The taxi arrived at 10.10 outside our block. There was a bit of faffing about but the four of us plus the driver left Pingguo around 10.30, then stopped to get some petrol and bought some nibbles and beer from the petrol station. Venky had thoughtfully brought a couple of cans of Li Quan from his hotel room but they were already room temperature of a room without air conditioning.
The car was a medium-sized saloon but it was air conditioned and I got the front seat for the first stint. We played Tell Me for longer than most middle-aged men would normally, and the highlight was Venky's immediate response to "A type of flower" beginning with "S". "Self-raising" - genius! I noted it was 11am and Venky somehow knew that meant it was time to open a cold one. Luckily I'd been quite good last night so it didn't feel wrong to join him and it was a holiday after all. Andge and Awl were a bit more restrained, but the latter maybe only because we didn't have any DVDC.
 |
| Breakfast |
We stopped after maybe two hours of the three and a half hour drive for more provisions and as a consequence of a couple of beers. Yes, only two small cans of weak beer each in two hours. For some reason the boys thought it was amusing to watch me exercise on those machines designed for exercising and stretching on. Blooming westerners. I also got a call from an angry Tan. She had planned to come down to Beihai tomorrow with a couple of families but now A Wu couldn't make it or something. I knew how she felt, being somewhat at the beck and call of him, so I told her just to get a bus or even a taxi. But she wasn't in the mood for solutions (as women so rarely are when flustered, even though it's apparently a lack of solution that causes the said flusteredness). So I let it be and just said if she could make it down it would be great.
 |
| I don't see what's funny about exercising normally |
 |
| A sobering reminder about what might happen if you don't drive carefully (or someone else doesn't) |
 |
| I slipped once due to the rain and my bad leg made it difficult to get up...but it's ok I have friends.... |
We actually got to Beihai around 3.30pm. It felt much longer sitting in the back of the car squashed between Andge and Awl during the second stint. We were pretty lost and my GPS wasn't tracking well and I had to keep rebooting my phone, which was very frustrating. So we pulled up at some girls selling swim-ring things for the sea and asked them for directions. We weren't actually that far and they pointed us in the right direction but even they wouldn't accept a few kuai for their efforts.
The Golden Shining hotel was pretty nice and luxurious by many standards and as soon as we'd got comfortable the nice storm that had been brewing up came to a boil with a delightful dark rainstorm. When it had subsided we had a minor swig of the bottle of JD I had thoughtfully brought along, and went down to the swimming pool. Awl and Venky were already in and despite my fears the water was a rather welcoming temperature. I only wished for a ball to play with. I decided to ask the female pool attendant if we could still swim if it rained. This caused a longish conversation where I tried to establish whether we could or not. Apparently when it rains the pool can get dirty due to leaves and stuff coming in. But surely that is only if the rain is accompanied by high winds? Anyway I didn't get a straight answer which was just as well as I wasn't expecting one. I just enjoyed the fact that we were properly on holiday and did a few lengths before grabbing a shower and heading back upstairs to change to evening wear.
 |
| Half way through my transformation |
The boys were more like girls when we met by the back door of the hotel to go to town. No sooner did Andge see me in my long trousers than he turned around and headed to our room again to change into long trousers. Then Awl did the same five minutes later. Then even Venky decided to go back to his room and put on long trousers. Finally around 20 minutes later we all walked outside together and realised it was about 35 degrees so I took advantage of my thoughtfulness and rolled up my trousers to be shorts as they are designed to do, and took off my socks and put them in my handy pocket, while the others looked forward to a night of sweating.
We got a taxi to the centre of town for a rather steep 25 kuai. We walked around for a bit and I was quite happy not to see a single westerner other than my cohorts. We were rather peckish but Andge and Awl decided they would wind me up by looking for a MacDonalds. In truth we'd been dropped off at a not very touristy point so we grabbed a san lun che for four and told the woman to drive us to the nearest Maccy D's (to my shame). 10 kuai later we were dropped off at the town square and Andge and Awl's eyes lit up when they saw their golden arches. And they did. They entered with gusto and ordered a big mac and fries or something so awful. Damn, I was so hungry I almost wanted the same but Venky and I wandered on until we found a reasonable looking street market where we got some buckets of noodles and Li Quan beer. Ok the others may not have been jealous but we had all the waitresses taking pictures of us with them and got offered a free non-alcoholic drink (which we didn't take advantage of).
 |
| Four men in a san lun che in Beihai |
 |
| One of the copious pics we had with the ladies of the night eat place - it rather suits me... |
We got a call from Andge as we were finishing off our meal. Awl and he hadn't managed to find a supermarket with DC or V and it was getting late. I made some enquiries and it turned out there was a supermarket 2 mins from us. So we met them there and despite an abundance of Coke 0 there was indeed no vodak. Strange that Pingguo had plenty of V but this place, more accommodating to foreigners you might have thought, didn't. So we didn't buy anything and got a cab back to the hotel as apparently there was a huge supermarket next to it. Well there was but it was closed.
It was gone 10pm and too late to get a cab back into town for Awl's indulgences so we sat for a drink at the hotel bar area. Andge ordered three G&Ts but as I was walking past I noticed how pitiful the measures were, literally half a pre- 25ml measure (half a gil?). Our hearts collectively sank until we discovered that we could buy a bottle of Stolichnaya for about 110 kuai. But then we were told they had no bottles of vodka. We weren't impressed and asked them if we ordered a glass of vodka and Coke could they do it and they said yes. So we asked what would they pour the vodka from and they realised they would have to answer "a bottle". Then it emerged they didn't actually have any vodka. By this stage we were getting a little bit annoyed, though remained professional. We looked through the menu and found Absolut vodka for nearly three times the price of Stolichnaya and said what about that? Then they said they had some flavoured version upstairs. Blimey ok, so we ordered a bottle but said we wanted unflavoured. And so apparently they did have the normal version. Which would have been great only they didn't have Coke 0 for Awl. To make matters worse we then realised that the "tonic" they'd supplied with our near-homoeopathic gin was actually soda water. So we said we'd take more soda water to mix with the Absolut but then realised that that was the last of the soda water too! No Stolichnaya, no tonic, no soda water, no bloody idea.
There were a few small shops outside and I took Awl out in the vaguest hope of finding a mixer that didn't have sugar. I would have had more hope in Pingguo. The first shop we hit was a typical small place that sold many things that might have been useful at another hour of the day. But for some reason, in the same way as Awl's eyes had radared on soda water just a few days ago in Pingguo, the cornea of my left eye sort of recognised a bottle of Pepsi Max, though I've never bought one before. I told Awl what I saw and we inched toward the bottle. It was! It was a bottle of Pepsi Max no sugar! And not only that there were three of them. And moreover Awl found one single cold bottle of the same in the fridge. The shopkeeper looked at us as if we were properly insane, and couldn't help but tell us that no-one bought that. I didn't have the heart to ask her why she kept some bottles on display and in the fridge then. But we walked back to the hotel happy men.
Well I had a couple of vodka and lemonades in order to preserve Awl's Pepsi Max, but on the third I was already feeling the effects. So as the boys were ordering a second bottle (this time lemon flavoured as that was all that was left) I went for a walk outside. I sensed a bbq place across the road and was actually a little hungry. I sat at a table by myself and ordered five portions of beef, but while waiting introduced myself to a neighbouring table and ended up staying there for two hours playing cai ma and drinking some beer. I loved the beer glasses, which were much bigger than Pingguo ones, and contained some sort of gel that was frozen between two layers of plastic in order to keep the beer cold. I felt like a right tourist when asked to have a couple and the owner charged me 80 kuai for two of them. It was a bit of a rip-off but I hadn't paid for my food and really really wanted to bring them back. As I was about to leave at around 2am I got a call from Andge who was hungry so I bought a couple of portions of rice and stuff. As I left the table to go back to the hotel who should stumble into me but Venky in his bloody shades again. That dipstick was probably out on the pull but we went back to the hotel together where I got to my room and ate some rice with Andge while apparently going on a little too much about the amazing beer glasses. Sleep came easily after 19 hours awake with these boys....
No comments:
Post a Comment