Woooo Great Wall woooo!!!

Hi all,

Couldn’t find the traditional music place, so we did what all self-respecting English tourists do and got trollied. We ended up in a bus that doubles up as a bar partying with a load of people from Green peace. They were all a bit hippy and thrashed us at pool (I Know we lost at pool to a bunch of Whale lovers!) but it was a good nite and we met a chinese guy that new most of the England team from Italia 90 “Stewer Peers” included!

Next day we were supposed to go to the Summer palace, but our hangovers stopped us from leaving the room until 2 so instead we went to a shopping mall, watched another really boring flag ceremony at Tianamien (sp!) square (no more flags) and saw the Da Vinci Code, unfortunately all the French bits were subtitled in Chinese.

So, we finally got to the summer palace. It was alright, looked a bit like Chessington World of Adventure’s China world where it had all been rebuilt recently, pay attention class; this was because in the 1860s the Anglo-French forces burnt the entire place down. But, it was a nice way to spend a day! We also went for a meal with the Kung Fu geeks (one looks like Forest Gump during the running part of the film the other is just a bit geeky).

The next day, we finally saw the Great Wall, which was massive. We went with two Sweedish girls Linnea and Elsa, and a guy called Vimto, who knows a lot about prostitutes. The wall was one of the best things we’ve seen so far, much better than the Taj and equal to Everest, also it had a zip line to get back down, which made the experience even better. All round a fantastic day ‘We went up we came down’ as one of the hawkers kept telling us!

Since then, we’ve seen Chairman Meow’s pickled remains, which was a bit odd as they had used an orange light to highlight his head. However, the light had the effect of making him look like he’d spent a bit too long in tanning saloons. We’ve also seen the Forbidden City – sounds more exciting than it is – and been to the ancient walled city of Pingua (or something like that), which had a very nice wall (but not as nice as the great wall, which is probably why it’s not called the great wall of Pingua, I’m rambling aren’t I, in fact I doubt anyone is still reading this. Garlen says I’m like Steve Davis, the snooker player famed for being boring, but I don’t think I am. Anyway, Steve Davis can be quite funny I think!) errr to continue – blah blah blah train blah blah blah Xi’an and that’s it so take care and we’ll see you all next time
Damian xxx

beijing - before and after

1) us outside the 'gates of heavenly peace' with the chairman
2) us later that night drunk in a taxi

the wall - its great!

her
1) garlen, linnea, vinko, damo, elsa - on the great wall!
2) me pretending to be scared on the great wall zip line
3) a far away dame - krypton factor eat your heart out
4) dame finally receiving his new debit card in xian, he can stop poncing money off me now! thank you christine for your frog book!

Goat...again

One last picture of the goat just because it's brilliant

Raaarrrrr

Me on a Ghost walk, it was really bad, but Garlen was petrified... he kept saying someone was going to jump out on us... they didn't.

Train

Garlen on our luxury 45 hour train journey

The Silk Road

Garlen on a bus on the silk road

Chinese Border

Border crossing, looks like a town in the wildwest... it isn't.

Nice view

Us walking along the Karakoram highway just after Garlen almost fell down the side of the hill

Us at the Fort in Pakistan where people kept trying to talk to us

Goat

The Goat seemed a bit scared and confused as it was hoisted onto the roof of our bus, but the view was amazing.

Border

Us crossing the border to Pakistan (I don't know what's wrong with my eye)

chiarman mao

allo. we found out we can publish blogs but we cant view the site whilst in china as the communists have blocked it - thank you chairman mao. dame will attempt to put photos on but he's up againt it as everything is in chinese - thank you chairman mao.

anyway, after a 45 hour train journey we arrived in beijing at 5 and half hours ago. in that time we found our pleasant youth hostel, had lunch for 50p in nice, small little restaurant and have checked our email. so thats that.

not much else to say really. in the last place we stayed dame stayed up till 3am to watch arsenal lose in the champs league final. i fell asleep as it was... well, boring, boring arsenal, plus that night i got drunk with some chinese guys who kept feeding me tsingtao beer, and then they paid for me. very nice guys. apparantly manderin-chinese for cheers is 'horseshit'. at least thats what they told me and thats what i shouted out every time we clincked out glasses.

so yeah, tomorow we will explore beijing. but in a couple of ours we will go and watch some traditional chinese musical performance in a book shop with these kung fu obssessed guys from england that we are sharing our dorm with. dame and i are a bit scared of them... thank you chairman mao.

China... at last

Hey Everybody,

This is going to be a really long post. Sorry.

We left Delhi just over a week and a half ago after many more stops at fast food restaurants (KFC wins hands down) and boarded a train to Amristar. On the train I got harassed by two lady boys (It’s a form of begging in India for Lady Boys to patrol trains or show up at weddings and threaten to flash people unless they give them money) which scared me quite a bit. They didn’t seem to be falling for my playing dumb routine, but luckily a ticket inspector showed up just in time as I’m not quite sure of the etiquette when it comes to hitting a lady boy – there’s two schools of thought on the subject.

At Amristar we watched the closing of the border ceremony where a load of Indian and Pakistani soldiers ponce about in uniforms while a crowd of people chant stuff (imagine five year old kids copying the changing of the guards ceremony in clothes made by their mums while there mates scream stuff). We then spent the night in what we thought was a disused school cum hotel until we were woken by cricket playing kids at 7am.

At first we found Pakistan very intimidating mainly because as soon as we entered the place we were told to ‘come with us’ by the police – it turned out they wanted to practice English. Oh and because Lunchbox somehow managed to smuggle a bottle of vodka into the place.

We then spent two very hot nights and days in a city called Lahore where we watched an authentic Pakistani music and dance show. This basically involved a little Pakistani dancing guy with bells on his ankles force a Dutch girl (who looked strangely like Neal Fleah from Uni) to dance (or be groped) with (or by) him. But in the end we were all up and dancing, even me despite not having anything to drink. We also saw, for a change, wait for it…a fort, a museum and a temple. Gasp. The museum was alright but the other two were poor and it was too hot (40). We also got harassed by locals wanting to practice their English. One guy even threatened to cry and get down on his hands and knees unless we sat with him and talked… weird.

We then got a train to the start of the Karakoram highway (a road going from Pak to China through three mountain ranges… if you’re interested… probably not). On board Garlen managed to offend locals and a gun wielding policeman by showing to much leg, the little harlot, and was forced to put on trousers. We then spent two days traveling to Giligit. On the way I think I may have got deep vein thrombosis as my ankles went massive like an old ladies. In Gilgit we watched a game of Polo, which is really dangerous as the ball is solid and regularly flies into the crowd, and then left for Karimibad. On the bus there we were left shocked when some locals hoisted a goat onto the roof of our bus and strapped it down for the entire journey. We sat in the bus watching the whole thing unfold in disbelief, but it seemed happy up there and it did have a good view.

In Karimibad we went trekking to see a mountain called Lady Finger (we had to go, any mountain that sounds like a bond villain is worth seeing) Why we went trekking again I don’t know, it was tiring and Garlen almost fell down the side of a hill as we didn’t have a clue where we were going and kept getting lost and finding ourselves starring over sheer drops.

Anyway… skip to the end… we’re in China, views along the way were amazing, Come on the Gooners, Garlen had brain Masala (tastes like pate in case you were wondering), Garlen's Cantonese is useless, no-one can understand a word he says (mainly because they speak Mandarin), and that's it.

Bye, Damo

Cheeky

Us outside the Red Fort. Looks impressive from the outside, but inside, as Garlen put it, it's just a big market.

Indian Parliment

Who's that good looking chap outside the President's abode and Indian Parliment?

Oh, I Say!

Us outside the India Gate, an Indian version of the Arc de Triumphe.
Don't ask what Garlen is up to. Or me for that matter. Nav's going to have hours of fun thinking of jokes for this pic, he'll probably need a note pad to write them all down.

Well done to the second best team in England.

Despite supporting Arsenal - well done Chelsea! You have to congratulate the smaller teams when they win something. You never know with a bit of luck one day they might reach the dizy heights of the Champions League final too.

Lo, you've forgotten you kit again!

Us at Ghandi's Ghat, Garlen of course sporting his P.E style vest. I've been trying to convince him to get some plimsols to go with it but he refuses. However, he has started doing star jumps each night wearing just his pants, apparantly that's how his teacher made them do it!

what did the pink panther say when it stepped on the ant? deadant-deadant, deadant, deadant-deadant-deadant-deadant, deadaaant...

hey all

dont usually blog till thursday but am bored and its too hot to sit in our prison of a room. since the last post we have attained our chinese visas and are awaiting our pakistani ones. its been much, much hassle - flling forms written only in hindi, purchasing bankers drafts from unhelpful bankers, standing in chaotic indian q's, getting photos done in a proper photographic studio, forgetting to bring photos to the embassy, haggling with rickshaw drivers, lending pens, stealing pens, running to atm's b4 the embassy closes, waiting outside closed embassies, paying the uk embassy 50 pounds for A LETTER stamping our approval to enter pakistan, reading notes advised by the uk embassy detailing all the terrorist activity in pakistan, getting scared - but we're used to it now.

apart from visa stuff what have we done since we arrived in delhi? we went to see a few of delhi's main tourist attractions - there were two grand forts - both were crap. one turned out to be a disguised market and the other one a run down park. also saw gandhi's eternal flame where his ashes are scattered. bit crap aswell. infact the best thing about delhi is its choice of western fast food outlets. mcdougals, kfc, pizza hut, dominoes, tgi's, and wait for it... wimpy. also i bought ANOTHER pair of sunnies. my 4th pair this trip. they're big and white and rock n roll baby!!! also bought a vest which dame keeps giving me funny looks for. all the indians wear'em! he says im too skinny to be wearing vests. also bought a white top from none other than benneton. it cost 2000 rupees which is the equivilant of living out here for a week, but it does look wicked!

we're now simply waiting for our visa to process and dames new credit card to come through b4 we leave for pakistan. today we killed time by going to the multiplex cinema and watching the pink panther with steve martin. it was mildly amusing but the indians thought it was hee-lar-rious. i was laughing at the indians laughing at crap western humour.

i cant believe its taken me so long to mention that WE'RE CHAMPIONS , AGAIN. we watched it in a pub drinking draught kingfisher whilst a waiter fed us unlimited free crisps and nuts. it was amazing. what else. damian got a bit ill again yesterday. we think part sun, part dodgy stomoach, part me giving him my cold. but he seems to be better now.

dame and i finished our books last night. mine being the wasp factory' by ian banks, and his 'henry V' by shakey. my book was excellant, but dame cheated on his by flicking through pages justifying it by saying he 'got the gist of it'. we've both really got into reading recently (which is just as well as we both wanna become writers!) and both about to start our bill brysons. dames being ' the short history of nearly everything' and mine being 'notes from a small island.'

anyway probably boring you know, gonna go b4 we get another electrity cut and lose all this, and then ill get very angry and shout at some poor innocent guy and blame him for all the reasons the world is crap.

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!