Laowai once more

You know, at one stage I thought I’d never want to hear the call of “laowai” ever again. And yet…after a nice long break in Hong Kong, eating Indian/Turkish/Western foods, reading/watching English-language media, not being stared at…I started to miss China.

So the bikes were packed up, and we rolled onto the ferry to Macau. Pretty straightforward, but we went on a Sunday, so it was busy. We hadn’t been well enough organised, so we hadn’t booked tickets in advance. Result: Two and half hours to kill to wait for the next available sailing. No big deal though. The bikes didn’t need to be checked in, we just rolled them on ourselves, paying an extra HK$20 for the privilege. Easy.

Macau was busy, with people everywhere, and hotel prices high. It’s an interesting place though, and while the architecture was very much European, it felt much more Chinese than Hong Kong. It was a slightly odd moment riding out of the ferry terminal, and wondering “which side of the road should I be riding on?” Obviously you work it out soon enough – in a superb piece of political idiocy, you drive on the left…unlike China, which Macau is directly connected to. Obviously some daft historical reason for it, similar to Hong Kong.

Was a bit weird seeing plenty of well patronised churches, and European architecture. In our search for Macanese food, I ended up eating ostrich, for the first time on this trip. Does that count as Macanese? I also had a weird dish with dumplings in a thick, semi-sweet sauce. A little strange, but nice.

Good to get back into China after that, although I wasn’t sure about it at first – I’ve seen multiple vehicles waiting for the green light before turning right. Very strange. Not Chinese at all, normally they have the “turn right at any time you feel like” rule. Must be a bit different here in Guangdong (Canton) – too much contact with those foreign devils.

Smoggy conditions too, by the end of yesterday I was coughing and spluttering, the familiar tightness in the chest – how do these people breathe this air every day? Huge brutal looking factories around, pumping all sorts of dust and crap into the air. A few interesting things too, the Diaolou were a bit odd – a strange mix of European and Chinese architecture, built by returning overseas Chinese.

All going well, perhaps another 5-6 days on the bike from here to the Vietnamese border, and a new country at last! Was thinking that Christmas will be in Hanoi, but it now looks like I’ll just be a little short of there. Oh well, since neither country is Christian, I shouldn’t end up getting stuck at a closed border on Christmas Day.