The previous week in Hong Kong had been a blur of efficiency and order. Busses came on time; trains left on time and Visa's were processed on time. It even seemed that nature performed on time,with the monsoon rains clearing at sunset so that we could see the neon city-scape from the impressive heights of Victoria's Peak - right on time. And because it is Hong Kong, the hawker at the top of the peak was extremely high-tech. He had a computer powered by a small generator that had a preset background of the skyline. He would then take a digital image of you and superimpose it over the background, then make a high-resolution print, all in about a minute flat. The Japanese queued up for the experience, clutching their Happy Meals, still in the bag.

Hong Kong doesn't have Starbucks - yet - which might be a good thing. Instead the Pacific Coffee Company became our unofficial headquarters with most excursions incorporating an obligatory visit. Good coffee is hard to come by, and pilgrimages are not out of the question. The locals all seemed to wear Armani or Prada. The women looked like the waifs in the ads you see in a Vogue magazine, so slim and sleek and subtly detached. Fashion is a big deal in Hong Kong. And so is doing business. The cell phone has surpassed that status of being an accessory, and now seems as fundamental as shoes. The snob value is totally in the size. Smaller is better! Half of the fun of hanging out is in eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. Invariably it was about a merger or acquisition, and when that became passe, there was entertainment in following the tonal complexities of Cantonese. It seemed as if everyone's phone would ring, which would then prompt the greeting of "wei".

"Wei?"

"Wei!"

"Oh Wei?!

It is a complex place though, with the biggest challenge being the ability to navigate through the various microclimates ranging from arctic to sub-arctic in the shopping malls. Sometimes I felt like an ant in an ant farm dashing about from one escalator to another - even riding on the bus was a busy experience, except when we would huddle together for warmth! You break the cryogenics process with a quick dash outside to an overhead walkway, only to be drenched in humidity. Why was it that only foreigners have that little line of sweat beads along their top lip? It didn't take long to move away from the familiar to the real. Temples saturated in oil and incenses beckoned. Markets bustling with bodies and banter needed to be investigated.

A quick side trip to Macau confused the senses with a heady mix of Portuguese Mediterranean Baroque and Chinese Qing Dynasty. Macau does not have the economic base of Hong Kong, relying instead on gambling to provide 40% of its revenues. There is an edge to the place not seen in Hong Kong. Fashion is more about polyester than Prada, although skyscrapers seemed to be flourishing with a vengeance. An afternoon tea of scones and clotted cream was not to be found here though!

Portugal tried to give the island back in the '70's but China didn't want it then. The electronic LCD screen in the main square counts down the minutes until the official hand-over on December 20, 1999. The day was spent wandering the back streets browsing at local life. Wedding dresses were an odd mix of Asian and Western confections, whilst Men's attire was predominantly western-styled suits only. A small escape from the 94 degrees heat and 100+ humidity was to sit in the Catholic Church, built in the 1600's. The Virgin had a slight Asian look to her features, but everything else on the altar was oddly correct, in not a little out of context. Given the stifling climate, it is hard to imagine how church robes, with all of their associated pomp and ceremony, could have been comfortable! In the Taoist paper shop we contemplated buying a wad of bank notes from the Bank of Hell Corporation. It looks like monopoly money but bigger, and the tradition is that you burn it in the temple for your ancestors. (Sounds like the stock market to me!)

The ferry ride back was a drone of MTV videos, all sounding and looking the same, begging the question of how do you make a tonal based language fit a contemporary melody. The bus ride out to our accommodations gave us one last look at Hong Kong's satellite cities, with buildings skewered with satay sticks of laundry. It seemed a very Asian mix of architecture and acupuncture, all colored by the grey and grimey blight that comes from years of incessant Tropical rains.

A one-hour flight deposits us in Guilin on mainland China. After using Hong Kong dollars, and Macau's pataca's that boldly stated 'Banca Di China', the currency is now Renminbi, (RMB), or Yaun, or Kwai, depending on what you try to read. It is refreshing being back in the traveler mode of smelly clothes and precious moments, where just getting the normal stuff done is a big accomplishment. From now on, English is not really an option.

Catching a bus in Asia (including China) requires a skill set not usually seen in a corporate boardroom. Arrival and departure times require serious interpretation, and distance estimates can be pure fiction. After prowling the streets for unsuspecting victims, the bus lurched off. It is normal to share your space with a family, and often their livestock, especially on market days. A pig in a basket can travel free. Stopping is at will, and passing other vehicles is definitely a test of God's, or Allah's, or any number of other deities will. One of the funniest and wittiest comments ever made is that you should always sit at the back of the bus, because if your bus crashes, then you have time to slow down before you go through the windscreen. It makes you think of travel insurance - a lot!! Eventually a young guy sat next to me. When he pulled out his wallet to pay, I noticed a photo and thought " cute wife". When the conductor returned his change, I realized that his "wife" was Michael Jackson. Welcome to China - is it really on two weeks since those MBA exams?

By now we were in the Gaungxi province, karst country, a landscape of abrupt lime-stone formations stacked so densely in places that only differentiation is in the washed pale tones of indigo at the horizon line. The vegetation is so absolutely green as to be almost black against the pale grey rock. A temple gate atop in impossible peak; a gnarly cypress with whispy fingers of cloud draped around it; life had merged to become a hanging scroll.

This area is noted for its menus of snake soup, wild-cat and bamboo rat, washed down with snake bile wine. (You can buy the flasks, with snake inside, in the supermarkets, right next to the bottles of "Great Wall Cabernet" which also tastes remarkably similar to the snake bile wine too!) Other menu specialties include horned pheasant, mini turtle, short tailed monkey, and gem faced civet. Then, if that is not enough, there is wild boar, lynx, bamboo partridge, giant salamander, and crocodile and bamboo rat to supplement your palate. It all makes eel, catfish, pigeon and dog sound positively mundane. All you have to do is beckon to the owner to come to the front of the restaurant, point to the meal in the cage you want, and voila! In about an hour it appears on a plate in front of you.

Personally, I don't want to be introduced to my Happy Meal prior to consumption. I did wonder how many calories were in the fried wasp lava though?

But Yangshou is different - a veritable paradise for backpackers, complete with the ubiquitous banana pancakes and fruit smoothies. You can rent bikes and ride out into the villages, cruise the river, climb up to viewpoints or scramble down into subterranean caves, all gloriously lit and narrated into unredeeming kitsch! Chinese tourists outnumbered the foreigners easily, which in itself is a curious phenomenon. We are their tourist attraction! More than once we have retreated to the back of the restaurant to avoid having our meal scrutinized by roaming tour groups. It keeps it all in perspective and our own sensitivity to others remains acute.

One morning began with a bang, literally, when a funeral passed right by. Peppery fireworks exploded for a good 20 minutes, in front of the mourners, who wore white headdress, and walked backwards, facing the casket. The casket was covered in bright crepe paper with photos and was carried on the shoulders of men, much like a palanquin. The procession was followed by an orchestra, of wind instruments and cymbals, over ridden with wailing and sobbing from the group. Time for a boat cruise!! Six hours were spent chugging up stream watching the rural life glide by. There were duck farms galore and the occasional old style walled village. Unexpectedly we came upon a group of bamboo sampans moored quietly, with their resident cormorants standing sentry. Some young boys swam out to our boat and climbed on board at the back, where the Owners' wife fed them fruit then playfully threw them back into the river. Of course, because we were fluent in Mandarin we noted every esoteric comment and poetic description given so generously by our host. Like, EVERYONE can see that those rock formations look just like the startled elephant departing after seeing the tiger! Still, the scenery was incredibly stunning, so halfway home down stream, we left the boat and rode our bikes to Yangshou, through terraced rice paddies and rural life that seems to have changed little in generations. A meal of steamed dumplings and braised eggplant, balanced so coyly on chopsticks completed the day far more serenely than how it had began.

And that was when we started to think and talk and try to better understand this new China that we were in. You can't help but notice the change that is occurring, even if you've never been to China before.

I was raised under the threat that if I didn't eat my vegetables, then they'd be sent in a shoebox to 'the starving children in China'. Ron, who is younger, knew that his veggies would end up in India! It must have been true because you can tell the age of someone (or the history that they have lived through) by his or her stature, or in the case of the women, the severity of their osteoporosis. It is not something you see frequently in the west, and at times it has really disturbed me, especially when I see the loads that the women still carry on their backs. Reading the history of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward is sobering. Many of our nights are filled with discussion on India and China (and the infrastructure needed for shipping shoeboxes full of veggies :-). Two years ago India celebrated the 50th anniversary of her Independence from British rule. This coming October, China will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the proclamation made by Chairman Mao for the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). One has retained their history. The other has obliterated it. Both are trying to move forward.

The bus from Yangshou to Guilin was spent in the company of a local teacher of English, who took advantage of us for some live practice. Invariably the conversation turned to NATO and Kosovo, and the incident of the US bombing the Chinese Embassy. He gave us the 'party line' literally verbatim on how the US had committed the act deliberately. It was our first real encounter with local propaganda and it was very disquieting in many ways.

We flew from Guilin to Kunming in the Yunnan province, going further into China. Boarding a plane is just like boarding a bus. There are no seat allocations and it is pretty much a free for all. You only have a 30-minute window for check-in anyhow, so there is little point in wasting time getting seats organized. Once in the air, the air-hostess comes around, like normal, but rather than dispensing refreshments, she collects the used air sick bags. Connections are everything in Asia and we had one - Rene the Dutchman in Tibet has a brother Alex in Kunming who runs an Italian style pizza restaurant. Throw in some Brian Adams music, and a hotel room with CNN and call it all Life in China.

Kunming itself is paradoxical with a downtown area that rivals some of Americas more swanky cities for sophistication. Lots of neon and wide tree-lined boulevards. All very familiar until you look in the shops - then you find a dentist working on his patient, next to a very suave shoe shop next to the apothecary with its herbs and bottles of mystery all lined up neatly, next to the 5 star hotel blaring out the latest Boy Zone CD hits, next to the shop selling western style Men's suits..... But we have a schedule to meet and decided that we would try the trains.

There is a strategy to this - never line up together because you never know which line you are supposed to be in anyhow, and in China, it is not like they are going to go out of their way to help you! It is better to optimize by separating - although in this instance, after a good hour in line, and relying on a phrase book we both came away with the same answer - no seats today. So the night sleeper bus it was to be. The bus depot is a world unto itself and to me at least, seems to be on the verge of some weird science fiction. There are no seats, only bunk beds built for Asians, not six feet two Australians. A tout found us (thankfully because we couldn't find any bus that pattern matched the pictogram of the place we were trying to go to). We had to cruise around town for another hour before returning to the bus station to fill up with more unsuspecting passengers. By this point we were well settled and ready for the eleven-hour trip.

Around midnight we woke up to realize that we were stopped at a restaurant. Everyone except us got off, piled into the hole in the wall, shoveled rice furiously, belched, farted, scratched, hawked and spat, then got back on the bus, apparently quite satisfied and replete. We took off again, very quickly going into doze mode. Suddenly we had a torch in our faces and a bus driver telling us louder and louder each time, something that we didn't understand. Through pantomime we realized that this might be our stop. A tollgate in the middle of who knows where, at 2:30 am.

Where was our marathon bus ride?

We weren't ready for progress, or new roads of efficiency of any sort. So we left the bus, only to be descended upon by 6 taxis that magically appeared out of the darkness. It was all becoming too funny, as they circled us and seemed to dance with each other in their cars, vying for our fare. We both cracked up laughing when they Congo lined backwards, in their cars at about 2 miles an hour! Too weird to explain. At that hour, you have time on your side right, so we stood our price - until one of them agreed.

We got in the cab and felt safe as we drove into a city area - then felt a little nervous as we left the security of the same streetlights. I was feeling pretty edgy when we turned off the highway onto a rutted dirt road, heading up towards a lonely looking village. I had visions of headlines screaming out "foreign gringo's go missing from night bus!" Thirty kilometers later we were neatly deposited outside a hotel in Dali, our original destination - and avoided creating headlines that my family might have to read. We walked around the shuttered town, totally lost before returning to our drop point, waking a Night Guard who then woke up the Receptionist, who then grumpily checked us into a room. By 4:30 am we were able to finally stretch out in a long enough bed - although the filth and squalor of the place made me stay frozen in the fetal position.

It seemed like I'd just dozed off when someone turned on a radio full blast, screaming out nationalistic marching songs. Time to wake up I guess. This was followed by a parade of slapping feet going to the bathroom for a concert of rather remarkable bathroom noises, perfectly amplified by the acoustics of the concrete box we were in. And just when all of that had subsided, a platoon of PSB decided to exercise their vocal chords by chorusing their responses to the bark of their Sergeant - right under our window.

By 10 o'clock we'd checked into another guesthouse and were happily sitting under a bamboo pagoda watching the rain and eating yummy banana porridge. Old Dali town (as opposed to New Dali town where we had been dumped) is another perfect place to tune out for a while, and similarities to Bali in Indonesia are frequent. There is a stunning mountain backdrop at 4000m, and a lake at 1900m, along with cappuccino's, pizza and the herbal alternative to cheap Chinese beer, that, conveniently, you can pick for yourself.

The old stone architecture is very atmospheric, but it is a tourist town with the monuments outlined in neon and flashing lights that scream out to you nothing but class and style. By now I am totally into this kitsch and am documenting it furiously. Having had a rough arrival, we decided that an early night was in order. You learn to cope with a wide variety of standards when you travel independently, and dormitory rooms divided by a bamboo screen are common and practical when it comes to budget sleeping digs.

Somewhere around 3 am one of our 'neighbors' returned, bringing her catch with her.

She kept asking him to not do 'anything', and he kept promising, very loudly, that he, of course he wouldn't do 'anything'. After it all reached the obvious climatic moment, of not doing 'anything', they then spent a couple of hours getting to know each other. She is British, born in 1979, and if you send $1 and a stamped, self-addressed envelope, I will send more details. When he said he was from the University of Tilburg in Holland and studying in the MBA program, I wanted to yell out "ME TOO!" Then I remembered what myself, and probably 10 others were listening to at that hour. Timing is everything when it comes to introductions. They shared a toothbrush and all went quiet.

By 10 the next morning we had checked into yet another guesthouse, and were enjoying yet another steaming bowl of banana porridge, again watching then morning rains. Another culinary discovery is the Bai style pancake, made of sticky rice dough filled with sugar and chopped nuts, all roasted over some charcoal. The Bai people are a minority group with a Sino-Tibetan language that has no written form. Their religion is a mix of Buddhism and polytheism, and their architecture is revered because it is based on interlocking parts that were developed to withstand earthquakes. Another snack food is skewered chicken feet, satayed with a spicy sauce, which you chew on whilst walking around town. You are permitted to spit the toenails out. Who said that we would lose weight traveling in China?

The rain has passed and there is a temperate chill in the air. It is almost the hour when tourists and locals alike take to the streets, promenading slowly, pointing, talking and taking it all in. Many women bring their young babies out, strapped on their backs in elaborately hand-embroidered carriers. Young Chinese girls wear the latest trendy gear of 4" high platform shoes and skin tight clothing. It is like the shoes are needed to hold them down they are so reed thin. Older local women wear the traditional dress of the culture. For some it includes a distinctive turban and an apron over tight dark pants. The older men all look the same in blue serge Mao hats and coats, with flimsy slippers or what looks like Army surplus tennis shoes. My paternal grandfather wore a similar style, and in fact I rarely saw him in anything other than his 'farmer Mao' look. Very proletariat and knowing George, no doubt very practical.

Time to hit the Internet cafe while the rates are cheap. We have to be cagey, because when we stop to type, others stop to watch us type! Tomorrow is an early start on local transport to a large traditional market nearby. There are sure to be numerous minority groups there with their produce for sale amongst the pungency and color always found at such gatherings. It always shocks our sensibilities, no matter how many times we have been to them.

China is a total surprise, and cannot easily be judged or understood. There is so much evidence that history is not allowed to exist and in itself, is often denied outright, and that only new things are seen as meaningful and symbolic of progress. If it is neon, it must be good. Having recently seen the art films "King of Masks" and "Xui-xui, the sent down girl" has only added to the mystery and layers of intrigue of what we are traveling through. Already it makes us both want to stay longer and explore more.

More next time, Zen