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.
