The
Thai Trek (continued)
We leave the Akha about 6.30 and walk all morning
along the
ridges to another Lahu village, in the lowlands. There
are rice
fields, green and lush, and even a school here. This
tribe is quite
wealthy. Just beyond the Lahu village is a waterfall
where we bathe and wash the grime of three days off our bodies. The trek is
almost over. We
take a path to a road where our vehicle picks us up
and takes us back
to Chiang Mai. Ping agrees to meeting us that evening
for a farewell
meal. Annette and I go back to our guest house, shower
and change,
and go to the prearranged meeting place. Tony arrives
with a Tracy
we hardly recognise. She's wearing a dress, an
ornamental
clip in her dark hair, and make-up. We stand around
feeling awkward and shy now that we're back in civilization, a little aware of
our age differences. Ping arrives. He too seems self-conscious. He takes us to
a Thai restaurant by the river where the four of us treat him to a meal, then
he dashes away on some pretext. The four of us have a final drink, shake hands,
the men kiss the ladies on their cheeks, and the little adventure is over. Annette
and I go back to our lodgings and flop on the soft bed feeling that a century
has passed since we last slept between two white
sheets.
Hong
Kong Taxis
Despite the fact that, at the time of writing this,
Hong Kong is
a British Colony, you're more likely to find a taxi
driver in Bangkok
or Tokyo who understands English. Not that there's any
reason why,
in a city where the Cantonese outnumber all other
nationalities by
more that sixty to one, they should feel the need to
speak anything
but their native tongue. One normally expects,
however, that a taxi
driver has at least a vague idea of the geography of
the area in which
he works.
Not in Hong Kong.
If you're lucky and you don't end up with a newly
arrived
immigrant from the mainland, or a student moonlighting
to pay his education fees, you'll get a driver who knows where a district is
situated.
Street names are useless unless they're major trunk
roads, since
the Chinese characters and English street names do not
directly
translate. I have mentioned elsewhere in this book
that the Chinese
characters beneath my own address road sign 'Rhondda
Road' read 'Lotus
Avenue'. It is pointless getting in a taxi on Hong
Kong Island and
saying, "Rhondda Road" which is a tiny
cul-de-sac four miles away at
the back of Kowloon Tong. It is equally useless asking
for "Lotus
Avenue". Even if the English is understood, the
driver will not have
any knowledge of this obscure road, nor any of the
roads around it.
The most sensible thing to do would seem to be to
learn the
Cantonese words for the nearest fairly big road to
one's address and
either direct the taxi driver from there (Joh for
'turn right' and
Yau for 'turn left') or walk the rest of the way.
There are
further problems here. Cantonese is a particularly
difficult
language for the westerner, since it has nine tones
for each single
syllabled word. If you do not get the tones right for
the street name, you will be asking for something completely different. When
asking for Wan Street (meaning 'Cloud Street') and instead of using tone 4 (low
falling) you use Wan tone 6, you will be asking for 'Transit Street', or Wan
tone 5 you will be asking for 'Permit Street', and so on, though the 9 tones. Getting
the right tone depends on your ear for music.
The safest way, if you can manage it, is to have your
address
written down in Chinese characters and show it to the
taxi driver.
He won't wait for you to present it before roaring
away into the thick
of the traffic so you have to pray a little while he
reads it and
drives at the same time. However, if you want to go
somewhere you've
never been before and are unprepared, be prepared for
any destination
and make the best of it.
There are some classic horror stories about gweilos
and Hong Kong
taxi's. A friend of Annette's once got in a taxi in a
town in the
New Territories and to her relief (I know the feeling)
the driver
spoke some English. She gave the name of a garage that
was repairing
her car. The taxi driver nodded and set off. Quarter
of an hour
later she guessed something was wrong when they drove
through
marsh land and. pulled up in a muddy yard outside a
set of shanties. It
was dusk, there were no lights, and the mosquitoes were
clouding the
windows. Also, the stench was terrible.
"Where's this?" she cried, thinking that
perhaps she was being
abducted.
"Pig farm," said the driver, somewhat
apologetically.
"I said I wanted to go to a Lok Fu garage."
The driver shrugged. He had done his bit as far as he
was
concerned. He had driven her somewhere. The fact that
she didn't
want to go to a pig farm was not his fault.
"Do you know where that is? You said you
did."
Another shrug. He obviously didn't but 'saving face'
he had
pretended he did. Just as a shopkeeper will say,
"Wait a minute,"
when you ask for something he hasn't got and disappear
into the back
of his shop, only to reappear once you've got bored
waiting and gone
away.
"What made you think I wanted to come to a pig
farm?" she
insisted.
Shrug. "Maybe want bacon?"
Coldly. "No, I don't want bacon, I want my bloody
car. Take
me to another taxi, please. I'll pay for the journey,
but I want
another taxi."
Shrug.
As they drive out of the marshes, he says, "You
want car?"
"I want my
car - it's at Lok Fu garage."
"Oh, Lok Fu?" he says, hearing it clearly for the first time.
He drives her straight there.
This is typical of many misunderstandings. Trying to
unravel it
without some input from the taxi driver, which one
rarely gets, is
impossible. Maybe he didn't hear the words correctly
the first time,
or thought she said 'bacon' in Cantonese? No one will
ever know.
The complex rubic streets of Hong Kong hold as many
secrets as the
Bermuda triangle.