Mike Gledhill

(This is a little late, but I forgot to post it on here...)

Mike's final thoughts.

So I went, I saw, I came home. What lessons have we learned from this trip ?

1. Considering our quality of life, life in England is overly expensive, transport is crap, and when Summer comes elsewhere in the world, the entire population and their caravans don't all head down the same bloody motorway to the same few nice beaches.

2. "The Beach" does exist, and you don't need a hand-drawn map to find it.

3. Taxi drivers in Kuala Lumpur are honest folk.

4. Yes, it is worth going on a 9-hour flight to get to your Summer Holiday rather than the typical 3-hour jobby to Spain. It's worth the effort.

5. Call that rain ? Pah. We don't *know* what real rain is.

6. Not all Americans are fat or obnoxious.

7. Life without Pfizer is possible.

As some of you already know, I've had problems sleeping since I was a teenager. Regardless of how tired I'd be, each night I'd get to bed and be wide awake 1-4 hours later.

Well folks, I'm back in the UK.

Sydney was fantastic, such a beautiful city, with fantastic beaches really close to the city centre. No mad Christmas rush anywhere, no manic rush-hours to get to the shops first, and gorgeous weather. Yup, I could happily live there.

And then, then there was Hong Kong.

Oh my God. I hated the place. Hated it.

I hated the people.
No one walks, everyone shuffles. People of all ages would crawl along the pavements, and think nothing of turning and walking straight into you. On Day 1, I was nice and polite, and let them barge past, apologising to them in the typical English way.
By Day 2, it was just getting annoying, and if anyone tried to walk into me, I was rugby-shouldering them out of my way.
On top of this, being a Westerner, every few steps, I'd get guys pulling at me going "Hey boss, you want a suit..? You want a suit...? Suit..? You want a suit, boss...?" Once again, by Day 2, I was snapping at them. They just made going anywhere really frustrating.

I hated the food.
Nearly all of the restaurants had two standard dishes of "slimey meat thing" and "slimey fish thing". Both were usually uncooked, smelt awful, and served in a bowl of gooey water, with rice. And, of course, there were no English translations to what these things were. I make no apology.. whilst I was in Hong Kong, I lived on McDonalds for almost every meal. It was a relief to find a place selling sandwiches on the second day !

I hated the city.
At night, it's a neon-filled spectacular. During the day, it's dirty, gray, and full of impressive skyscrapers and tall buildings covered in air-conditioning units sticking out of each window. The place is a mess. And since the weather was crap, it wasn't worth trying to escape to the nearby beaches.

I didn't meet anyone.
The hostel was full of Chinese people, the city was full of Chinese people... there were barely any Westerners to meet at all. This kinda makes the city even more depressing.

And so, after paying for 5 nights accommodation, by the end of the first day in Hong Kong, I was busy making arrangements to cut my losses and come home. A day later, I was on a flight back to London, with a relieved smile on my face.

It's a shame to finish the blog in this way, but frankly, I've had such an incredible past few weeks, I'm glad I left Hong Kong when I did.

And yes, I'm also glad Hong Kong was my last stop, rather than my first one, otherwise I might've thought the entire trip was going to be that bad !!

Now, I'm back in Bristol, and can happily spend an hour or so going through the photos, and remembering the fantastic fun and stories behind each one. Ahhh, I have some tales to tell, most of which are unprintable here.


Thanks for all of your emails and news whilst I've been away.

Have a good Christmas, you lovely lot.


Travelling Mike

What a great day.

Woke up very hungover (don't ask.. just don't ask..) and went for a trip to
Manly Beach. Much nicer than Bondi Beach a mon avi, and fantastic
weather. Meant to be 28'c today, and 38'c tomorrow.. so I chose today to
top up/being my tan.

Anyway, whilst doing the coast walk thing, I bumped into a couple of
English guys, one of whom left England in March to come and live in Sydney.
And where did he live in England ? At number 27 of my street, Melbourne Road,
back in Bristol.

I mean... come on... what are the odds....?

I have to fly to the other side of the planet to meet my neighbours.

Anyway, I've bunged a load more photos on my photo site, click on the
"Photos" link to view them, if you can be arsed.

I wouldn't, if I were you. They're only gonna annoy you. I tell ya,
two weeks before xmas, and I'm lying on the most beautiful beach,
with all the locals, nothing's crowded, nothing's rushed, the sun is
shining, and we're just a 15 minute ferry from the centre of Sydney.

This is the life.

Hmmm, I've found out that there are still some Robbie tickets for
his concert, here in Sydney, on Sunday. Only problem.. I don't
think I'm interested. Even though it's on my doorstep. Perhaps
I still haven't forgiven him for RudeBox. Ah well.


News for Tavistockians (my home town): McDonalds is being
forced out. No one's eating their rubber beefburgers:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23377273-details/McDonald


And finally, a really good story. Not sure if it's true, but it's quite
amusing.


Apparently, there's a public toilet in Houston with 1-way mirrors
as walls. You can see out, no one can see in. Would you be able
to use them...? (This has gotta be a hoax, but frankly, I like the
story so much, I don't care...)

You know, it's great out here.

It's miserable (but hot) weather today, so I'm busy exploring Bondi's excellent
shopping malls, and you'd need to be reminded that Christmas is so close. It's
not dead here, more like Cribbs Causeway on a quiet Tuesday afternoon in
February.

Santa is here, in a very chic stylish setting, but other than that,
it's business as usual. I can't tell you how nice it is not to be bombarded with
Christmas and Shaking Stevens soundtracks whilst wondering around.

Quick disclaimer: my rucksack weighs a tonne. Literally. So apologies for
the fact that I won't be bringing any pressies back. Feel free to hate me for
that one now. Put it this way, I had to bin my (quick nice) walking boots
as there wasn't enough room for them anymore.

So no Opera House T-shirts, no "I did a chick-boy in Bangkok" caps, and
no "My mate went to Singapore, and all he brought me back was his
sense of humour. I wish he'd have stayed" badges.

Today's entertainment (this is quite sad) came from one of the best Christmas
cards I've seen.

It's just an aged photo of a little boy sitting on Santa's lap, looking up at him
with a frown, and there's just two words at the bottom of the card:
Define "good".

I laughed my arse off at that one.


One other thing about Bhondi.. it is full of beautiful people. Seriously drop-dead
gorgeous people. Even the pregnant women (who also hang out and all over the
place on the beach) are gorgeous. And the kids look like they've just falled out
of the Next catalogue.

Despite my toupee and tailor-made suit (I still haven't taken it off) I don't
quite fit in, what-what. Deary me, they seem to know I'm not a local, and
keep their distance as though my looks and lack of a tan might be contageous.

Holy crap, what a day.

So, pretty much all of yesterday (Sunday) was spent packing, waiting around
for a taxi, waitnig around for a flight, and flying to Sydney.

Arrived at my hotel (yup, not a hostel yet) at 7.30am, and, being a top
Priority Club member (as I spent almost two months living in a Holiday Inn
in London this year), I had managed to "buy" two nights in a Holiday Inn
here using my points.

What I'd forgotten was that as a top member, they'd give me an upgraded
room. Holy crap. It has a lounge (with telly), dining room, the comfiest
bed ever (opposite telly # 2), and a huge bathroom. And, yes, they let me
check in really early, at 7.30am.

I reluctantly dragged my arse out of the room, without the complimentary
dressing gown or slippers, and went for a walk. I found Sydney Bridge
before I found the Opera House, so went to have a look. Arrived at 9.15am
to enquire whether it'd be possible to do the "Bridge walk" sometime in
the next few days.

10 minutes later, I was wearing the overalls and climbing belt, and being
trained on the walk we were all about to do. Quite a few of our group of
ten people thought it was amusing I'd only arrived two hours ago, and
hadn't slept yet !!

Anyway, it was an expensive, but a great walk. Strangely not frightening
though (and I really don't like heights).

Went for a wonder round the opera house next and, well, errrm, I have
a problem. I mean, it's pretty and all that... and I don't want to diss it
on day 1.. I mean, I'm sure it's just me... but.. well.. I mean, as someone
who was brought up with the TSW logo, you just can't help drawing
similarities between the two. And the logo's better looking. And had a
funky theme tune.

It wasn't as though the Opera House was ugly. It was just offputting,
thinking that Gus Honeybun was about to jump out from behind it
at any minute and do a Magic Button.

Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to today's episode of "Mike alienates
95% of his small readership in one article." Here's the TSW clock,
which shows the logo that I'm rambling about:
http://625.uk.com/tv_logos/flash/tsw_clock.asp
As I said, after suffering this logo many hundreds of times as a kid,
you can't look at the Opera House in the same way again.

Anyway, it's now 3.30pm on Monday. Sydney is fab, a world away
from the dirtiness (but coolness) of Bangkok, the weather is sunny
but nice and cool, so I'm not sweating my arse off for the first time
in several weeks, and my mind is arguing with me that it really
must be time for my jet-lag to kick in, what's wrong with you, man ?

I guess I'd better go and let it get it's way.