The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

The last days in Hong Kong have been, predictably, occupied with practical matters related to our return to Europe – or more specifically, the return of our numerous possessions.

The first problem was of course the bicycles. You can’t just march up to the check in desk at the airport with a mud-splattered touring bike and expect to get it on the plane. Instead, it needs to be dismantled and packed carefully into a box designed for this purpose. This is no simple task.

Secondly, there was the problem of weight. All our stuff together weighed almost 100kg, far more than the 20kg each allowed without paying excessive extra fees – no less than €25 per kilo.

A more affordable option was to post it all home, although this was in itself quite expensive and involved a lot of organising. Getting it all to the post office, stuffing it into boxes only to discover that they are too heavy to be posted, and determining what sort of fiction to enter on the customs declaration, all this took time and caused plenty of stress. But eventually, the day before we left, it was on its way home. Hopefully it will arrive soon.

Aside from these preparations, we have had some time over for more interesting things. Just before the new year, we met the final fellow cyclist of our trip – although this guy was a bit beyond the rest. His name is Heinz Stücke, he is about 70 years old, and has spent almost his entire adult life on the road, having left Germany in 1962 never to properly return. Needless to say, he has some stories to tell.

Coincidentally, he was staying in a flat just around the corner from us in Kowloon City. We spent a few evenings with him, drinking wine and Guinness, and he very kindly helped organise some free bike boxes for us from a rich bike-shop-owning friend. This helped with matters described above.

On the day we met him, I stayed up half the night reading the booklet that he has produced about his travels. I was intrigued by the similarities between many of his experiences and observations and my own, both about certain countries in particular and about cycling in general. He writes with great clarity and disarming simplicity about the reasons why he does what he does, about the highs and lows, and how his life has unfolded during his almost 50 years of cycling. It is quite mind-blowing: when he set out, the Beatles were yet to make it big, the Berlin wall had just been built, and no-one had even thought of the Internet.

There is obviously something very powerful and moving about the decision to dedicate your whole life to this form of travelling, and I think that anyone would be quite awed by what he has accomplished – more than half a million kilometres cycled, and almost every country on earth visited. But at the same time, I could not help feeling quite sad when reading his story. For such a life leaves little room for much else – he has never had a permanent home, and admits that a family was out of the question. I cannot help but feel that there is something quite forlorn about such dedication: while I have no regrets about my time on the road, and would love to make more trips in the future, I am very glad to have some things to look forward to at home, too. I am concerned that perhaps his life without the bike would amount to not very much.

But here I am being very unkind, and in any case his life is none of my business. He is certainly unique.

In anticipation of huge crowds celebrating the New Year in Kowloon, we decided to get out of town for a bit. With a nostalgic eye on our recent past, we packed the tent and sleeping bags and set off on the bikes for the New Territories, where things were much quieter. A small ferry boat was on hand to take us to a completely deserted beach, where we cooked dinner, enjoyed the dramatic views over the hills towards Hong Kong Island, and celebrated the bells with a dram of some cheap whisky. It was about the quietest Hogmanay that I can remember – there were not even any fireworks to be seen – but certainly a memorable one.

And finally, the day came to leave. Almost twenty-four hours of travelling, including a seven-hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur, and we were on the ground at Schiphol. Astrid’s folks had endured a very early start to be on time to meet us, and very kindly helped with getting our stuff back to Laura and Andy’s house in Amsterdam-Noord, where we will be staying for the time being. Jobless and homeless, it’s back to reality. Should be fun.

China is China, or so you might think: it’s big, it’s red, and there’s only one. This is, incidentally, also the line spun by the communist authorities in Beijing, and so it is little surprise that this view is so prevalent. The is even a name for it – the “One China Policy”.

However, within the space of a week, I have now witnessed not less than three Chinas, all distinct from the other two. My last post described our departure from the mainland, which after three months is quite familiar to me in all its gory details, and our arrival in the parallel universe of Hong Kong. Last Sunday, we took a short trip across the South China Sea to yet another country populated by Chinese people speaking a form of Chinese – Taiwan.

For those unaware of the circumstances of this stubborn little island’s independence, some history will help. After the conquest of China by the communists under Mao Zedong in 1949, following several decades of civil war as well as the brutal Japanese occupation, the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan, and established a capitalist state there which has persisted to this day. China refuses to acknowledge Taiwan’s right to exist as an independent country, whereas the government of the island itself officially asserts that it has sovereignty over the whole of China. They are needless to say in no position to make good on this absurd claim. Most other countries, under pressure from the mainland, decline to recognise Taiwan. Notwithstanding this, as a stable democracy, it receives much moral and military support from overseas, and from the US in particular. A kind of stalemate has thus developed between the two Chinas.

I was fascinated to see what all this meant on the ground. It appears that Chiang was equally as tyrannical as Mao, and the country only attained multi-party democracy in the 1980’s. Corruption in politics is said to be about at least as bad as on the mainland. However, it would be true to say that the country has, in recent years at least, developed in a way which more closely relates to that of post-war Europe. In other words, it can be seen as a vision of what might have been in China.

In particular, I wanted to know what this would affect the manner and behaviour of ordinary people. I had been greatly struck by the typical manner of doing things in China, and I was curious as to whether this was as much a product of the system under which people have lived in recent times as it is of their culture over the longer term. In particular, the way in which the Chinese can seem very worked up and nervous, as if they are constantly afraid of someone or something.

My impression, having spent just a few days in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is that this behaviour is only “typically Chinese” in the sense that is specific to life in the People’s Republic of China – for in Taiwan, in some respects also Chinese, I found the people to be remarkably more relaxed, open, and more sure of themselves, especially in the presence of foreigners, than on the mainland. Hong Kong is just too odd, owing to its colonial history, to be likened to either country, but Taiwan and China make for a fascinating comparison.

It is hard to give concrete examples of this, although there is one which strikes me as quite typical: signs in English in Taiwan are faultlessly spelled, and more importantly read as natural English. Those in China, meanwhile, are not only full of mistakes but often read as a series of bizarre tautologies: “happiness is joyful”, “take care to be concerned”, or are in any case full of vacuous and flowery language which employs a lot of words without saying very much. It appears to have been written by people who have developed an impressive vocabulary but not an understanding of how the English language is actually used in normal communication.

I am at a loss to explain this, except by suggesting that it may have a lot to do with the respective attitudes in both countries towards the wider world. China’s “Open Door Policy”, in place since the 1970’s, seems primarily concerned with gaining access to foreign markets and technology, while the majority of ordinary people in China have had little or no exposure to any culture other than their own. The fact that so many people, throughout China, assumed without question that we could read Chinese characters serves as just one example of this. Taiwan, on the other hand, lacks the means to survive and prosper alone. The result of this is that it feels much more international than anywhere we have been in China. However, it must be mentioned that we have only visited the capital, and have not visited the cosmopolitan metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai in China. This might have evened things out a little.

What is certainly apparent is that the Taiwanese are more at ease with their relationship with the rest of the world. They have safeguarded and maintained their own customs, much more so than on the mainland where the Cultural Revolution sought to destroy many aspects of the old Chinese way of life, particularly with regard to religion. At the same time, they have exhibited a relaxed attitude towards the import of foreign customs – it’s a lot easier to get a decent cup of coffee here, that’s for sure. They even have a lot of admiration for Japanese culture (partly due to their own colonial history), in contrast to the almost fanatical hatred shown on the mainland for anything connected with that country.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found in Taipei – in fact, I would go so far as to say it has been my favourite place of our whole trip. The climate, the relaxed atmosphere, the lack of crowds and of tourists in comparison to Hong Kong, the vibrant cultural scene, and the famous “lunch boxes” – assemble your own hot picnic to take away for less than €1 – make it quite an unlikely hidden oriental gem. It is just a shame that it is so far from home; sadly, it’s not exactly a weekend destination.

And for the first time on this trip, we were not complete strangers. We were kept company by Tsui Lun, a friend of Astrid’s and former DAI student who lives in Taipei. As well as treating us to a range of culinary delights at various locations around the city, she also took us for a day’s hiking up a hill outside the city. I would have hoped to have been at the peak of physical fitness after our recent exploits, but I am ashamed to say that it was quite hard work – although certainly worth it for the view at the top, as well as the delicious picnic lunch prepared by Tsui Lun’s mother. On the way back down, we passed a series of foul-smelling burned areas of ground, in which boiling-hot water vapour and sulphur boils and steams out of the rocks. All this is due to geothermal activity under the mountain, although thankfully there is no immediate danger of volcanic explosions.

For the rest of the time in Taipei, I enjoyed myself greatly whilst shopping for tools and electronic components, drinking coffee and eating cake, and visiting numerous art galleries and museums. I would have loved to have spent even longer passing the days in such a fashion.

But before too long it was time to return to Hong Kong, pick up our bikes from the hostel where we had left them – not without an argument with the manager – and head off for the north of the city. Tired of the sleazy mayhem of Tsim Sha Tsui, the centre of Kowloon, we had arranged alternative accommodation in the north of the city. It’s quieter, a bit more Chinese, and a much more agreeable place to relax before heading home to Amsterdam next week.

And of course, there’s no escaping it – it’s that special time of year again. Although neither of us are big fans of Christmas, we decided to make a day of it anyway – dinner at Pizza Express, complete with wine, dessert, and a little gift-wrapped Italian cake to take away. We were wished “Merry Christmas!” countless times during the course of our wanderings through the city that day, although it seemed that shopping and otherwise hanging around and filling up the streets are the preferred way of celebrating the occasion here. There was nothing for it but to join in.

Our new hostel consists of a narrow L-shaped corridor, though which wafts the gentle aroma of incense from a small shrine in the corner. Onto this open a series of tiny but clean rooms, each with its own even tinier bathroom. It is run by an endearing old couple without a word of English between them besides “money”, who shuffle resignedly from one end of the corridor to the other on a variety of errands, or else sit for hours on end at the tiny reception desk doing nothing. They sleep in the room facing the entrance, and often do not emerge until late in the afternoon.

Besides them and us, the only other residents are a changing selection of couples, sometimes with young children, all of whom have one thing in common: a heavily pregnant woman. The reason for this is quite shocking: it turns out that they are all from mainland China, here only for the purpose of giving birth and thus securing a Hong Kong passport for their as-yet-unborn child. I would be surprised, were it not so typically Chinese to engage in such extreme measures without one word of complaint or display of discomfort, waiting out the final days of their pregnancy in a windowless room little bigger than the double bed in which the whole family sleeps. I can only wish them the best of luck.

So, we are here. I write from the haven of our tiny room in Mirador Mansion, Kowloon, a cell-like space illuminated by the warm orange glow of daylight seeping in through tinted windows behind me and the cold, intense radiation of a fluorescent tube above my head. In the corridor outside, a crazy American woman is talking to herself.

Grim as this may sound, it is about all we can afford here; this comes as quite a shock after China. But it is to that country that I must return in order to explain, and indeed to understand for myself, the extraordinary changes of the past week.

When I last wrote, we had just left Shaoguan, having arranged some emergency repairs to Astrid’s bike. The journey southwards from here towards the Hong Kong border was a surprisingly peaceful and enjoyable final chapter in our travels through mainland China – for not only was the weather warm and sunny, but the road was also much less busy than before. It snaked a meandering path through some beautiful mountain scenery, which became more and more green and spectacular as we made our way southwards towards the coast.

Inevitably, though, this could not continue for very long. Eventually, the hills gave way to a flat landscape of near-constant urban development, of towns, motorways, and factories, a scene which would only intensify as we approached Shenzhen, the huge city which adjoins Hong Kong on the Chinese side of the border. The image I had in my head of China before arriving was of a more or less endless sprawl of grimy, grey factories; while this has proven to be inaccurate up until this point, it was finally beginning to agree with reality.

As I have already written, a little money goes a long way in China. On the evening of the day before we crossed the border, it became apparent that it was going to be quite difficult to find a place to camp, such was the density and frequency of the towns along the route. We thus began looking for a hotel in which to spend our last night on the mainland, and quickly came across the “No. 6 Back View Mountain Motel”, a development which from the outside looked quite uninviting – more like a block of council estate garages than a hotel.

The reason for this is that each “suite” had its own garage, from the back of which a staircase gives access to the rooms above. Although it was a bit more expensive than the usual here, it took only one look to convince us that it was worth it: as well as a huge bed, flatscreen TV, and sofa, the bathroom featured an enormous built-in hot tub and a shower cabinet big enough for the whole family. This not only had two shower heads and a stone bench to sit on, but on the press of a button was transformed into a steam room. When we were asked what sort of breakfast we would like brought up to our room the next morning, I expected to be abruptly woken up from dreaming. Not only did they heed our request for something vegetarian, but even went out of their way to throw together a European breakfast for us – including cheese, a product which is almost impossible to obtain in China. I would have been quite happy with a plate of noodles, but I appreciated the effort all the same.

Very much refreshed and not really in the mood to leave the next day, we set off for Shenzhen. We had reached day 90 of our stay in China, which was the limit on our visa. To avoid some awkward questions from the authorities and the possibility of a substantial fine, it was thus time to leave. We had used up the last of our Chinese Yuan by this point, and so there was not much point in hanging around in the city; we headed straight for the border crossing.

This was to prove quite unique among the many (eight in total) border crossings of our journey, and certainly a contrast to the middle-of-nowhere rusticness of the last. We entered what looked very much like an airport terminal, with our fully-laden bikes, and proceeded along a bewildering series of corridors, escalators (no fun with a heavy bike), lifts, stairways, and checkpoints. It was quite a surreal experience.

After passing Chinese customs and receiving an exit stamp without problems, we were required to fill in a medical form and immigration card for Hong Kong, and pass through the second set of customs, before receiving an automatic 90-day visa stamp (180 days for me since I have a British passport). If only China had been so easy.

And then we were there – although still quite a considerable distance from Hong Kong city itself. It was then that we were confronted by quite an upsetting discovery – the border crossing connected directly with a station on the Hong Kong metro, and offered no other exit, besides back to China. The aim of this journey was of course to cycle the whole way, and not be forced onto a metro train at the almost last moment. But this was unfortunately our only option, aside from ramming the emergency exits. In any case, it’s not the first transgression of this commitment to purity - we were ferried across the Polish-Ukranian border in a minibus, and took a short boat trip across Lake Balkhash. The first of these incidents was once again entirely beyond our control, and the second actually resulted in more distance being cycled than if we had simply cycled around the lake. And out of 16 000km, I would hope that a handful by means other than cycling can be forgiven.

We got off the train at the first stop, and emerged into the town of Sheung Shui, strangely quiet under the comforting glow of streetlights and the warmth of the tropical winter. No-one sounded their car horns, no-one spat on the ground, there was no litter to be seen on the ground, and indeed a general air of calm and order prevailed everywhere. It was quite clear that China had been left behind for good.

This requires some explanation. Hong Kong is China, at least on the map – it was of course famously handed back by the British over 12 years ago. I had therefore naively expected it to be some sort of halfway house, a way of acclimatising to the West once again, more or less like the rest of China but rather more prosperous and less rough around the edges.

This is not the case at all. As far as first impressions go, Hong Kong is not in the least bit Chinese. The majority of its citizens may be of Chinese ancestry, and Cantonese-speaking, but everything about them is curiously European, and British in particular – it is fascinating to see them drinking coffee and eating scones, politely waiting in queues, not spitting (fine HK$1500), walking dogs (not seen since Germany), stopping at pedestrian crossings, and in general behaving quite unlike their cousins across the border. In a continuation of this quirkiness, they drive on the left. I found this very confusing at first, despite myself having learned to drive on this side of the road – for that was a long time ago, and we have covered a lot of distance on the right hand side since then. They also use the British-style square electrical sockets, and have toilets which can flush away paper (first time since Poland). Absolutely everything is printed and signed in English. Many if not most people also speak it, although in a way which is quite hard to understand. And place names are an odd combination of British imports and Cantonese – you have, for example, Percival Street next to Wong Nai Chung Road.

We spent a few hours cycling along the pristine roads of the New Territories (the area of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region adjoining the border) in search of a cheap hotel. It was then that we came across the least pleasant change from China – the fact that everything, from food to hotels, is at least twice and more often five times as expensive. Suddenly our days as rich celebrities were over; for the first time in months it was necessary to look at the price of things before buying. Also, no-one stares at us any more – we are just two among the vast sea of faces of innumerable nationalities present. This is certainly a blessed relief, although in a strange and quite shameful way I do miss being the centre of attention a little.

Upon approaching the reception desk of one hotel, I was surprised to see the man working there wearing a Celtic top. His English was not so great, and so when the conversation got a bit mixed up, he called up some help. There quickly appeared a “wee Glesga wifey”, fluent in Cantonese, who it turned out had earlier owned a “kerrie-oot shoap” on the Dumbarton Road. It was surprisingly comforting to hear a Scottish accent after so long, although since neither her nor the guy in the Celtic top were able to give us much of a discount, we had to continue on our way. In the end, it was warm enough that we could sleep quite comfortably in the open air under some trees. I do regret that we have not done this more often.

The next morning, we set off for the final leg of our journey – towards Kowloon, then over to Hong Kong island on the venerable Star Ferry, followed by a punishing climb up the ludicrously steep streets of the city and down towards the south side of the island. The idea was to end the trip on the beach at the water’s edge, in a suitably symbolic way; when the sand and the rolling ocean had been reached, there would truly be nowhere further to go.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be less straightforward than expected. I had for some reason imagined arriving at a deserted, windswept beach, rolling slowly to a standstill as the waves lapped around my wheels, and staring wistfully out into the unfathomable vastness of the ocean, contemplating the greatness of what we had done. But this was not what really happened at all.

The first problem was that of course the beaches on the south of Hong Kong island are anything but deserted, even in December. Secondly, the first few roads we tried did not even lead down to the shore, but simply ended halfway up the rocky cliffs high above the sea. By the time we had found a suitable candidate, it was already dark, and so we decided to treat ourselves to a night in a hotel, regardless of the cost.

It was then that a new problem emerged – Stanley, the village in which we found ourselves, does not have any hotels. In fact it appears that there are none whatsoever on this side of the island.

Faced with the long climb back to Hong Kong city, we decided to find a spot for our tent and camp one last time. The steep slopes on either side of the road and the density of the housing meant that it took several hours before we were able to do so, during which time it rained more or less constantly. The next morning, sweaty and tired, we finally made our way to the beach. We took some photos, jumped up and down a bit, hugged, and then went for a quick swim in the sea. It was not all that cold, and there were even warm showers on the beach for afterwards. Quite surprisingly, we were not even the only people swimming that morning.

And that was it. As can be expected, it was quite an anticlimactic sort of an ending, but I’d say there’s a lesson in that. It is often said that travelling is more important than arriving, and this has never been more true than in this case. I do not like melodramatic, contrived moments very much, and so I am a bit puzzled as to why I thought it would be a good idea to contrive one for myself. Of course, it is necessary to have some sort of concrete target, a line with an end which can be seen on the map, a point upon reaching which one can say “we have made it”. But expanding this arrival into a grand event, even one to be witnessed by no-one but ourselves, seems in retrospect to be quite silly. For me, this trip is not about the frantic afternoon upon which we left Amsterdam, nor about the morning I have just described on Stanley beach, nor about how many kilometres were travelled, borders crossed, months passed, or any other such static points, statistics, or milestones. It is about the everyday reality of being on the road, of living a life completely different from the one at home, of seeing and experiencing so many things about which I had earlier only read about, and most of all about gaining a new perspective on where I myself come from and where I live. But all the same, it is nice to be able to wrap up the whole experience in a way which makes some sort of sense, just as all stories must do to be satisfying for both writer and reader. But this is not a work of fiction; I can’t rewrite the ending to be suitably poetic. The truth will have to do.

And then it was time to turn around, head back up the hill, cross back over to Kowloon, and begin the search for somewhere to stay. Needless to say, there would be no steam room or hot tub this time.

Mirador Mansion, as may be gathered from my earlier comments, does not really live up to its name; except perhaps ironically. It is a maze of stairwells and corridors, which serve to link together a warren of dingy hostels, curry houses, Internet cafes, and above all innumerable windowless, almost Dickensian textile workshops, where workers busily cut, sew, and assemble clothes from dawn until dusk. Outside, on the street, it is impossible to walk more than a few metres without being offered fake Rolex watches, handbags, tailored suits, and weed. It is enough to drive you crazy, although I am slowly learning to ignore it. There is nothing much to be seen of the great global crisis here, as every street is packed with people buying and selling everything from worthless souvenirs to the most expensive fashion names. It is not hard to be parted with your cash here.

The scene which I have just described is quite illustrative of the nature of Hong Kong, as I have begun to understand it during these past few days. It is a place poised between riches and despair, between comfort and squalor, between accessibility and exclusivity. On the same street, glitzy and expensive hotels stand right next to the likes of Mirador Mansion and its even more downmarket neighbour, Chungking Mansion. Likewise, the metro and the fantastically quirky and picturesque Star Ferry are very cheap, while the most unlikely things are even more expensive than in Holland (€1 for four slices of bread in the supermarket). In contrast to China, which has largely abandoned communism at the everyday level in favour of more or less unchecked capitalism, Hong Kong has steered an unashamedly capitalistic path from the colonial period to the present day. It has reaped the rewards of this – it can afford to keep the streets clean, maintain a metro system which would be the envy of any other city, and built beautiful parks and monuments. On the other hand, it appears quite a harsh, unforgiving place, where everyone is out to rip each other off, and perhaps a little too preoccupied with making money to be bothered much with culture; while there are a few museums, it is hardly to be compared with cities of similar size such as London, or even with places much smaller. But then again it may be that I am being quite unfair, given that I have been in the city for less than a week.

And in fact, just as I am beginning to find my bearings, it is time to leave again – although only for a short while. The original plan, conceived by Astrid while sitting in an aeroplane more than three years ago, was to cycle to Taiwan. Clearly, this is geographically impossible, but we are going to go there for a few days anyway. It will be very interesting, having seen the part-of-China-but-not-Chinese phenomenon, to witness the “other” China – the one which, according to the communist authorities, is not a country at all but merely a “rebellious province”. We’ll be back in Hong Kong before Christmas, before finally returning home to Holland on the 5th of January. But for now, we shall see what is to be made of wee, mini, non-communist China across the water.

Well, we have made it.

After nine months, almost to the day, 16 000 kilometres (10 000 miles), and eight countries, we have arrived in Hong Kong. It’s the end of the road, the finishing line, and the conclusion to about the most exciting, eye-opening, and bizarre episode of my life.

There’s too much to think about right now, too many things to organise, and no space to do it in the frantic, overheated insanity of this most overwhelming, energetic, and capitalistic city. When I have returned to my senses, I will write something here. But for now, it is time to stop cycling, relax a little, and slowly return to normality. Although what that is exactly is very hard to define at present.