Today was going well and I was making wise information based travel decisions based on level of tiredness and amount of luggage. I’d managed to get myself to Hong Kong, then to my hotel, showered, changed, sorted a room upgrade and a room ready at 9:30am rather than 2pm. I’d also managed to get myself to a meeting in Central via taxi and after back (granted I did walk around the block twice, get a bit confused, bump into the people I’d just had a meeting with who sent me round the block again, went through 4 taxi’s before the 5th would agree to take me to Kowloon..) But I was doing well! Then….as I left my first meeting a lady I’d just met briefly on walking in palmed me a hand written note saying “7pm Ritz Carlton, Floor 118, Ozone Roof Top Bar”. I mistakenly thought she was passing me a note from my friend Jane to meet me there as we had discussed possibly going out tonight. So I negotiated Karel my Netherlandian colleague into supervising my travel there. He had demonstrated competence through site seeing all day using nothing but a map in a lonely planet! He didn’t even need an iphone with GPS and a flashy dot to help him navigate. So I figure, qualified supervisor. WRONG. His “we’ll just pop into the MTR at Prince Edward and get off at Jordan and walk a couple of blocks” sounded so sensible and confident. I should have been alerted when the 5 mins walk to Prince Edward station took 20mins…then I should have been alerted when we were confused about which platform to get on the MTR…then I should have been alerted when we got off at Jordan and he said “yes we go right” and we went in the wrong direction….at 7pm we were about 1km away from our destination which I could see (hard to miss 118 floors of high rise). But then Austin Rd MTR… we had to cross the road using an underpass, we went in 1 entrance and there are only 3 options for exit… we managed to spend 10 minutes going in and out trying to find the right one….Oh did I mention i’m wearing high heels and dressed in office clothes throughout this and have only managed to eat 1.5 meals all day on a day that started at 4am….

Having finally managed to get out of the underpass we then battled construction work to find the building but no entrance!! Walked around what seemed like the biggest building base ever…eventually we found an entrance to the building next door and it took 10 literally 10 different people to guide us through the maze of escalators and corridors to find the lobby to the Ritz which is on Level 9….who puts a lobby on level 9?? not exactly obvious…. Then we get there and speak to the elevator lady who says “oh you must be media there is a private media function on level 118” no not media so maybe we mean a different bar and she actually says “ah yes there are two ladies waiting for you there they didn’t have your phone number” sounds like Jane and Yvonne, so off we go, we’re only 45 mins late by this time, i’m hungry, tired and not feeling terribly sociable, yet everyone was sooo nice and helpful. We get there and i make some poor lady walk through the whole floor staring at customers to find Jane and Yvonne…no Jane, no Yvonne. I’m now wondering what two ladies the first elevator lady meant and figured she just made up a really elaborate story to get me moving off her patch. Finally find Jane’s number and call her. She says “what note? I never thought we were meeting tonight I’m at work” - so turns out the lovely lady i met for 2 secs in an office this morning invited me out for drinks to a bar that had a private function in a part of town that took me 2 hours to get to. I give up at this point and get us a seat and order us drinks with bubbles and food and we ended up having a great but short night on the 102nd floor looking out over the harbour. I made Karel feel better about his “its a short walk” by telling him stories of past travel horrors and went with the “it’s not you it’s me” line. Although I’ve now stricken all netherlandians off the list of qualified supervisors. 

2010 was not the smoothest year of the past 30 odd but arguably one of the better ones on balance. There were many lessons learnt…I like continuous hot water more than I’d ever imagined….and lessons reinforced….I AM NOT ALLOWED TO TRAVEL UNSUPERVISED!!! Fiji - day 1, true to the spirit of my planned 7 days R&R I took myself out to a delightful spot by the sea, settled in under a palm tree with a gentle ocean breeze to read my book. I promptly fell asleep and woke up burnt to a tantilising shade of lobster red. The pain was unbelievable, who knew you could burn from the inside out as I swear my cells got on board with that one, as soon as they got a bit heated up they just kept on cooking me for 2 days!! I radiated like some gigantic moving (albeit slow moving) radiator heater. This is not uncommon I noticed as many of my fellow resort guest compatriots looked similar to me on various parts of their body. I felt mildly sheepish after having spent the first few hours of my holiday scoffing (quietly to myself) about their foolishness for being inadequately coated in sunscreen and brandishing their white flesh in the tropical sun. But this thought passed quickly as I waddled/shuffled off to my room to apply the miriad of aftersun care products I’d purchased (using a small fortune) in gel, spray and cream form. By day 3 I was feeling much better and day 4 my birthday brought me the best birthday gift I can remember receiving, pain free movement! As I sat (under a the firm shade and sun protection of several layers of sunscreen and a roof) pondering 2010 and all that had happened I felt reassured in that way only reaffirmation of a long know fact can provide that although I “do alright” at life I am one of the world slowest learners. Of all the people who’ve been issued a passport and given an opportunity to fly free across the world I should NEVER be allowed out unsupervised. This is the second time in 8 months that I’ve fallen asleep under a coconut tree and fried my unwitting skin cells to a crisp. If only I could have foresight or at least learn from hindsight…but perhaps the lesson is simply not to sleep outdoors…I steadfastly refuse to believe the lesson is to forego nana naps until I’m actually old enough to be a card carrying nana!

PS. neither my physical pain or the pain from having to continually front to the public with legs that neither matched the rest of my body or my outfit caused me to enjoy my holiday any less. I have found a true delight in this life of cocktails by the pool, gentle strolls on beaches (to get to other pools with other cocktails), swimming, reading and yes napping. Here’s hoping that 2011 has no more coconut palms and a lot more sunscreen!

PPS. Would highly recommend Fiji to anyone looking for a relaxing holiday. Only slightly bemusing (bordering on annoying) idosyncracy is their unstoppable instance on using the word Bula for every occassion. Never has one word has so much meaning, hello, goodbye, I see you, I am passing you, I’m tying the boat up to the dock, I’m showering, I’d like to get a random group of tourists together to play an impromptu game of rugby beside the beach volleyball court now please…..I am of the opinion that Fijian would be the easiest language on earth to learn as apparently I only need one word, there are some other mutterings that go along with this word on occassion but in the whole Bula seems to cover off 90% of what you’d need to say on a given day.

OK so I’ve been thinking pretty highly of myself this trip, although my sub-two weeks feels like a lifetime I’ve been managing the crazy workload and the sudden changes in destination including overnight visas to China, ash cloud diversions from UK to Europe back to UK departures, van driving across England and to and from Wales a couple times, border crossings from HK to China in a van (different van) and back to Hong Kong with no major disasters and nothing weird happening (hence my virtual silence). Until now. I get back to HK ready for sleep only to find myself awake at 2am sweating and very very not well. 7am I’m at reception communicating the need for a doctor to a bunch of very enthusiastic but highly inexperienced staff in a hotel that is so new no one has ever asked for a doctor before. By 9:15 we’d communicated enough to get one of the bell girls to take me across the road to a room inside an apartment building with floor to ceiling curtains and an airconditioner capable of cooling a room 20times its size. She signs me in and leaves. Given the whole process took place in chinese I’m now wondering how I’m going to mime symptoms to the doctor in the event he doesn’t speak English. All the while I’m having flash backs to the Indian doctor experience and subsequent drug purchase from local slum chemist. At least this time I don’t have to share my bodily functions with my work colleagues in English or in Mime…Thankfully my doctor is highly competent and speaks perfect English he just happens to work out of a shoe box clinic with a really angry looking nurse for help. So after peeing into a styrofoam cup in what amounted to a broom cupboard I was told I was really quite sick and I needed antibiotics. Turns out antibiotics here come in little baggies and are all rainbows of colours! I’m now wondering if baggies of random pills from HK doctor should instill me with more or less fear than foil sealed pill packs from India slum chemists….Again with no choice, be ill or take chance on random drug selection I’ve downed my first batch and will continue to do so until I die or get better.

I’m not sure if it’s just me being hypersensitive but I seem to have developed a dread of travelling unsupervised. So far I’ve managed to get to Singapore with only one wrong turn…taxi driver took me to the M hotel instead of the Studio M hotel, then next taxi driver didn’t take credit so we had to engage the right hotel in a discussion about paying him in cash and adding the charge to my bill which my taxi driver assured me was normal practice but the lady at the desk seemed rather dubious about it all. Might also just be nerves about me actually being in Singapore at all. What in the world made me think I should do business in Singapore is beyond me. If I had a better memory then maybe I could remember what fantastic logic I used to convince myself that this was a good idea rather than a scary stupid idea. Oh well I’m here now may as well try to make nice with the locals and build some business. But have definitely decided to engage supervisions for the rest of my travels. So far have managed to get Jane Carnegie to agree to drive to Wales with me, I need to drive back to London alone…then Kate is in charge, then I fly and Emirates are in charge of driving me to and from Noni’s house where Noni will be in charge. I think travel must be easier to plan if you’re not the adult equivalent of an unaccompanied minor.

Am staying in this fab new hotel that is so new it doesn’t have room service, am tossing up between the horrid humidity outside where the food is and the dry cool air of the foodless hotel room…foodless hotel room is winning right now. Am wishing now I packed some snacks though…

Mental head shake. Arrived in Singapore late last night, everything worked brilliantly as per the Singapore way. The only country I know that can not only have baggage on the carousel by the time you get there but also puts priority baggage out first. Into taxi, into lovely Hilton, slept great, ready for my one day of meetings in Singapore then my flight out later tonight…..here is the forehead thunking with palm of hand bit…I managed to misread the itinerary and I’m in Singapore for 2 days!! After some deliberation about what to do we decided it was easier to stay another night in lovely Hilton than try to move all the flow on arrangements like flights, airport pickups and hotels in Colombo. And given my inability to get the basics of dates and times right first time who knows what I might do if I start changing things now. This inability to conduct basic travel planning will also be evident when I arrive in London on the 5^th when I booked a late dinner because according to me my flight was arriving at 5:30pm, giving me enough time to get picked up, shower, change and get to Claridges by 8:00pm. But true to form I misread the itinerary and I’m arriving at 3:30pm (better earlier than later) leaving me with a really long time I need to try to stay awake before dinner! I’d insert here the mantra of “never let me travel unsupervised” but again I’m supervised by someone who has been constantly questioning the dates and times of our travel and I’ve been diligently and loudly saying they were wrong and I knew what I was doing. I’m a menace to myself and others!!! But beyond that I’ve had a great day of meetings and will continue them tomorrow now that I have some spare time :-)

I don’t even know where to begin with describing my surrounds. I’m up a mountain, in the restricted state of Sikkim sort of nearish Tibet and deep in tea country. Yesterday we left our hotel at 5am and arrived at our destination “hotel” at 7pm. Started with Michael losing the plot completely at the hotel staff, screaming yelling, all sorts. I was mortified (again). Some sort of altercation over the bill. The car wouldn’t leave while he was arguing so he eventually let Tony and I go and he was going to hail a taxi. As we are leaving the hotel and about to swing across 3 lanes of traffic to turn right the boot opens and I see Michael running after the minivan two suitcases in hand trying to fling his cases in the back of a moving vehicle and then I’m not sure what the plan was to get himself in the car….but the plan failed, the combination of oncoming traffic, moving vehicle and luggage proved incompatible with success. We checked he was OK and then proceeded without him to the airport. He managed to safely hail a taxi and meet us there. Rather a loud and dramatic start to the day which took 14 hours to travel what was the equivalent of flying to Canberra, then Cooma then driving for 80km. The 80km drive took 4 hours and was mostly up a very steep windy sometimes paved sometimes not, sometimes wide enough for the two way traffic sometimes not mountain pass with a vertical drop down to the river below. We didn’t quite make it before dark which mean the last hour was done in virtual pitch black because India is a country that doesn’t subscribe the concept of headlights. The mountain pass is actually the national highway and with 7+ dam projects up this way the highway is main route for not only cars but heavy vehicles carrying cement, steal and other materials required for dam construction. Compound this with massive pot holes all the way up and a driver who liked to drive on the “wrong” side of the road (if there is such a thing in India) even when there was no reason not to. Each bend became a life or death lottery. By the time we arrived at the border to Sikkim my nerves were frayed beyond recognition and I was about ready to die. As foreigners in a restricted state (so far no one has been able to tell us what it is restricted for or to) we had to register, so we went to the register office at the border gate, he said no you don’t have a pass. We looked confused. Our client then realised we needed to drive into the State, go to our hotel which doubles as a pass issuing office, get a piece of paper stamped twice with all our details on it, then walk back to the border and register. Here they copied all our details again and gave us more stamps and said “welcome to Sikkam while you’re here your security is our responsibility” this did not comfort me in any way. They didn’t really look like they could protect a monkey let alone me. And from what I was wondering did I need protecting?

“Hotel” turns out to be one step below the guest house in Delhi on the scale of accommodation. Truly fascinating how much I’m learning about what horrendous places there are in the world to sleep. This “hotel” has last dinner orders at 7:30pm then lights out. Literally. The hotel turns all the lights off and all staff disappear at 8pm. Dinner was surprisingly good and after my long day I decided a very large bottle of beer was required. I ordered a local beer which is “brewed and boiled to the finest quality standards using Sikkim spring water” they are big on recycling here and the bottles have obviously had a long and prosperous life. I think they get a bit of a rinse then refilled and recapped. The caps must be old Mexican style caps before rust proofing was developed but I’m sure a bit of rust never hurt anyone right? So 8pm rocks round and we go up to our rooms. On first impression as I reach my room I get the distinct feeling of a jail cell. The outside is locked by a throw bolt and padlock. The inside, well, this room has a few less features than the Delhi guest house. This one is sans mattresses, toilet paper (and on discussion with the client there is no chance of any arriving they don’t have any up this way, one of our colleagues on a previous trip tried to explain the concept and failed miserably, I’m now surreptitiously storing napkins from meals in my pockets) and no internet (so again i’ll send this when I get to the office). On the bright side in this bathroom the toilet is not in the shower! Mainly I think due to the fact that there isn’t a shower. There is a tap. And there is also something that is masquerading as a pillow on the bed with no mattress but I’m not keen to lift the cover to find out.

On the plane here there was a very tall lady wrapped in a sheet, with dreadlocks piled on her head in a bun smelling of patchouli oil and carrying a bongo drum. I was not impressed, you know how I don’t do dirty, unwashed, artistic, badly dressed fat people. Anyway she turns up at our hotel to get her registration papers for Sikkim and we get chatting. Turns out she’s an American from Chicago who has been living in India for 6 or so years. So I ask her what are you doing in Sikkim, and for that matter why is anyone here? And she goes, its a wonderful place, there are so many religious practices being lived day to day, its so real and everyone is so friendly, their doors are always open you can just go in and spend time with them they are so welcoming its wonderful. I’m looking around going “man this is just a slum built on a mountain!! Its not holly or religious. And these people do not leave their doors open for strangers to wander in, they don’t have doors because they are poor and can’t afford one!! And if they could where would they hang it, they don’t have door frames!! And I’m so sure that none of them want a big chilled out American woman wrapped in a sheet wandering in with her bongos to talk like she’s constantly stoned at them about their spirituality.” But she and her friend seemed quite nice and had no interest in coming into my house to talk about my spirituality so that made me happy. And in a cloud of patchouli oil she wafted out.

They have a lot of tourism photos showing red pandas and orchids, if I could come back when there is more water in the river and then go find the orchids I think it would be quite nice. So far I can imagine the impressive nature of the river when it has water in it and I’ve seen some cute looking monkeys (probably less cute if there isn’t a car between me and them). Oh well, construction site tours of the world are probably not likely to bring me into contact with the prettiest and most exotic parts of any country.

We’re off to the site this morning. My first Hydro Electric Power Station. Should be interesting. 2 more nights here and then we start heading home. It is going to take me nearly 40 odd hours to get home from here. We leave 7am on Saturday morning and I make it home 9pm Sunday. 1 car, 1 bus and 3 planes. 

Glad we didn’t go up to Kashmir, the base for our work was going to Srinagar which today reported 17 soldiers dead from an avalanche during high altitude training. Forget bullets and bears the snow would have killed me! No one seems much perturbed about us not going and to be honest I’m really glad, have managed to pick up a tummy bug in Delhi I’ve been out of action for 3 days and very glad to have been in a hotel in Mumbai rather than up a mountain ducking from avalanches! Having been ill for a few days and not getting better I succumbed and started taking Tony’s Australian Army issued meds for such issues. One word ewwww. The army has no concern for convenience or taste and mixing up powders of foul tasting chalky dust was enough to make me consider other options. So last night at dinner we tried Michael’s family remedy – double brandy. I did not take into account that I hadn’t eaten in 2 days and the brandy had me immobile in about 10 secs. I had to virtually be carried to the buffet by my colleagues because I couldn’t walk. Points again for Alicia failing to maintain her air of professionalism. Not sure why I even bothered its not like I could eat anything… We all had high hopes for the brandy remedy but other than discovering that I really like brandy it had no medicinal properties. So this morning having had to take more of the hideous powder I was desperate enough for a solution to ask my client about a chemist. He directed me to the company doctor. For those of you who know me well you’ll know how much I dislike talking about any kind of bodily function with ANYONE so you can imagine my horror when I realised I had to attend my doctor’s appointment with my colleague Tony – this only became apparent when we were both ushered into a conference room and the door was shut on us and we were facing the doctor with nowhere for either of us to go – I also got to sit through his consultation but he only has a shoulder injury so that’s not too icky. You all know the questions doctors ask when gastro is suspected all of which I had to answer in detail in front of Tony!! Mortified. Again with the professionalism, how does one maintain this when one is confronted with this kind of situation? But India does that to you, tests your ability to survive at every step. It’s like one big trial and if you actually manage to live you don’t lose…I don’t think you ever actually win in this country. So 15mins later after abandoning all sense of privacy, dignity and discretion I left with a very long prescription in hand and told to go get someone to take me to a medical store. I asked one of the local team members to assist and so after lunch we walked through a construction site (why we couldn’t take the pavement I’m not sure) hailed a tuk tuk and took off for destination unknown…well destination turns out to be a “chemist” in the neighbouring slum!!! My chemist looked like he ran a dual shop frontage of coffee and drugs – no other way to explain the group of men just hanging around the counter drinking coffee… he dispensed 3 tiny packets of drugs, shooed away the beggar who had been persistently tapping me on the shoulder wanting my money, took my money and sent me packing. So now I’m taking unknown drugs, from unknown manufacturers, from a slum chemist all of which cost me $3 + tuk tuk fare!! My level of concern for bullets is diminishing, I’m not likely to live long enough for a sniper to find me and take aim!!

Other than all that business is going well and I think they want us back in 6-12 months time to do another couple of re-assessments! Next time I pack my drugs from home.

Tomorrow we’re off to Teesta. 5:30am start, 2 flights then a 2-4 hour drive depending on traffic. One more site, my first hydro power station then home Sunday.