One last winding road... A journey to the West.

Mostly a whole lot of nothing happens in Malaysia. Morning training, breakfast, afternoon training, lunch, evening training, dinner, rest, repeat until weekend, clean the clinic, go to town to kill time, overheat, repeat until the final days of the journey.

Somehow Malaysia feels close to home though. I more or less know how to exist here, and the accent and quirks of speech of the locals soaking English sound familiar, whether I can understand them or not. Staying at the clinic is old news, but trying new things at restaurants nearby is not unrewarding.

The five weeks pass by quickly and I make my last stop in Kuala Lumpur with my training brother. A short trip to Port Klang is made, Little India and Chinatown are visited, good times are had. On my last night I enjoy watching a thunderstorm from a high balcony at my friend's apartment.

The next day is spent packing and sending my training brother off to the bus station. After that, all there is left to do is to get myself to the airport and be on my way again. The way home is long, but finally having my own space again will be much appreciated.

Any place under the sun... Maybe next time.

My intention was to go around Taiwan and invest heavily on the East side and its nature. I also wanted to take a nature trail from Sun Moon Lake to Alishan mountain and sleep somewhere in between. However, my biggest fan, the typhoon, found me again, destroyed the road to Alishan and a bridge to the East side, as well as stopping most trains, immobilising me in Douliu.

I do not complain though. My host is just great, and the mood of heavy rain is not bad. After waiting out the rain I visit my host's hometown and am taken to Sun Moon Lake, which is a major disappointment. No nature trail, and the views are mostly ruined by urban design. There is no way I would stay there overnight. My host finds me another place to stay for the night before I go to Kaohsiung.

Moving on to Kaohsiung, I find yet another host who meets me with a friend and they take me to see the sunset at a harbour. We climb a small rock to get a better view, even though people try to stop us, saying it is dangerous. It is not. After sunset we have dinner and my host explains to me that because of family staying over I cannot, but it does not matter because there is again another person to put me up for the night. In the morning I go out with one of the people I met last night to eat a bowl of great beef noodles and I try to commit the taste to memory so I might be able to recreate it at home.

Having left part of my travel belongings to Douliu, I have to stop there to pick them up before returning to Taipei.

My final host turns out to be a nice person, to none of my surprise. With a friend she helps me to gather gifts and we have good foods. My mind is already in Malaysia though, and during my last day in Taiwan I only try to make the time pass faster so that I can more quickly step on the plane and be on my way.

Seeing the natural parts of Taiwan, camping out and wandering did not happen this time. These I will have to leave for another visit.

Typhoon tamer, snake eater.

One day Formosa is beautiful and the sun casts a golden glow over the island. The next day the typhoon strikes. I wonder if it will follow me home when the time comes to return. I move from Taipei to Zhongli, where I have the chance to eat snake in a soup. It is disappointingly stale, but I hear that in one district in Taipei it is possible to find something a little more special. Fortunately I will go to Taipei again later.

While struggling through the spiny meat, a man I come to know only as the Boss joins my and my host's table. He speaks no English, but my host translates. When the Boss was younger, he went to New Zealand where his lack of language skill was a trouble. However, he met a Chinese-speaking man who showed him around and helped him in many ways. He says that because of this, he wants to give me a similar experience and asks if I am free the following day. I am.

In the morning, however, I have another appointment. My host is a high school teacher, and he asked me if I would like to go speak to his class in the morning. He had already promised I would to his students. I gladly go, of course. The students seem thrilled to have a visitor and ask me many questions. Sadly I was not prepared to ask them anything, so when the time comes when they wonder if I want to ask something, in my mind I only have silly things such as "why do young Taiwanese not drink tea" or "why does every Taiwanese consistently want to 'ax' me a question".

After class, an employee of the Boss, accompanied by two of the Boss's kids, picks me up. We go to a farm to meet the Boss and see lotus flowers, after which we go for lunch in a place that serves Hakka cuisine. Then we go to enjoy tea at the Boss's office. He asks which teas I like and then offers me some of them as a gift, not taking a "no" for an answer. I am left with the feeling that the combined worth of these gifts plus the meals of the day is more than my life, but the Boss wants me to think nothing of it.

In the evening the Boss invites my host and his friends for dinner. My host cannot make it because of his work, but five of his friends join me, the Boss and his family. The Boss orders all kinds of animals for us to eat, frog and turtle among the more interesting ones. It seems I am allergic to turtle meat as well. Oh well. One of my host's friends chats with me in Japanese while the rest speak Chinese among themselves.

Throughout the day I have had fierce stomach cramps, which somehow amplify the surreal feel of the day. After returning to my host, they subside and let me sleep peacefully.

Bruce Lee days... To new lands.

In my final days in China I visit a vast tea market to purchase some fine quality goods. Apart from that, most of the final days before Hong Kong are mostly idle waiting, though I manage to find some appropriate gifts.

In Hong Kong I meet friends again, starting with a welcome lunch and being shown around town a little. I managed to shake the typhoon off my trail back in Japan, but it found me again in Hong Kong. Unimpressed by heavy rain and fallen trees, we drop my still cumbersome luggage at my friend's apartment and head to a market to purchase ingredients for the night's dinner. My friends remember my kitchen skills from when they visited my home and I gladly offer to prepare dinner in exchange for lodging.

Despite the weather I go out with one of my friends the next day to see three Avenue of Stars and pose for a picture next to the statue of Bruce Lee. We also visit a marketplace where we strike a bargain for a Bruce Lee T-shirt shirt, which is nice. On the evening I cook again, this time a speciality of mine that turns out to be a modified version of Shanghai dumplings. My friend's mother plays lottery, using my birthyear as one of her lucky numbers.

In the morning my friend's family treats me to a massive breakfast, courtesy of the mother, who won a sum of money from the lottery. I write down dishes that I like in Asia to my journal and ask my friend to also mark down the Chinese names, in proper characters and phonetically, of the Chinese and Hong Kong ones.

After sending my second parcel home, I spend the day in Mong Kok eyeing the shopping district but refraining from buying anything. I check into a guesthouse after slightly haggling the price down. This area would be simply great for practising that particular skill. In the evening I eat some delicious food from street stalls before tucking in for the night.

Come morning, I dig out my deck of cards and work half a Karl Gotch Bible to wake myself up. I meet my friend one more time for lunch and make my way to there airport to catch my flight, only to find out it has been canceled due to weather conditions. I wonder if the sun catches the pilots' eyes in such a terrible way, as the skies are clear in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. After queuing for quite a while, I am transferred to another airline and make it to a new land only an hour later than expected. There I meet friends again, and we drive to a teahouse on a mountain near Taipei to have fine tea under a starry sky. There is nothing more I could ask for.

All the roads we have to walk are winding.

I wake up early to catch the sunrise. After a short time of waiting I start my descent, visiting all other peaks but the West peak in the process. My former fear of heights seems to be almost completely gone.

I am quite happy with my decision to take on the mountains alone. Though the experience is worthy of sharing, climbing alone bears a certain boast and a different feeling of accomplishment. In addition, I cannot think of many others who would agree to sleep on bare stone or keep up with the pace I took to ascend.

After descending from Mt. Hua I read it is considered one of the most dangerous hiking trails in the world. This information changes nothing, and would not have changed a thing even if I had known it before climbing. It is still morning, and after having lunch for breakfast I set out to find a hostel to stay at. I happen into a supremely cheap place, which is approximately the dirtiest place I have ever spent time in. Hardly anything works, but I do not care. I rest for a while before going out to town to kill time and have dinner. In the evening I do some slight training in my grimy room, take a shower and rest.

The next day I return to Zhengzhou to meet my friend at the train station. That day we only rest, and on the following days we spend quite a deal of time only having tea and discussions. We also visit an antique market, where I purchase some curiosities and gifts. A mute artisan carves me a name chop out of onyx, and I am fairly sure I shall scarcely use it.

Before leaving for Guangzhou, I want to take all I can from the discussions , so we stay up late over tea every night until my departure. I find it peculiar that this could happen, though it is what I awaited from the visit. A chance encounter from almost a year ago left me with a dear friend.

Finally it is time to leave early in the morning. There are no hard goodbyes, merely a promise to meet again. My road takes me through Wuhan to Guangzhou, which means spending another whole day in a train. This gives me time to think. Again. The road is long and winding indeed.

Stranger in a strange land... No limit.

I am writing this at the Southern Peak of Mt. Hua, elevation 2154,9 metres. It took me just short of five hours to get here.

During my first days in Henan, I am taken to Luo Yan grottoes to see enough Buddhas for a lifetime, Bai Ma temple to see some more and a family dinner where people immediately make the assumption that I wish to marry my friend. Reminds me of a similar assumption made by certain other people in the past.

I am also taken to Shaolin Temple by my friend and her friends, but at this point relics are not very interesting to me. Also, someone loses our tickets so we cannot go see the monks give a martial arts presentation. I do not much care, as things quickly got to a point where the rest speak Chinese among themselves and I, hating to interrupt, leave myself out of the conversation completely. In the evening, as another person joins, I learn how to make steamed buns and take a long walk. People stare at me on the street quite shamelessly.

In the evening I am informed that the plans of travelling with my friend have changed completely. There would be another person accompanying us to mountains and a trip around China is not going to happen. I think long and hard during the night and wake up early to catch my friend and inform her that all things considered, it is best if I go to the mountains alone. Both of us are upset at how the situation has evolved, but after an argument, discussion and agreement, it is decided that I will take to the mountains alone.

And I am glad that I do. I first go to Mt. Tai. The train trip there is pure torment, nine hours in a car with people with no sense of personal space at all. The mountain is quite disappointing. At first, naturally I am worried if I do it alone, and I think I must be crazy to climb a mountain in the dark. It turns out there is no climbing involved, and it is merely a three-hour hike up some stairs. At the top I rent a coat and sleep on a rock basin for a few hours before waking up to see the sunrise. Sadly it is very cloudy and not much can be seen. I sleep for a while longer in a nook without wind and hike back down to kill time before hopping on a train back to Zhengzhou. Arriving, I get a ride on a flimsy vehicle, the main building materials of which seem to be optimism and the sense of danger. This is not helped by the driver going against the stream on one-way streets.

The next day I take on Mt. Hua, which is considerably less a pleasant walk to scenic places. The climb takes some time and I do not stop for sightseeing as it is already dark, but at last I reach the Southern Peak. There, I dry my clothes a little in the wind, have a modest supper, find a place with the least wind and fall asleep so hard I am sure my body leaves an imprint on the stone.

In transit, in waiting.

Three cheers for The Party, which forbids me from publishing photos while here. I will update these entries from the jurisdiction of Hong Kong.

After waking up, I almost immediately leave for the train station after thanking my host for the night. I buy the first possible ticket for Zhengzhou and set out to kill time, which is a little easier said than done when one does not speak the local language.

I make it to Tiananmen square to check out the sights there a little. As someone who is decidedly unimpressed about sights, especially urban ones, it does not take too long for me to simply start strolling about and thinking about what to do next. It is then that I run into someone offering tours to the great wall and, when I say I have no time for it, to just guide me about town for a while. I agree, and express my wishes for tea. This one takes me to a famed tea house where I gladly drink some Longjing tea. Due to my guide's limited skill of English and my nonexistent skill of Chinese, conversation is not very deep, but good to pass the time nonetheless.

After tea I ask if I could have lunch and am promptly taken to a nearby restaurant to remind myself how much I like Chinese food. I thank my guide and catch a taxi to the train station. It seems I miscalculated and therefore miss the train. I head to the ticket office to exchange my ticket, and when the person behind the glass says the next available ticket is tomorrow, I almost want to start a fight. However, another person manages to inform me that for a small extra fee I can take the train after two hours in first class. I do not need to think twice.

The trip is uneventful. In the evening I meet my friend, who is a sight for sore eyes. Arriving to her home, it is time for supper and soon for rest.