The campus in the clouds

As the rain and cold of February cleared, March brought mild temperatures and fog.  For days on end the campus was totally engulfed in cloud - a cloud that was so intense that it made its way into the corridors and rooms and made everything damp.  While it rarely rained, the whole campus was always wet.  This cloud served as a suitable metaphor for the month in general.  March was always going to be a reasonably tough month, full of deadlines, assignments and the start of mid term exams.  The biggest of these deadlines would be for the first draft of my research project.  The completion of this required one of the most intense periods of studying and working of my academic life - endless late, late nights in the library reading journals, running computer simulations and writing reports.  There was no escaping the campus - and thanks to the cloud it was as if the world outside of the campus didn’t exist anyway.  I was, however, able to survive this busy period feeling reasonably positive (if exhausted) as unlike similar periods back in the UK, I was able to at least say that I had tried my best - I literally couldn’t have squeezed out any more hours and that knowledge brings with it a certain peace of mind.

End of the brown line - Wu Kai Sha

After a monumentally busy day which contained two assignment submissions, a midterm exam and my research deadline, I was able to all of a sudden break free from the library.  Appropriately, both for the sake of my extended metaphor and for my post-library rehabilitation, the cloud broke the following day - allowing me to get out and about into the city again.  This began with a spontaneous afternoon trip to an area that I had seen on the map and was intrigued by, just north of the campus at the end of the Man On Shan MTR line.  I had no idea what was there and that was the point in visiting.  It turned out to be a high-rise residential area on the coast, with a lot of construction work going on.  There were some reasonably pleasant little beaches where locals were sitting out in the afternoon sun having barbecues and, while the area would be a long way from your average tourist’s itinerary, it was interesting to see another part of Hong Kong.  As we were just around the headland from beautiful Sai Kung Town, we caught a cab for a Sri Lankan dinner on the sea front.  Over the next few days I was able to take part in two hikes (that are mentioned on accompanying blogs) and in a flash it was April, with only two full months of the year abroad remaining.

View from Lion Rock

The Lion Rock (uncanny really)

Having battled through a particularly mean patch of university work, it was nice to be able to get off the campus and into some of the fantastic countryside around Hong Kong.  I hadn’t been able to hike at all in this semester and thankfully the weather cleared up a bit as my block of deadlines passed by.  The first of my hikes was supposedly one of the best in the whole of the territory, up to the Lion Rock - one of the iconic images of Kowloon.  The beauty of walking along the so-called “Kowloon Ridge” was that we would be able to have beautiful views to both the south (over Kowloon and Victoria Harbour) as well as the north (the New Territories), encompassing a vast amount of the total territory of Hong Kong.  The hike was described as being hard work and a little bit dangerous, but conditions seemed good as a group of ten students from UST and HKU (University of Hong Kong) made our way along the Ridge.  My previous hike to the Kowloon Reservoir system had actually ended at the same point as this one started, at the Kowloon Reservoir stop on the number 81 bus from Prince Edward station.  The bus stop is absolutely swarming with  monkeys, as was the first section of the hike.  As Hong Kong monkeys are notoriously confident, we were happy to get away from them as we made our way up to Eagle’s Nest, the first of three peaks which we would be climbing over the next eight kilometres and four hours.  The hike started on a section of the famous MacLehose Trail which bisects the whole Kowloon peninsular, but we soon broke off to follow signs to the Eagle’s Nest, followed by Beacon Hill and finally the Lion Rock itself.  The climb up to the rock was reasonably precarious (though not as bad as we had prepared ourselves for), though an alternate route allows the climb (but also the best views) to be avoided.  The hike finished at a little noodle restaurant from where we made our way back into the outskirts of the city, from where we were able to get a minibus at Wong Tai Sin station.  Possibly my favourite hike in Hong Kong so far, along with the Dragon Back - though definitely not one for the unfit or the faint hearted.  More photos below:

Team Photo at Lion Rock

View to the north over the New Territories

Resting at the summit

Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception

If my recent week-long visit to Japan warranted a summarising blog, then this month in India may need a full dissertation to do it justice.  We spent our final morning packing, before heading into Panjim to have a morning looking around the few sights that the city has to offer.  The main one of these is the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception - a beautiful church that is perched on a hill overlooking the town.  As Panjim is located on the Arabian Sea coast at the head of the river that makes its way to Old Goa, this church was often the first that sailors from Portugal would have seen and was therefore often used to give thanks for a successful voyage.

Our journey back to Hong Kong, while not as precarious as a trip on a tall ship back to Lisbon, was still set to be quite an ordeal.  We would be flying from Goa to Mumbai, before making our way between the domestic and international terminals (as we just about managed to do when going from Aurangabad to Hyderabad), then getting on a plane to Hong Kong that would go via Delhi.  Goa Airport is about the most grim airport that I have ever visited (though a brand new terminal appears to be about to open) and our first flight was delayed by half an hour - potentially increasing the time pressure on our connection in Mumbai.  Upon arrival, we made our way as quickly as possible to the international terminal, only to find that our flight to Hong Kong had been totally cancelled.  As it happened however, this turned out to be quite a bonus as Air India (who had been superb throughout the trip) had put us on a direct flight with Cathay that would depart five hours later.  This second flight turned out to be almost empty and myself and Sergei both had a full aisle to ourselves - allowing us to sleep lying down for the whole journey.  The ultimate blessing in disguise.

Mumbai clothes washing district

Arriving back in Hong Kong was like coming home - both due to our natural affinity with the place and as its relative calm and normality was so soothing after India.  When my younger brother arrived back from spending a month in India he often appeared to hesitate when asked whether he had had a good time.  At the time I hadn’t been able to understand this - for ALL of my other trips I had been able to say categorically that, yes, it had been brilliant.  Looking back on my own time in India I can now begin to empathise.  Yes, I did have a great time and my experiences in India were amongst the most memorable of all of my travels.  However somehow this needs qualifying.  India has the power to both inspire and shock - to see the beauty of the human race and all that is so fundamentally wrong with it. And there is just no escaping becoming immersed in all of it, good and bad.  Nowhere summarises this best than Mumbai where as we stepped out of the airport we were confronted with car horns, beggars and wild dogs - all in the shadow of the brand new steel and glass International Terminal 2.  This city, containing both the world’s most populous slum and its most expensive house, is quite the potent metaphor and is a place that is intoxicating and revolting in equal measure.  Being there did feel like “proper” backpacking, but at the back of my mind I hoped that the rest of our trip would be both easier and more pleasant.  This did not disappoint and while Hyderabad wasn’t too dissimilar to the feel of Mumbai, the historical sights of the first part of the trip at Ajanta, Ellora and Hampi were some of the most awe-inspiring locations I have ever visited - with the latter of these sitting comfortably in my top 10 destinations.

Amazing Hampi

Everyone wants a photo

It was at Hampi that we were able to experience what a wonderful people Indians are.  Once away from the sellers of the big cities, people talk to you because they are curious and excited to meet you.  The bravest of these curious people are the children of India who would always want you to take their photo or be in a photo with them.  Every school bus that passed us would be accompanied with a cacophony of greetings and questions and I am sure that there is at least one photograph of myself and Sergei up on a classroom wall in their school photo.  It is tempting when talking about children in India to immediately move on to the poverty angle but that is a path that is well trodden and a discussion to which I have nothing novel to add beyond how heartbreaking it is to see and how lucky I feel to have been brought up with the opportunities that I have.  It is more relevant to talk about how happy the children appear to be and how, despite everything, carefree they appear.  Every open space contains kids playing - anything from cricket to kites, in a way that you just don’t see in England.  You get the feeling that if a parent in the UK saw his kid waving at a tourist and shouting hello, they would be told to quiet down.  Strange how our cultures differ.  Towards the end of the trip we met some great characters, particularly in Kerala where we were helped out so much by Motty and Abey who were so keen to help us and show their country off.

The Gateway of India - Britain’s stamp on Mumbai

It is difficult (perhaps rightly or wrongly) for a Brit to travel with India and at least not think about the impact of Imperialism.  Having spent so long in Hong Kong, my view of the British Empire has now settled on a feeling of how absurd it was that we (and to be fair the other European powers) thought we had a right to administer territories so far away, both geographically and culturally.  I am reminded of a joke by a comedian (I can’t remember who), which goes something like: “I went into an Indian restaurant in London the other day.  After I sat down the owner hit me with a baton and told me to build him a complicated railway network”.  The sheer audacity of the British in building their empire now almost clouds any perception I have of whether it was good or bad and I think that the only people who would be able to answer that in anything more than a purely theoretical sense are the Indian men, women and children who had to live under colonialism.  As a Brit who even today is probably still reaping the benefits of Empire without having experienced any of the cost, I feel it is not my place to comment.

Train travel in India

Practically, as a backpacker, India is (as in all respects) full of many good and bad aspects.  For the money-conscious traveller, India is an absolute dream.  The cost of living is extremely low, as is getting around.  I wasn’t as stingy on this trip as I have been in the past, staying at reasonably comfortable hotels (private, air-conditioned rooms) and eating out at nice restaurants - travelling in what the category that Lonely Planet would designate as ‘mid-range’.  This meant that on average our daily costs broke down something like:

• Accommodation: £15 per person per night
• Food: £5-10 per day
• Transport (excluding internal flights): £5-10 per day
• Other (entrance fees etc): £5 per day

The four weeks spent in India enabled us to do a reasonable job of visiting the south, but even so I would have loved to have spent more time in Kerala and to visit the east coast around Chennai.  I know that there is even more to see in the north and that another four weeks still wouldn’t be enough to do the country justice.  As a result, I’m sure I will be back.  To conclude, after discussing with Sergei, we thought we would finish with a list of the best moments. So here goes:

• Best Restaurant: Khyber, Mumbai - probably the most exclusive restaurant that we visited, apparently frequented by businessmen and diplomats, but with a curry and a beer costing less than £10 it was (while very expensive by Indian standards). www.khyberrestaurant.com

• Best Hotel: Hotel Malligi, Hospet - while staying in Hampi itself would have been more convenient for exploring the ruins, staying in Hospet allowed us to stay in a hotel with a great restaurant and a pool which was the perfect place to cool off after a day of exploring. www.malligihotels.com

• Best Journey: Alleppey to Munnar - the return journey was slow and congested, but getting up early to visit our first hill station took up through terrain unlike any that we had seen earlier in our trip - from waterfalls and mountains to reservoirs and tea plantations.

• Best Day: Day 11, Hampi - our first day in Hampi had allowed us to get our bearings so that on the second day we could travel around at a leisurely pace on bicycles with a group of other backpackers from all over the world.  Cycling through the ruins was the best way of seeing them and sitting drinking lhassis in the bazaar with a good book while waiting for the beautiful sunset was the best way to spend an afternoon.  I even got to see a monkey steal Sergei’s chocolate bar.

• Best Experience(s): Keralan Backwaters and Massage - Kerala was a wonderful place to spend a few days and travelling through the backwaters on a boat was an unforgettably peaceful experience.  After getting back on dry land in the afternoon we were treated to another unforgettable (though not particularly peaceful) experience in the traditional oil message parlour.  Being dressed in a loin cloth, getting covered in hot oil and then being manhandled around a wooden table was as memorable as it was undignified

Top Three Destinations (I can’t just pick one…): 

Chinese New Year Fireworks in Victoria Harbour

Nothing quite focusses the mind like waiting for a delayed flight, and sitting in Bombay airport trying to return to Hong Kong for my second semester, my mind turned to the great dialogue at the end of the Great Gatsby between Nick and Gatsby, which essentially sums up that most wonderful of novels.  The ever-rational Nick tells Gatsby that “you can’t repeat the past”, to which the protagonist responds (incredulously) “can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can! I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before”.  I have always been attracted to Jay Gatsby’s particular brand of hope, optimism and blissful ignorance and returning to Hong Kong felt like one of life’s rare chances to re-live a period of happiness and energy and (dare I say it) self-discovery.  If anything, with Hong Kong feeling more and more like home and with the knowledge that the clock is now starting to run down, there will be even more incentive to squeeze out every drop of good times over the remaining four months of my year abroad.

A balloon octopus - about as good as it got

Escaping the crowds

Crowds in Tamar Park for the fireworks

Dinner at Mr Wong’s