A Voyage in the East

Another day. Another brilliant day. Tomorrow morning I get up and leave for Canada. Today, I visited the History Museum of Hong Kong. I learned a fair bit about Hong Kong's history. I did a little shopping and then I met up with my good friend, Dan Chan for dinner. I've been lucky to meet up with several friends during the course of this trip.

Today, Hong Kong was heavily polluted. I think that would be a serious downside if one had to live here.

Two days back in Canada. Looking forward to it. I doubt that I will bother to blog while I am in Europe. If I get to Europe. Looks like there is a little situation going on there this evening. I guess one can't be deterred by terrorists. We live in interesting times.

I had a brilliant day in Hong Kong. This city is truly one of the world's great cities. There is so much to see and so much arts and culture. It is truly a meeting point for the world. A great Chinese city with strong historical and cultural links to the west. A metropolis of commerce and a bosom of culture. A melange of historical ties and modernity. An important story from the history of the 20th century and a glimpse into the future promise of China, which is 1/5th of humanity. China, a country that has an economy which gallops ahead with 12% annual growth. China, a civilization with thousands of years of history that could very well reshape how the world works. The west, until now history's most successful social system. The two, to a certain extent meet in Hong Kong. How it works out in Hong Kong could very well be symptomatic for how the next century of humanities existence on this planet plays out.

Anyway, I've had a little too much Tsing-Tao (an excellent Chinese beer.) Today, I went up to the top of Mt. Victoria, to take a look over polluted Hong Kong. Visibility was definitely reduced. I walked around Hong Kong's modern downtown corridor taking pictures of soaring skyscrapers with impressive architectural features. Finally, I went on a cruise in the harbour at night. One could feel the first winds from Tropical Depression/Storm Bopha which is due to sideswipe Hong Kong in the next day. I just hope it doesn't delay my flight.

Approximately 74 hours before my plane should arrive in beautiful B.C. I arrived in Hong Kong this afternoon. I was glad to leave Bangkok. Yesterday, while I was walking around town I noticed that EVERYBODY was wearing a yellow t-shirt with the King's coat of arms. I inquired why. Apparently this year is the sixtieth anniversary of his reign. I don't see people in England wearing a t-shirt every Monday to honour the Queen's 60th anniversary as monarch, but in Thailand they adore their monarch. LONG LIVE THE KING!!!

I walked around parts of Hong Kong this evening, including taking a cruise across the harbour. Hong Kong is everything that I thought it would be. Uber modern. What I liked the most was being able to catch a train right inside the airport terminal to come right downtown. Super cool. I wish we had something like that in Vancouver. In a few years we will!!! Then we will be cool too!

[T]he economic burden of the Iraq war is on the verge of exceeding the total anticipated burden of the Kyoto Protocol. Because the price of the war increases every day, its total cost, for America as well as the world, will soon dwarf the expected cost of a remarkably ambitious effort to control the problem of climate change. Link to the article here.

I arrived in Bangkok early yesterday morning after an all night journey on a Thai sleeper train. My verdict of the thai train system is that it sucks. Why? They don't turn off the lights in the compartments. Whether this is to prevent crime or so that people walking down the compartment can see, I don't know. But it is annoying when your head is about two inches away from a gazillion watt bulb.

So I arrived in Bangkok tired and crabby just like I was last time. It was a day when nothing seemed to go right. I went to visit the National Palace, but they wouldn't let me in because I was wearing shorts. I got into a cab to go to a market and the driver asked me if I REALLY wanted him to take me to see a girl he knew in the area. My standard reply: I don't do Asians, Thai women aren't pretty. Then the cab got stuck in traffic for over an hour.

After not finding anything worth buying at the market, I took a stroll through the nearby redlight district. I am part sociologist and psychologist. The most enduring memory was looking down a street and seeing five fat, balding, wife beater wearing, white guys stumbling down the middle of the street looking like they were actors in a zombie movie.

Tired and hot I went back to the hotel. I had an enjoyable dinner at KFC (I love how they prepare KFC here) and watched the greatest Formula One race ever that saw Jenson Button win his first race on his 116th attempt. Alonso and Schumacher also drove brilliant races. Alonso should have won, but had an unfortunate problem with a tire; and Schumacher made a mistake and didn't pit to change his tires. This resulted in him retiring after being hit by a faster car as it overtook him. Still, he picked up a single point after a disqualification so crucially he narrowed Alonso's lead in the championship to 10 points. This proves that Schumacher almost always gets lucky. I predict that he will win the championship this year.

Today, I am feeling sharp after 11 hours of sleep. I finally made it to the Grand Palace today, and checked out a couple of other wats. I have now done everything that the Lonely Planet says there is to do in Bangkok. I have actually come to like Bangkok a little bit more today. I'm going to visit what the Lonely Planet says is the best Thai restaurant this evening, and then visit a night market. Tomorrow morning I rise early as I have a 10 AM flight to Hong Kong.

My three days in Laos are coming to a close. In a matter of hours I will be boarding a bus and heading to the border, where I will catch a train to spend my last few days in Bangkok.

Vientiane is a sleepy town. I spent most of my time chilling out and sauntering around. The most interesting sight for me was the Patuxay, which the Laotians intended to be their version of the Arc de Triomphe, but was never completed due to the countries turbulent history. The existence of the Patuxay is itself a little bit frustrating. The concrete used to construct it was donated by the Americans to build an airport runway. Instead the government used the concrete to construct this 'monster of concrete', which is what the sign at the bottom of the monument calls it.

There is not much to do in Vientiane. There is one movie theatre which mostly shows Thai movies. I think that Laotian film is restricted to such award winning socialist masterpieces as 'Heros of the Post Office' and 'Beer Lao: The story of a nation.' One interesting fact about Laos is that the largest taxpayer is the beer company. The government is truly hooked on beer. One afternoon James signed me into the exclusive Australian Club. I went for a swim, pumped iron to buff myself up for the ladies and sunned myself by the pool while reading my new book, Collpase: How Societies Choose to fail or succeed.

I also enjoyed spending time with my friend James. Yesterday evening we played a round of golf. For $6 we played a round and hired a caddie. In fact, you have no choice. If you want to play to have to hire a caddy. I shot a brilliant sixty. My caddy was lazy. Between James and I we had one set of clubs and two caddies. I asked my caddy to carry my very light day bag. She complained bitterly. I didn't really like the idea of having somebody waiting on me, but my thoughts were that (a) it wasn't heavy; (b) I was paying; (c) it was her job; (d) I was and did give her a decent tip and bought her a drink on the course. How hard is it to carry a light backpack?

Well now I must go and carry my backpack.

Isn't there ALREADY a civil war in Iraq?

The capital of Laos, Vientiane, has a total population of 200000. In fact, it feels more like a sleepy country town, than the capital of Southeast Asian powerhouse, Laos. Laos is known for a few things. One - the quality of its rice. Two - the quality of its beer (this time I am not being facetious.) Three - in a country that lacks electrification, its exports of "high-quality" electricity. How electricity can be "high-quality" I have to admit mystifies me. Four - being the most bombed country in human history. Yet another reason why Henry Kissinger is a war criminal.

Last night, I met up with my Australian friend James and a couple of his friends. One of his roommates is the younger sister of my evidence prof for this year. It's a small world. She is also a lawyer. She was telling me over some cold, Lao beers that Laos has no published laws. Obviously, developing a functioning legal system is not an objective of the current administration of the country. That's probably one of the reasons why this country is so poor compared to some of its neighbours. Having visited three communist countries during this trip, I have to say that Karl Marx is one of the greatest villains in human history and his ideas have resulted in billions of people being enslaved. Thank god the Soviet Union collapsed.

Vientiane strikes me as a fairly laid back place. One isn't really approached with constant offers to buy useless goods. There is a 'manana' attitude towards life. People saunter slowly down the streets. Today, I am going to do some sauntering myself and look around the center of town. This evening, I am going with some of James's friends to the driving range, and tomorrow, James is going to try to get me into the Australian Club so that I can work out and then I am going to play golf with him and his friends that are here on the program with him.