China: Welcome to Beijing

I don't consider it likely that the flight to any city on the planet is going to hold anyone's mind terribly captive at 2am and so for the most part I deferred to Ritchie Blackmore and Deep Purple. Even at this time the Beijing airport is bustling and customs is slow by simple virtue of numbers. Beside me is a group of Germans, we're the only white people in a cast of thousands.

At least I'll have people to drink with.

The taxi driver speaks enough English to fleece me. I know it but there's no fight in me. I'm tired and it's... it's not hot or even really humid, it just feels oppressive. We pass skyscrapers that look gloomy due to being bottom lit. It's weird, night time looks grey instead of black.

The hostel door opens on the second ring. He's too cheery for 3am. His English seems more than passable. He says a bunch of things that make sense, it's polite and proper English but I don't hear any of it. I'm beyond tired. I can work it out later, I'm sure.

Tomorrow Cam is always so resourceful.

China: Introduction

I don't know what my motivation for picking China as a destination was. I've got nothing in particular against the place but it's just not Alaska. Or Patagonia. Or anywhere else that remains some scarcely touched pristine wilderness and naturally beautiful destination. It seemed to me - without any prior investigation - that its drawcards were mostly cultural, something that I've managed to resist so far, particularly with respect to the well trodden Australian coming of age Eurotrip.

I wasn't even really looking to go on holidays yet (it had only been six months since returning from my last trip) but after a bit of encouragement from Lorene as she had her own plans for five weeks, three weeks to travel alone and to the beat of my own drum began to tickle my fancy.

None of this explains why I chose China.

I don't think I can adequately do it. It wasn't "calling" me. It's just there. Looming large in all its pre-eminent world super power way. Plus, I don't know many people have been there, certainly not in the way that I imagined I'd go. Ultimately, it just became a case of, "why not?" Upon learning that China has the second most World Heritage Sites of any country (45, behind Italy on 49) and that they were a mix of natural and cultural, some sort of tipping point was reached and my interest was suitably piqued.

So, armed with a hard fought visa, precisely no Chinese and a devil-may-care attitude, three weeks in China became the plan...

Senegal: $2

Wandering around N'Gor on my own, I found myself at the gates to the local football stadium. Asking the guard at the front if I could go in, I was met with a stern "no".

I asked again with a dollar in hand. The gate opened.

For a further dollar, he even left his post and gave me a tour for half an hour.

Still a better pitch than Gibbney Reserve in Maylands.

It's amazing what $2 gets you in Senegal.

Senegal: Toubab Dialao

When picking up the suit, Herve asked what I'd be doing the following day. After learning that I had no plan, he said he'd arrange it but would need $20 to pay for a deposit for a driver. Ordinarily I would have been a lot more circumspect about handing cash over and hoping but in many ways, we had already crossed that bridge with the suit and I felt like I could trust him.

Of course, driving a Westerner out to a remote part of Western Africa for extortion, robbery and/or murder crossed my mind but having already averted a knifing through no good decisions of my own, I figured he was probably on the level.

I met Herve at 7am the following morning and the two hour drive passed with only small event. My ability to get into taxis whose drivers are bold, erratic and treat traffic laws like mere suggestions must be unparalleled. Traffic was reasonably dense and roundabouts fairly frequent. The Senegalese approach to taking them seems to be from the same school of driving as the most ambitious of F1 drivers on the first corner of the first lap (looking at you, Kamui).

Someone's going to crash, just hope it isn't you.

I asked the driver (through Herve) why at one point for a few kilometers he drove on the footpath. His response, "it's smoother!" was simply inarguable.

Toubab Dialao is a satellite tourist town and fishing village. The beach is clean, water is warm, fish seemingly plentiful and the buildings are unfinished. This is typical for most of what I saw in Senegal. Apparently, building carries on until the money is exhausted and then goes on an indefinite hiatus. Some builders seemed wiser than others in electing to offer uninterrupted sea views by leaving that wall until last in some of the many unfinished houses.

Uninterrupted Atlantic Views!

Bougainvillea creeps over walls onto the streets, boys play endless games of beach soccer for kilometers, women wash clothes by the water, men fish just offshore, dogs laze on the sand moving only to go between sund and shade while tourist meander between hotel bars and cafes along the beaches and terraces above.

N'Gor and Toubab Dialao are both tourist-centric places but I welcomed the differences. Where N'Gor was full of pleasant (and some not so) ambushes, here people pretty much ignored you and for a day, that invisibility was very much welcome.

English was on short supply in Senegal, this had me smiling.

Toubab Dialao; shopping capital of Western Africa.