So dear mateys, the journey is at an end. On the eve of the celebrations to mark the 10 year anniversary of it’s return to China, I will fly out of Hong Kong tonight. Just about to head of and watch the fireworks.

The last month has been a strange journey, as much mental as physical. Despite being surrounded by the staggering beauty of Southern Thailand, I realised I was pretty much out of steam. By some series of accidents I ended up on killing time on Koh Pagnan at a full moon party which was predictably awful and my “what the fuck am I doing here ?” gland was fully raised. I went to visit Marten in Krabi and managed to go diving and look around a bit but what I took to be yet another parasitic illness turned out to be dengue fever when I got it checked out later in Bangkok. I managed (obliviously) to drink my way through it, but talk about kicking a man when he’s down.

I’d been kind of worried about the number of illnesses I’ve been struck down with this year, not to mention the fact that (due to 8 months on anti-malarials as I now find out) my hair has visibly thinned out, so you can imagine my joy when the unsympathetic doctor looked at my blood results and said casually that she thought I probably had HIV, did I want tested ? A common Bangkok line of questioning ensued - was I absolutely sure I hadn’t had sex with a prostitute ?

Well, this was pretty much rock bottom, but I guess no journey into the unknown would be complete without a near death experience. I wondered around Bangkok in a daze for a day, convinced my homecoming would be nothing more than a chance to say good bye to a home I was already pining for. They wanted me to wait 3 days for the results but by that evening I couldn’t take any more and phoned to tell her I was going home and to send the results home. I practically had to restrain myself from running down the Kao Sahn Rd shouting “I’ve got Dengue !! Woo-hoo !!”

So, given another chance at life I decided, what the hell, I’ll have a look at China. My dengue must have been pretty mild as I’ve heard horrific stories, but for me it pretty much ruled out trekking in Yunnan and Sichuan, which judging be the impressive mountain ranges and gorges I drove through, must be quite an experience. I flew into Kunming, a pretty uneventful modern Chinese metropolis. It has all the the aesthetics I’d expected - harsh sunlight blanching a mild smog, canyons of identical faceless suburban highrises, brand new roads and motorways triumphantly carving their way out of surrounding mountains and paddy fields flowing into a city centre full of ‘glass curtain’ office blocks, giant screens and lashings of hieroglyphic Chinese neon. But, the first contridiction to the kind of inhumane stereotype of ‘factory living’ I had was the warmth and easy pace of life on the streets. Little pockets of people everywhere were drinking tea, playing cards or majhong in the long afternoon shadows. Rather that the incessant beeping of tuk tuks, of the main expressways there was just the ringing of bicycle bells and to my complete surprise (as I was nearly run over several times) the noisless manouvering of electric scooters. They’re all over Western China (can’t say about the East) but hey, Holland hasn’t even managed that !

Acht … I’m going to have to cut the China commentary short, need to go to the party. I’ll update this post with the full story, a few people have been curious about China.

Hong Kong is a funny little place. A big city plagued by smalless. As if central London was detatched from the UK and floted off down to Jersey. It’s been an interesting time to be here too, in the run up to tonight’s big 10 year celebrations. President Hu is here, pro-democracy marches are trying to bolster Hong Kong’s confidence in it’s own future as much as that of China’s. More about that later too …. and Burma … dammit if I wasn’t trying to make the most of my time here I’d have finished that too. Paragraphs from finshed.

So. The meaning of life. Well … I’ve yet to meet a traveller for whom travel made anything clearer. Haven’t a clue. Travel until you’re lost. The point of going away is to be able to come home. I’m sure I’ll work it out when I get there.

Anyway, I’ll have some tidying up to do on this site. See you all soon ! Take care all.