Around the world in 1985

Monday 4th March.
Extra early start for plod out to Post Office and post letters. None for me. I hope there is something at Kuta! I’ve got used to find something at each poste restante.
 Finish skull and stool Tee shirts . Make one by dyeing black, paraffin wax end and bleach to make cracking. Dye cracks red. Dye my thin white cotton shirt deep red. My other shirt does not dye well being of mixed fibre.
 Decide must leave tomorrow in order to visit Bromo and get to Bali in time to confirm air ticket reservation. Celebrate last night with a beer, what luxury. Agree to leave message for Dave and Lehla in Hong Kong.

Tuesday 5th March 1985.

Wednesday 6th March.

Thursday 7th March 1985.

Balinese Temple

Saturday 9th March 1985.

Trip into Denpasar and tedious morning plodding around town in search of the Post Office. Eventually get there, at least two miles from the City centre, and no mail when I get there. Catch minibus out to Paliatan on the Ubud road. Agree on 400 rupiahs, but he short changes me. Have to change minibuses so make big fuss and bully him into paying other driver rest of my fare.
 Peliatan is a beautiful village liberally embellished with stone temples and bulging eyeball gargoyles. Old men stroking their cockerals in the village square. Beautiful fern covered lanes, bubbling brook. Many artists and wood carvers live and work here. The big ones maintain workshops of 20 girls in their courtyards mass producing the small popular pieces. Most people specialised in still life like fruits banana trees etc. they are very realistically painted. Some of the other carvings of classical Balinese figures are exceptionally ornate. Also imaginatively intriguing carvings from old roots treestumps etc.
 I buy two fearsome masks after half an hour of relaxed bargaining for 4500 rupiahs. Not the best quality though.
 Fare for journey home is 300 rupiahs! In Denpasar buy a couple of Bali Tee shirts for the folks back home, 4000 rupiahs for two. Much more aggressive bargaining was required in the town market. Feeling nauseous at times and experience cramping volcanic bowel actions every morning, runny, no blood. Actually have been loose for about two weeks, but this is the first time with any symptoms.? Irritable bowel, chronic diarrhoea,?Giardiasis. Decide on a purging course of Flagyl. Checkout of guest house in the morning, returning in the evening as agreed to change and wash.
 Spend evening in Tropicana coffee are eating ice cream and end up feeling very nauseous indeed. they close at 10 and in the warm full moonlight night I walk slowly out to the airport 4 km away. Sleep on hard wooden seats in check in lounge, the lights go out at midnight as several members of staff half sleep on the seats too

Sunday 10th March 1985
4.30 am. lights on and activity as several large tour groups turn up for the flight. Long delays checking in as computer not working. Spend last rupiahs in airport, cup of coffee - 700! Change planes at Jakarta for a 747 and have five seats to myself. Good laugh at “The Woman in Red” movie. shave and change shirt. Hong Kong customs men all look like British policemen except wearing shorts and Chinese faces.
 Met by Deborah. It’s cold. Hong Kong has a very exciting airport, sea on both sides of the runway, and an approach run between the skyscrapers with large cargo boats and international liners steaming besides the runway. Roast lamb dinner with parsnips and bread and butter pudding. Bliss.

Monday 11th March.

Commonwealth day so Deborah has day off. Steve goes to work dealing on foreign exchange markets. I have £300 left. Fortunately my credit card has arrived as I’m going to need some warm clothes, it only gets to 13 degrees during the day and northern China will be colder. Spend the day seeing Hong Kong and Kowloon with Deborah using all the different means of public transport. Hong Kong is very mountainous, with a thin rim of mostly reclaimed land facing Kowloon which is soaring with smart skyscrapers. Have tea on YMCA’s roof garden.

Tuesday 12th March.

In Hong Kong as guests of Stephen and Deborah. Explored central Wanchai and Ca..s..y bay districts mostly on foot. Eating beef and noodles in the day for 5$HK. seen the bustling street markets towered over by architectural striking skyscrapers. See Chinese pawn shops where the pawnbroker sits beside metal grill 8 feet off the ground. Dried goods shops, old Chinese medicines: ground pearl, teal essence etc. Fish shops where the fishmongers wear 3 inch platform soles. Chinese restaurants, surely these people invented fast food.

Wednesday 13th March

Buy smart designer watch with credit card for £100. Probably not a bargain considering the current rate of exchange. Stephen transfers £100 out from England at more favourable exchange rate and with no commission. Speak to Mum on the telephone, she and Elaine have been having anxious words together, it seems I’m not writing enough letters, but got mothers first letter this week!! Asked Dad to credit Stevens account in London.

Thursday 14th March 1985
Get verbally murdered by 20 old Chinese crones in the market where they huddled over their baskets picking the bean sprouts. I had tried to take their photograph. Generally I eat out with Deborah and Steve most evenings, this is embarrassing as I can’t afford it and they insist on buying extra for me. Eat Mexican, Italian, and English pub grub. Also have excellent seafood meal in the street. Try a lump of chewy brown agar agar from a street vendor. It was a popular stand, but having tried it cannot comprehend why.
 $HK. 8.3 = £1

Friday 15th March


Still no news of Mikhail address. Write to Tim. Elaine has changed hospitals within Leicester and is pleased with new lot of SHO’s. Send her a Bali Tee shirt. Send a parcel of other goods and unwanted effects home. Eat at Andy and Nicky’s, talk about babies all evening but worth it for the excellent apple crumble.

Saturday 16th March


On Sunday we visit Deborah and Steven’s remote cottage in a dying fishing hamlet in a national park on the New Territories. The barest of facilities, but beautiful setting, rather like Scotland. Walk miles. Stephen spots a few birds. Round every corner loud groups of locals drink Coca-Cola and play transistor radios. The Chinese cannot be quiet even in a national park. They thin out as we trek further over the hills to a village.

Sunday 17th March


Spend a day with Stella, the chinese friend of Deborah’s who was in China. We visit 2000 year old brick tomb in Kowloon, a little boring, nobody about and all very tidy. Looks as though it is swept clean every day. Spend another day pushing children with cerebral palsy around Ocean City. See massive tropical reef, sealion, from under the water. American diving team and performing sealions, woman swaying on very long flagpoles, children’s Zoo, cable car ride. The kids are great fun lurching about wildly, demanding to be pushed at breakneck speed down the paths.

Monday 18th March 1985
Buy silk padded blue Chinese chairman Mao jacket £25 and smart leather sport shoe £20. These will do for China, where it will be cold, and Australia. Deborah gives me a pair of trousers. See off a civil engineering friend of Deborah and Stevens. I have to sleep elsewhere, actually in Jane’s Flat 5 floors up. The civil engineer had previously booked Deborah’s spare bed.

Tuesday 19th March
 1985
Hang around the iniquitous Chung-King mansions, but gather little useful information. Dormitory beds $HK.20. Get quoted several different dates for the ferry out of Shanghai.
Stevens tropical fish keep dying. Due to the cold weather the canaries eggs fail to hatch. Sighs of relief. The canaries may also have been disturbed by the raucous attentions of a large red parrot who comes to vandalise the balcony from time to time. The pound seems a little stronger.