My new China
Before we disembarked for China there was an incident which typified cruise life. I bumped into Dorking Man in the lounge where we were requested to convene. We arrived that early that we were the only two in the lounge but we were on different tours. We started to chat only to be informed that Dorking Man had to sit in the left hand section. “Are we allowed to finish our conversation?” The facetiousness was lost on the company hostess. Needless to say we could not disembark for another 30 minutes. Chinese immigration procedures are certainly officious so, to be fair, one must acknowledge too an advantage of cruising, namely they take care of them.
We disembarked at the Port of Haikou in the province of Hainan. If you had not heard of Haikou, nor had I.
It is a city of nearly 10 million people and one of skyscrapers, multi-laned roads with spaghetti junction style intersections.
You might think you were in Houston. The cars were sleek and upmarket.
Like in Vietnam, but unlike India and Thailand, there was no evidence of slum dwellings. We duly saw the statutory Temple dating back to the 11th century.
The lecturer said that at 5,000 years China is the longest enduring civilization of all. Our final port of call, Evergreen Park, I found most interesting as in this trip it was the first time I encountered “natives” en bloc.
The park was full of Chinese families and their well-behaved children.
One girl approached me giggling such is my global attraction. I asked the guide to translate her words which were “You are a big potato”. I’ve been called worse by women.
On returning to the boat, I enjoyed a beer overlooking a quayside chocker with new cars. I saw one trailer leaving with a consignment of Lexus vehicles.
I attended the lecture on China and Hong Kong but sadly slumber got the better of me and I snored rather loudly. Thankfully these talks are repeated on the television.
Once again a dinner at the invitation of a cruise executive was poorly hosted. I don’t know why this is, but cruising seems to attract that type of bore depicted by the definition
“A bore is someone who talks about himself when you want to talk about yourself“.
The director described at great and tedious length the relationship between his cat Bianca and his pet fish. Could he not realize that he had lost his audience? The Aussie widow told us for now the fourth time how she travels with a gay friend as brother and sister. It reached the point that going to the laundrette and retrieving my washing became more interesting than being at table.
