Ask the gecko...

There was a gecko in the sink on Saturday morning. That was the first sign. An omen if you like.

It was 37.5 degrees on Saturday which I think is about 220 degs Fahrenheit. It felt like it anyway.

It was hot all week. Very hot.  Within minutes of taking a cool shower, beads of sweat quickly form on your body and start forming mini vertically-flowing rivers down your chest and stomach.

Within an hour, you are dripping perspiration onto the marble floor.

The tactic is not to dress until the last possible moment before leaving the flat. Even putting on a light cotton tee shirt feels like putting on a chainmail vest, boiled in vinegar.

It’s only about 40 steps down from the flat to where my new bike is parked under a banyan tree. By the time I reach it there are already dark patches all over my shirt.

When cycling it is essential not to exert any effort at all and this is particularly challenging on my shiny new Ferrari-red Chinese bike. Several sizes too small (but the largest in stock) and priced at a competitive $850HK (about £60) this bike has all the component parts of a decent bike but is in fact, complete crap.

The saddle is extended so far up on its stem to accommodate my long legs that the pedals end up behind my knees  meaning  that you feel you are pedalling backwards in some sort of agonising contortion. The pedals are also sloped downwards so that if you have to put any real pedal power into it your feet just slide off and bash painfully on the ground. The wire cables that connect the brakes and gears have sharp points that regularly stick into your ankles and calves like deadly mosquito bites. There are 126 gears but not one of them is any help for going uphill. 

Needless to say, by the time I park up using the stand that still allows the bike to fall over in a light breeze I am soaked in sweat. Apart from the effort of cycling on the bike from hell there has been the additional finger exertion of dinging the bell ($2-50 extra, by the way) about 200,000 times at stupid bloody tourists ambling aimlessly along the concrete paths that connects Hung Shing Ye beach to the main metropolis and ferry port at Yung Shue Wan.

For the first time ever in Hong Kong ,I elected to sit inside the cabin on the Lamma Ferry, opting for air conditioned comfort rather than a harbour breeze and acute dehydration.

Swimming in the sea does not offer much relief either. The water is like dirty brown washing up water. Thick with a frothy surface of scum and a huge deposit of general litter introduced from the Western Lamma channel by a persistent onshore breeze. Plastic bags, nappies, plastic cups, crisp wrappers, drinking straws, a cigarette lighter and other unmentionable flotsam and jetsam. Like swimming in a warm liquid rubbish dump.

Being China no one cares too much and families frolic and play in the surf happily ignoring dirty nappies floating past on the tide.

And then after Mr Gecko appeared everything started to change. He was a plain tan colour with bulgy eyes and it took me a few minutes to catch him as he raced around the sink like Chris Hoy around the Olympic velodrome.  I finally caught him under a whisky glass still unwashed from the night before.

Hopefully Mr Gecko had not been drinking the dregs but he did seem a bit shocked and disoriented when I dropped him onto the flower bed outside the French windows.

I don’t think he is one of our regular pair of geckos who hunt on the white wall outside the French windows. I leave the light on for them to attract bugs and I have to say they have fattened up quite nicely since last November when I first saw them. I am not sure if they are a mating pair but they seem tolerant if each other and both are quite aggressive if another gecko turns up on their patch. Elaborate tail twitching is the key indicator of a gecko in a strop based on my months of detailed observations.

Anyway, that Saturday evening, returning to Central on the Star Ferry ,the light was extremely strange.  There was talk of a typhoon and there was a huge deluge while we were celebrating a recent payment from the South China Morning Post in a very nice Mexican restaurant called Brickhouse. The sea the next day was cool, clean and clear and there were tiny fish rising around the beach.

Then it started raining. And I mean really raining.

On returning to the flat the official Typhoon warning for tropical storm Vicente was set at number 1. This basically means that there is a huge tropical storm building in the South China Sea but it’s a long way off so just don’t plan any solo crossing of the harbour on a breadboard and bring the washing in. By Monday the storm had intensified into a typhoon and had changed course to the north and was heading straight for us. The warning went up to 3. This means it’s going to get windy so tie down your potted plants and don’t make any long trips by ferry unless you fancy staying for while. Now we wait for 8, which is lash everything down (including yourself) and pray for help, or even worse, 10, hide under the bed until further notice.

This only goes to prove that if you want to know about Hong Kong weather- ask a gecko.

Dangerous Encounter

Well we have been back on Lamma Island for over a week now and it’s great to have escaped from dreary England where people seemed mostly obsessed with the hosepipe ban and a possible petrol shortage.  Even when there isn’t a crisis, the English have to invent one.

Only in England, which enjoys (or doesn’t, more to the point) one of the wettest and most drizzly climates in the world can there be a drought declared in April. And everyone meekly accepts the feeble explanation that this is necessary because only a mere 82% of the usual amounts of rain fell over the last two winters. By the way those were the same winters when drivers were warned to stay at home due to unusual amounts of snowfall and there were so many flash floods it was widely blamed on dramatic climate change. Last summer was so wet that, if I remember correctly, people complained in the press about the misery of rain soaked summer staycations in the UK.

No chance of a hosepipe ban here on Lamma Island as the rain is belting down outside my window overlooking the beach at Hung Shing Ye. There have been unseasonably intense thunderstorms for three days now and the sky becomes this thick, light grey smog pierced by flashes of fork lightening followed by huge violent cracks of thunder. I love a good thunderstorm but some of those huge explosions have you leaping out of your chair.

I had an unusual encounter this morning as I was running along by favourite route before the rains started. A narrow red dirt path winds its way between the vegetation, just below the ridgeline of the mountains above Hung Shing Ye. Conscious of the recent rain making the going a little slippery I was watching my step quite carefully when on negotiating a short and steep rocky incline I was confronted by the most terrifying creature.

Even though we were at least 80 meters above sea level, it looked like an angry rust brown crab about 10 cm in diameter with two huge pincers already opened and held aloft above its armoured body, ready to strike. I stopped abruptly in my tracks, panting and sweating, then tried to stare him down while I considered my options.  I also thought it important to make a rough calculation of whether this vicious looking crab, lobster, scorpion, invertebrate, monster thingy, was capable of leaping distances of over 20 times its body length, to attack its prey.

Neither of us seemed prepared to retreat in this tense stand-off between man in Lycra running shorts and monster thingy in the mountain passes of Lamma Island. In the end, I took a deep breath and rather carefully  took an exaggerated giant stride over him, while keeping a cautionary hand in a protective position over my genitals. Then I and ran off down the path shouting some suitable insults over my shoulder in a pathetic sort of way.

I don’t think there can be much doubt that the mountain monster realised he had met a worthy adversary that morning.

It was a bit disappointing frankly, having consulted Google, to discover that the monster was probably no more than an Asian Land Crab.  I was lucky that it was not as Giant Coconut Crab as these can grow to three meters in diameter and can crush coconuts with their powerful pincers.

I knew there were snakes and scorpions in those mountains but imagine running into a giant limb crushing crab?

That’s what I would call a real crisis. 

Moving to Hung Shing Ye

Harold the dog has a new jacket.

It is a slightly tatty cream and brown patterned rug which he wears with noticeable pride in the cold weather. I spotted him wandering back from the ferry pier unaccompanied, as though he had just been strutting around Central district with his distinctive ostrich walk and new coat.

I helped a man struggling with a washing machine up the flight of steps outside our garden the other day. He seemed very grateful and after brief introductions when I informed him of my profession, Vick urged me to contact Tom, a fellow Wang Long neighbour.

“He an editor of some business magazine” he told me “Employs loads of writers”.

“I can write about business” I offered, a little too eagerly.

“Don’t worry about that” said Vick.

 “Tom knows nothing about business. Thick as pig shit. It’s just re-hashing press releases, I reckon”.

I made mental note to give Tom a call.

Tom, it seems, is the loud Scotsman with a slightly flushed round face who phones home on Friday night from his top floor balcony and the entire village can hear his conversation as he growls and rants into his mobile phone for about an hour. There is no intrusion into Tom’s privacy because no-one around here can possibly comprehend his Glaswegian accent.

Having just settled in to Wang Long (I now know three people, all called Tom) we are moving up to Hung Shing Ye.  In Lamma terms this is equivalent of moving from Manhattan, or the Upper East Side of New York to say, Daytona Beach in Florida. Actually it’s probably more like moving from Ealing Broadway to Margate.  Either way, in reality, it is about 1km away.

There is a beach though. Quite a nice one actually, if you don’t turn your head too far to the right to take in the view of the power station.

And the flat has a nice terrace with tropical plants and a pleasing view through the smog to the bay beyond. The large Lamma dog next door only barks loudly from behind a fence when you first arrive and then soon settles down.  All in all, pretty nice.

The only down side, this being Lamma Island, is that the entire flat is only 350 square feet. For those not instantly au fait with flat dimensions this equates to a large fridge-freezer or small shed.

Lamma is a pretty egalitarian place in that 90% of the population live in two types of flat. The 700 square foot version, which is usually one floor of a three floor Chinese town house and barely adequate in terms of space. The 350 square feet version is usually half a floor of a Chinese town house and completely inadequate but of course, a lot cheaper.

We did see a nice 700 square feet flat in Wang Long but it was perched over a dirty swampy stream with a balcony overlooking a bicycle repair shop and some abandoned mouldy mattresses. Like a lot of Lamma Island, it lacked something in aesthetic appeal and we found ourselves lured by the tropical plants. 


So now we are condemned to living in a fridge freezer which no doubt converts into an oven in the summer months.

Its Lamma Week-End

The graveyard tour was cancelled due to the forecast of inclement weather.

Not being able to enjoy Paul’s much anticipated historical tour of the cemetery at Happy Valley, we decided that the Museum of Art might make a suitable wet weather alternative.

And with that in mind, we caught the packed Star Ferry to Tsim Sa Tsui and the rain just about held off.

For reasons best known to Hong Kong's urban planning elite, the museum and its neighbouring cultural buildings are built in pink bricks and turn their back on the magnificent Kowloon harbour- front and the stunning panorama it offers.

Once inside this architectural oddity, we found an exhibition called Lofty Integrity by Wu Guanzhong which was quite lovely. His work combines a style connected to traditional Chinese ink landscapes and calligraphy with contemporary western style abstracts.

I liked his words too. They accompanied each piece that he had donated to the museum.

The easterly breeze blows open the wisteria. The isolated reds entangled in the midst are dots of lovesickness.

After an al fresco burger at Red Bar in the lofty heights of the IFC complex and overlooking the lights of Kowloon obscured in drizzly mist, we watched the Flowers of War. This movie is set amongst the tragedy of the Nanjing Massacre and stars the American actor Christian Bale. The seats at the IFC cinema are so luxurious that they let out a soft “whoosh” each time a patron sits in them. You feel embraced and relaxed at the same time and that’s before the opening credits have started.

The movie itself is a vulgar and sordid affair with countless scenes of bloodshed, rape and brutality without much emotion and only cheap Hollywood sentimentality and some crude Chinese patriotism to interrupt the horror.  Admittedly it would be a tough job to find much warmth and humour within the context of the Nanjing massacre, a humanitarian outrage, which still provokes strong feelings in China today. But this could have been a Chinese version of Schindlers List. Instead it ended up being closer to Rocky III in emotional subtlety.  At least the seats were comfy and you could admire some stunning photography.

It rained and rained some more on Lamma on Sunday which at least meant the tourists were kept away.

Craving fresh air we walked in the rain to Lo So Wan beach and then on to Sok Kwu Wan where we ate a late seafood lunch at our favourite restaurant on the island, the Lamma Hilton. I can’t imagine for a moment this typical seaside seafood eatery has anything to do with the international hotel brand now characterised by the exploits of Ms Paris Hilton but the food is very good. We always have the same set menu for two which includes deep fried squid with black pepper and salt and enormous fried prawns in black pepper, garlic and red chilli.

Jack, the manager, assumed we were getting the ferry home from Sok Kwu Wan and thought it “very romantic” when we advised him that we were walking back to Yung Shue Wan.  It turned out be more wet than romantic.

So that was our Lamma week-end as they like to call it here.

Lamma life and Lamma dogs

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Sitting in the garden of our modest flat, I am enjoying the mid-morning sights and sounds of Lamma Island. The deafening, grinding, drilling noise as two octogenarian Chinese gentlemen struggle with a pneumatic drill which they share to dig up the narrow concrete pathway that connects the traditional three storey houses of Wang Long Village.

To my right, the sound of Abba’s "Dancing Queen" pounds out at some considerable volume from the home of our trans-sexual neighbour with the amazing new breasts. She parks his/her bike against the picket fence of our garden, so we often exchange shy glances across the tropical plants. She is a helper for a family and can be heard scolding the small child in her care with a deep threatening voice.

Inevitably, the unique symphony of noise is embellished by the wild howling of someone’s dog. Even if you are a committed dog lover, you will hate most of the dogs on Lamma Island.  They are all descended from the same feral pack of wolf-like mongrels with pointy snarling faces and curled up tails.  They come in about three different shades of shitty brown and prowl the streets in packs, cocking their enormous legs on small children and crapping where the hell they like. Quite sensibly, owners of these vicious beasts do not even attempt to train or discipline them for fear of being eaten alive.

Often they are left all day on the balcony of their owner’s flat pacing backwards and forwards in the heat going more and more insane and barking madly at any sight or sign of human or dog life.

There was enormous controversy recently when it was discovered that some heinous member of the Lamma community was distributing toxic poison for the dogs. Cruel and evil yes, but if you were living in a flat next to three of these beasts barking and howling all day and night, weeing on your children and defecating in your bed, you might feel sorely tempted into extreme measures too.

There are no cars and no high rise buildings on Lamma Island. If you ignore the three towering chimneys of the coal fired power station (and the copious amounts of dog poo) it is a pretty green and tranquil place compared to most of Hong Kong.

Its 3000 residents are an eclectic mix of Chinese fisherman, Filipino maids , ex-patriot teachers and writers, bankers, vegetarian women of a certain age and just some general intoxicated low-life that were washed up on the beach when the tide went out about 25 years ago.

Lamma life revolves around the ferry that transports residents from the ferry pier at Lung Shue Wan to the high rise concrete and glass chaos of Central district. It is usually a 20 minute journey that costs about £1-40 and remains my favourite boat trip in the world. Crossing one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world,  past anchored container ships awaiting cargo and then depositing you in the heart of one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan  cities in Asia.

It’s like getting on a boat in a remote Breton Island and 20 minutes later having crossed the English Channel, arriving in the middle of Piccadilly Circus or Canary Wharf.

Hope all is well with you guys.  I am very sorry that I will not be joining you for the top of the table clash on Monday night. It will be a tough and tense game and I will try and stay up for it but 4am is not my preferred time for listening to football.