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“Our moral nature is such that we cannot be idle and at ease” - Leo Tolstoy

“It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason for being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy” - Bill Bryson

Inland China to Hong Kong

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:39:44

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it at night - the sounds of civilization drift across the water as rippling party lights are reflected back up to the stars. In some ways I find all this cosmopolitanism slightly daunting, especially since everybody I meet seems so jolly successful! It is therefore a relief to discover that not far from all the human enterprise, there is an extraordinary back drop of green islands, sandy beaches and dignified mountain tops. Hong Kong is indeed a nice place to hang out for a while, in all sorts of ways (some of them quite unexpected).

As it has turned out, I have been, and will be here for a while ? 2 months in fact. The reason for this is that I have now run out of land to cycle on, and I am faced with some bigger sea crossings. One of the goals of this journey is to make my way all the way down from Russia to New Zealand using only bike and, where necessary, boat (i.e. I am not allowed to fly). Whenever I meet the sea, in most cases I can simply jump on a ferry. However, there are also a few substantial stretches of water (such as the South China Sea) where there are no ferries. This leaves me with the interesting task of trying to hitch hike the oceans with yachts and cargo ships and oil tankers. After a lot of emailing and asking around for help, I am most grateful to Jon King and his yacht Talio for offering me a passage (leaving at the start of September) as far as the Philippines. Once there (all being well) I just keep island hopping south until I eventually get to New Zealand.

On realizing how long I would need to stay here, I tentatively told my old friend Chi Lam (now a successful Hong Kong banker) that I would be in town for considerably longer than anticipated? with characteristic generosity he handed me the keys to his spare flat, graciously urging me to ?Treat Hong Kong? like an oasis in the middle of your long journey?. Sounded good to me!

It is weird to stop moving like this. But it is also good. Always on the ...