AWOL Geordie - Steve’s global adventure

After the cold and ridiculous height of Litang in Tibetan Sichuan I went to Kanding past a mountain that was 7600m high. Kangding is a nice town that has a famous Chinese love song based on it and a rapid river speeding through it. Then onto Chengdu where I spent my 33rd birthday in a crazy Chinese nightclub. The next day I got my silly long hair zipped and tipped with blonde hairlights in a true display of my ongoing midlife crisis! I didn’t even see the Pandas which Chengdu is famous for. After Chengdu I headed to Wuhan (again) for a week with Fen’s family.

Next was a sleeper train to Shenzen and then across the border to Hong Kong. HK is an amazing place. So developed with prices to match (1 beer 4gbp). I went to the top of ‘The Peak’ on the tram that ascends the hill at a 45 degree angle. This affords superb views of the HK skyline which has to be one of the greatest cityscapes on earth. I took a ferry to Kowloon at night to see the place lit up. At night I chilled with a beer in an English bar and watched a replay of NUFC beating Pompey in the premiership (quite nice after the rigours of China).

I flew from HK to Cebu in the Philippines. Cebu is a hot noisy polluted city full of beggars, tramps, hawkers and prostitutes etc. I stayed there 3 nights before taking a Jeepney (an elaborately decorated small ‘bus’ type thing converted from old USA Jeeps) to Maya at the northern tip of Cebu island. I ahd to hang on the back of the Jeepney as it was packed with people, live chickens and all manner of other crap. Then a small banca (boat) to the small paradise island that goes by the name of Malapascua. This place was too good for me. No telephones, electricity, internet or anything! I stayed two weeks in paradise feeling like Robinson Crusoe. Coconuts, palm trees, banana trees, secluded tropical beaches, coral, clear warm sea, people living in small bamboo huts, tropical fish and much unidentifiable marine life everywhere. I swam, snorkeled, hiked around the island, chatted to locals, got invited to their humble huts, drank cheap local rum with the villagers and generally lived a simple life for two weeks. However, all was not perfect in paradise as I was to discover when Typhoon Seniang swept right across the island with terrfying force and fury. It destroyed so many buildings, snapped trees and generally devastated the island. I heard that dozens of people died. Unbelievably, even after all the warnings from locals, this Scouse bloke and I spent the whole night wandering through the jungle and along the beaches at the height of this mental storm. One coconut dropped right between us and then we started to panic as these things can kill you if they fall on your head from such a height. Anyway, thankfully all ended well and we gave the locals a laugh! They called us the crazy Englishmen - hehe. Onwards to Singapore after a weekend of partying in Cebu City (Its a hard life).

Salamat (Philippine for Thankyou).