the umbilical cord to the guests.

After this grouping we have F&B, food and beverage, or fuck and bollocks as I heard one previous employee refer to the department. It’s fair to say these boys and girls can get a tough ride. While the concierge team has the amazing perk of doing all the activities in town for free and front office get great cash bonuses for signing up guests to needless loyalty programmes, F&B perks extend only to the odd wine or food tasting. There isn’t as much interaction with the guests in this department and things resemble a production line at times. It’s also grating for the hard working F&B attendant to race across the lobby with a room service tray full of food while the concierge boys are stood there laughing with guests nonchalantly. The turnover of staff for F&B tends to be much higher than other departments in the hotel, perhaps a reflection of the undervalued nature of their work.

Connected to F&B, but very much a different type of person, is the kitchen worker. I think many of the lads – again a macho area – who work in the kitchen are top blokes. But what is it about working in a kitchen and people pretending to be Gordon Ramsay? This irritates me a lot. It seems no other staff member of the hotel can stay in the kitchen more than five minutes before incurring the wrath of one or more sweaty, hot and pink Ramsay clone. This is a shame because I genuinely love the idea of working in a kitchen. The creativity and passion for food is palpable. It’s just a shame chefs feel the need to act so arrogantly: like the concierge without the sense of class, fun or style!!

And finally you have the worker bees of the hotel. These vital drones are of course housekeeping. Every morning they congregate in the housekeeping office and engage in a bout of essential, if a little weird, communal massage. Once warmed up they buzz out in perfect file to their respective wings of the hotel, ready for the days scrubbing, hoovering, cleaning and pollinating. The team is characterised by a distinct lack of confident English speakers. Most are armed only with the phrase; “Housekeeping, hello”. But this motley band of arthropods work their wings off under serious time pressures. So I have muchos respect for their craft.

Somehow all these disparate tribes pull together to power the hotel. It’s a symbiotic relationship; one of respect and deference, rivalry and suspicion, love and hate.

It’s a job I’m going to look back on with immense fondness and I think it’s taught me a lot about the common connection of humanity. No matter where you’re from, or what language you speak, there is a bond of affection between people characterised by a desire to explore the commons grounds of disparate cultures.

So it’s back to the UK, out of the hospitality industry and into the verbose world of communications. Yet I feel this experience has helped me grow as a person and I have no doubt it’s left me a better equipped for the next chapter in my life, whatever that my be.

Putting my feet up in the snow

Queenstown is the premier hub for skiing and boarding aficionados from across the Australasian continent. For those ‘piste hounds’ the ‘powder’ here is legendary with some of the best ‘riding’ in the world. Out here you’ll find miles of ‘packed base’, ‘big chutes’ to ‘drop’ down, ‘sick park’ and even the odd ‘powder stash’ if you know what you’re looking for. If you’re all about ‘vertical metres’, ‘double diamond danger’ and ‘gnarly 360s’, then the ski fields of the Queenstown region are definitely for you.

Now you may have noticed that I have slipped in some snow sports slang – jargon, in fact, of the highest order…. utter shite…. completely meaningless guff which would cause even those who work in the world of think-tanks and overly verbose communication professionals to go, ‘Eah?’

Rigorously testing the snow

To be fair much of the language used in the snow sports sub-culture is actually quite descriptive. But for those who are beginning their love affair with the slopes the jargon can sometimes be confusing, clique and just downright intimidating. To be engaged in a conversation with someone completely immersed in this language can leave you feeling like a lost boy on your first day at school. But if there is one aspect of the ski season which I completely detest and cannot come to terms with, then it’s the existence of snow politics.

Snow politics is typically promulgated by your bog standard idiot snowborder and is characterised by inane chat about snow conditions. This particularly irritating alpine breed is almost always wearing garishly coloured ill-fitting gear and loves to talk to you when you’re chilling out on the chair lift. But rather than strike up a friendly two-way conversation, they like nothing more than to talk at you about the state of the snow.

To me, snow is snow. To many other people around the world, snow is snow. But to someone engaged in the dirty world of snow politics, snow has about fifteen shades of white. So as I sit on the chairlift trying to take in the ambience of being in the mountains, I’m oft confronted with a gormless tit banging on excitedly about the conditions. Let me give you an example.

Border: “Hey bro, how’s it going?”

Me: “Yeah mate not bad. Yourself?”

Border: “Yeah, all good bro, all good… (awkward silence) Sick powder eah?”

Me: “Sick powder?”

Border: “Powder. You know, the snow. Sick snow…”

Me: “Sick snow? Why what’s wrong with it?”

Border: “Nothing bro. That’s why it’s sick.

Me: “Oh… right….(awkward silence) Wouldn’t it be better to say ‘good snow’…or even ‘excellent snow conditions old chap’?”

Border: “I guess…(awkward silence) Lots of powder stashes off piste though bro, it’s sick man.’

Me: “Sick huh… must be something going round. (getting off the chairlift) Anyway see you later… and remember to sanitise your hands if you hit one of those ‘sick powder stashes’.”

Sometimes my sarcasm is lost on borders.

On the top of Coronet Peak - a local ski field

However, I must temper my displeasure at this cultural quirk as I have on occasion found myself talking about the quality the snow. You see it’s kind of unavoidable. Whenever you come back down from the slopes the question you get asked invariably is, ‘what was the snow like?’. Initially I would crack seemingly timeless funnies like, ‘white’. But the longer I’ve been here, the more I have engaged in snow politics. I’ve found myself stepping up, getting a little more descriptive with responses like, ‘wet’ or ‘soft’. I’d like to think that I’m no where near as bad as those who throw out things like, the snow was; ‘springy’, ‘tough’, ‘hard-packed’, ‘sketchy’, ‘silky’, ‘sticky’. I swear I even overheard some Aussie on the chair lift say to his mate:

“Brother, this powder’s arrogant.”

They do say that the Inuit language has multiple words for describing snow, and I think out of anyone in the world they’d be experts. So maybe these borders are on to something. Or maybe I’m just a cynical outsider.

Either way, if you plan on taking a ski holiday to the mountains of New Zealand, come armed with an Inuit phrase book.

Someone once said, ‘the best things in life are free’. Now I’m not that clever to be able to tell you who that was, nor do I have a connection to the internet at present to Google the phrase (aren’t we getting increasingly lazy!?). But I can tell you that life in Queenstown is rapidly fixating the phrase as my mantra.

‘The best things in life are free’… Just think about that for a second.

I’m going to explore this concept in relation to my Queenstown experience and try to draw out some wider conclusions.

Queenstown can be both a harsh and loving mistress, but let’s deal with ‘high-maintenance’ QT first. New Zealand and especially QT is an expensive place to live. As a resort town, QT feeds off the hard earned dollars of many a tourist. I think we can all relate to the overspending fairy, who likes to visit us at our most gleeful and vulnerable holiday moments. But in QT this financially folly has bred a worrying culture of splurging.

Every shop, bar and restaurant knows that an estimated one million vacationers pass through the town each year, and they know the overspending fairy rules the roost in this town. So they price accordingly. You’d think that this would alienate the locals, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t.

There is a sad unspoken acceptance of the ‘cost’ of living in Queenstown. What are 30,000 people compared to the million who pass through, pockets spilling out cash and eyes bulging at the latest snowboard, ski, fashion, food, fur, jewellery etc. We (the humble QT resident) have no leverage.

So, this virus, this wasteful plague of financial mismanagement has set in worse than City of London’s reckless abandonment of the basic rules of finance. In short, the fat get fatter, while the skinny get skinnier.

Now I love the concept of Ying and Yang, universal balance and all that. Not content with inventing gunpowder, big walls and Dim Sum, the Chinese were definitely on to something when they came up with this idea of universal balance. Confucius and the lads would certainly appreciate the fine balance in the culture of living in Queenstown.

Now in the context of our discussion, QT’s ‘high-maintenance’ culture has spawned a beautiful counter-culture. The Ying to it’s Yang. What I’m going to call ‘natural’ QT.

In response to the gaiety of the tourist, your lowly QT resident has developed a way of living which perfectly balances the hedonism. Town is full of little places – bars, restaurants and shops – which have developed their own ‘locals’ culture. At these ‘Locals’ Night’ or ‘Locals’ Day’, prices are significantly discounted. Many bars have happy hours and loyalty cards, most are branded as a reward for the local people. It’s as if the town is acknowledging the day-to-day plight of your average Queenstowner, who is almost certainly earning very poor hospitality wages, and with a secretive nudge and wink this overwhelmingly transient town somehow creates a unique space in which the population can build a sense of community. This works well.

For Hollie and I earning low wages in an expensive town has opened our eyes to the ‘deals’ and the little bits of community that build up over something that’s value for money. Most importantly though it’s given me a renewed appreciation for the biggest gift we have – the great outdoors.

Last weekend we went to Arrowtown, a beautiful old mining town nestled into the mountains by the magnetic Arrow River. This place has a genuine Wild West frontier feel to it and because people have swarmed the hills in past years in search of gold, there are plenty of walking tracks in which to explore the wilderness.

Arrowtown

With the sun warming our face and food in our backpacks, Hollie and I embarked on a jaunt into the mountains of Arrowtown. For an hour we hiked a track which follows the Arrow River up a valley into the mountains. The river was flowing quite quickly with spring snow melt. It’s difficult to imagine the hardships faced by the gold miners of the 1860s who flocked to this area to find their fortunes. But you can feel the magnetic draw of the river. Staring into the foaming and frothing water it’s amazing to think what riches on the river bed are protected by that angry flow.

Searching for gold in Sawpit Creek

Instead of heading all the way to Macetown, an old abandoned mining settlement, we swing a left up into the hills and through Sawpit Gully. We follow this creek – which feeds into the Arrow river – up and up into the hills until this once voluminous torrent recedes into the undulating landscape of the high country.

Looking up Sawpit Gully to the high country

As the track swings back round towards Arrowtown Hollie and I decide to take a detour and scramble up to the top of the hill to where we’re reward with beautiful views out across the Wakitipu basin and up the valley towards Macetown. At a paltry 1000m our conquered foe is but a baby compared to the 2000+ metre snow capped peaks which surround us.

Looking out towards Arrowtown

And lying there in the sunshine with all this beauty all around, we came to the swift conclusion, ‘the best things in life are free’.

So with the digital grovelling complete, I’m here to placate the mass of readers who are no doubt foaming at the mouth, salivating wildly and itching for the next instalment of this worldly chronicle. Or at least that’s how it goes in my head.

Queenstown

Queenstown harbour front

Well what can I say? Firstly, our move down here was very smooth. We managed to find a place to live within the week and started work at Novotel, Hollie in the sales and marketing department and myself at the concierge desk. We’ve settled in very quickly and already made some great friends. There is so much going on down here that it’s sometimes difficult to keep a track on what you’ve been doing. I guess a more regular blog would have reduced the current task at hand! But not to be deterred, I’ll aim to give you a brief summary of South Island Life and the highlights so far.

Moonrise over the Remarkables

Queenstown is home to a surprisingly international band of transient migrant workers. I began this post with a homage to the main nationalities you find here, because believe it or not your humble Kiwi is a rare breed in town. But as it turns out, Queenstown has always been a place with an international flavour.

The area was originally marked out for sheep farming and settled in 1860, although Maori had been visiting the area on a seasonal basis, mining greenstone from the major rivers. But it wasn’t until 1862 when gold was found in the Arrow river that things really took off in the area. With the end of the Californian and Australian gold rush Queenstown became the epicentre of the prospecting world. If Queenstown is a global village now, it owes a lot of its international heritage to the adventurers and prospectors who came flooding in from around that world in the 1860s in search of their fortunes.

Today Queenstown is a bustling little metropolis tucked away in the Wakitpu basin. Most people will recognise it as a lake front alpine resort – and that’s what it is really. Luckily we’re living right in town and don’t have to walk too far to work. There are no more 40 minute sweaty tube rides with your body shamelessly wedged between some strangers groin and another’s arse. No, no no. Now I walk to work under the watchful eyes of the surrounding snow capped mountains and breathe in the sharp, crisp alpine air. It may be a trite cliché to say this, but what the hell, here goes: Queenstown is the picture perfect postcard town. And we bloody love living here.

Chilling on top of Coronet Peak with the Southern Alps in the background

The town itself punches well above its weight. There are more than one million visitors who pass through each year, so the bar and restaurant scene is indicative of this. I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere with such a wide range of top class eateries and watering holes in such a concentrated area – and I include London in that sweeping statement. The international brigade also ensures a healthy ethnic mix, and as I’ve mentioned before the Kiwis are no slouches when it comes to their food.

You can eat fantastically and get pissed. So what, I hear you cry. Well yeah, I guess there will always be good restaurants and bars wherever you go; but it’s the sheer beauty of the place which combines to make the overall experience of living here so magnetic. But here’s the price.

Paragliding from Coronet Peak

It’s literally the price. The price of things in general. I ordered two Heinekens in a bar the other day – $19, or to you laymen, £8 a bottle. Two chicken breasts would cost around £7. Veg is ludicrously expensive, and don’t get me started on the power bills. So, in summary, the place isn’t called Queenstown after Queen Victoria. No, it’s called Queenstown because you have to be a member of the landed gentry to even begin to think the prices are reasonable.

The upshot of things, especially for me, is that we’ve landed on our feet with our jobs. Hollie is enjoying her sales and marketing role, doing similar sorts of things as in previous jobs, but gaining good experience in another industry. She is undeniably CV building in her time here.

I park cars for a living.

Wait wait wait. No this is not another epilogue of self loathing. I am in fact rather proud of my job. This is for three reasons.

Reasons for loving working as a concierge

1. I get tons of free stuff around town.
2. I get to talk to people from all over the world.
3. The only bit of job pressure is not to ding the guest’s car when parking it.

Before we started down here I had an idea of what the job would be about. And it is largely parking cars and carrying bags to guests’ rooms. However, a major element of the job I didn’t expect is selling activities and generally being the man who knows what to do around town.

Obviously in a transient town it’s difficult for the hospitality industry to keep people who really know the town well. This has resulted in the development of, what’s known in the trade, a “famil” culture. A “famil” is short for familiar and basically means doing an activity or eating at a restaurant for free. When it comes to making a recommendation to a guest, what’s better than actually experiencing something. For people lucky enough to work as a concierge you experience Queenstown’s ‘i’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ culture.

This has been class for me. To date I’ve got the following things or activities for free: skiing, ski hire, four bungees, two bungy swings, paragliding, wine tours, jet boating, a trip to Doubtful Sound and dinners, drinks and lunches at numerous restaurants in town. It’s a hard life, I know.

Looking into Mt Aspring National Park

Being a concierge in Queenstown is the closest you’ll get to being Tony Soprano. The mere mention of your job often opens doors you never knew existed. I’ve even begun to resent paying for things in general!

Hollie and I were out with some friends enjoying dinner and drinks. When it came to pay for the meal my Dutch concierge colleague, Michel, whips out what appears to be a money clip. Except it’s not stuffed with cash, but vouchers for free things. When I add our vouchers our bill is reduced from $350 to around $80. Ces’t la Queenstown.

Queenstown may be a hive of human activity, but it owes it’s existence to the splendour of its natural surroundings. Mountains, lakes, rivers, fjords and forests dominate this pre-historic landscape. I can honestly say that in all my travels there isn’t anywhere which rivals the Southern Alps and Fjordland for sheer natural beauty. The area at the tip of Lake Wakitipu deserves special mention. It’s hard to describe exactly what makes it so special, but there’s something which connects you to this dramatic landscape. When you’re sat perched on top of the mountain and you look around your own life is brought into perspective. Looking at the huge mountains and valleys forged by the long dead and ancient movement of glaciers of unimaginable size, you realise we have only been here for a fraction of creation’s time line. Humbling stuff really.

Glenorchy

Hollie and I have been really busy lately. Work is a mad house, but we’re also making to most of our weekends. We’re both pretty competent skiers now and we’ve taken a few trips out to Fjordland and Mt Aspiring National Park. But I have to say the bungees are pretty insane. Jumping 137m into a canyon with a glorified elastic band attached to your foot is one way to cure a chronic bout of constipation. It’s also probably to most memorable thing I’ve done so far.

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Gaz and Liz have been with us for the past month and our little house is now a proper home. Both are working and enjoying the ski season lifestyle. We’ve made a good bunch of friends at work. Everyone is pretty young and there are lots of different nationalities, so it makes for a pretty good working environment. It’s also comforting to know that no matter what language or cultural barriers separate people, youthful curiosity and friendliness tends to bridge the divide.

The new housemates

We’re here for another 8 weeks and aim to make to most out of our time. I’ll try to get down a few more blogs about some of the activities we’ve done, but sometimes this work hard/play hard lifestyle leaves me with little time for digital rambling!

Anyway, love to all

Dan and Hols.

xxx