chapter 7 - across the border

Slow train from Mong Kok to Lo Wu at the border, a 40 minute commuter trip of a journey. Prepared for the worst, it only took one smooth hour to go through immigration and customs. So much easier than expected. We got our ticket to Guangzhou and had about an hour to kill in a big and impersonal waiting room. People bought whiskey in bottles and biscuits in tins, read newspapers, and ate noodles with loud slurps. When the train came in everyone surged forward in one swarm, each acting as if they would be left behind if they weren’t the first one onboard, elbows out, pushing and shoving. We managed to get to the right seats in the right car without injury, then spent the next few hours going backwards.

It was obvious the train was getting close to Guangzhou long before it arrived. Buildings became more prolific, and uglier. Smoggy air got smoggier. At the station we met some other travelers who told us we could follow them to their hostel, good and cheap, and close by. This ended up being an hourlong bus ride followed by another hour’s walk, although it would have been less if the fellow leading us had remembered the way. Hamish sensed my impatience and took my hand as we walked, which sounds nice but was really rather awkward as our bulky packs made our bodies wider then usual. The hand hold became it bit of a death grip at times.

We finally turned into a beautiful little street on the island of Shamian, with a wide boulevard of flowers, grass and Banyan trees, the first real trees we’ve seen since leaving London. The buildings look Mediterranean, probably Portuguese given the history. The leader walking with us said this was originally the colonial part of the city, now full of government offices, residences and a few hotels, including the Guangzhou Youth Hostel, an ugly grey five-storey affair. We were given a ‘suite’ for 65 yuan on the fourth floor that looks out over the river through the trees.

Our door was opened by a key-wielding girl who did not smile and who sat at a desk at the top of the stairs with a huge ring of keys. I guess in a communist country everyone has a job, and every floor must have such a humourless key-wielding watchdog. Our suite's door opened into a severe little sitting area tiled from floor to ceiling and lit with a florescent light. A unit with two chairs on either side of a little table held glasses, a tea pot and an enormous thermos full of boiling hot water. A wooden screen opened into the bedroom. There was a mosquito net over the bed, a table, two bedside lights and a coat rack, an electric fan and a television. We noticed the far wall was made of glass blocks, dividing the bedroom to another tiled room surrounded by windows, doing double duty as our bathroom and our verandah. Interesting concept. There’s the usual hole in the floor at one end (the toilet), a pipe sticking out of the wall at the other end (the shower) and a less usual view across the street to the posh White Swan Hotel.

Once we’d unpacked and seen a bit of Chinese telly (15 minutes is enough. I love watching television in foreign countries, it provides an inkling of the country. Like going into grocery stores. If I can go into a grocery store and watch 15 minutes of TV in a place, I have a handle on the current cultural character), our stomachs rumbled. I changed into fresh clothes before setting out in search of food and, noticing Hamish had not, asked, “Aren’t you going to change?”

“Why? I look all right.”

“It looks like you slept in those clothes.”

He smoothed his rumpled shirt and ruffled his hair. “There, that better?”

I was wearing the new skirt I’d bought in Hong Kong. Hamish noticed and said, “You look nice. Very kempt.”

Typical Hamish, my own personal wordsmith. I replied, “And you look positively gruntled.”

“Thank you. I am.”

Down by the river we found a little restaurant with tables outside under strings of white lights. According to the menu and our shaky Chinese, the specialty seemed to be crispy fried chicken, but what we got was tough, meatless fowl lying on the plate with the head still attached. Thank goodness for rice and vegetables and little dishes of pickled vegetables and nuts. And wonderful cold beer. We got silly.

Hamish started it. As usual. “Guess the vegetable.”

“The what?”

“The vegetable. I’ll say something with the name of a vegetable in it. Guess.”

“You’re really rather weird you know.”

“I’m unbeatable.”

“That’s debatable.”

“No, guess the vegetable.”

“Oh, unbeatable, ‘beets’. But being British shouldn’t it have been beetroot? Okay, don't look at me like that ……How about, ‘Are you just going to let that rusty car rot in the lane?’”

“Not bad – carrot. I see you are trying to intellectualize my game by splitting syllables. All right, two can play at that. ‘Don’t you find this queue cumbersome?’”

“Cucumber! Um, to get to Larry’s house we need to turn up this lane.”

“Turnip. You’re not trying hard enough, that was too easy. ‘You haven’t often knelt beside me.’”

I thought a while, perplexed, then shrugged my shoulders. “I give up.”

“Fennel. O-ften knel-t! Get it?”

“Only if you don’t pronounce the ‘t’ in often.”

“Not nececelery.”

“Oooh. Touche. You win. Not ‘nececelery’. You tricky bastard! That’s good.”

“Feel free to use it if you wish.”

I really do love this man.