Banks, tanks & breakfast with rats...

Returning from Sapa to Hanoi at 5am on a Monday morning we’d run out of cash, so I ventured off on an ATM mission only to find after six different machines that our wonderfully ethical accounts at the Co-Op Bank had blocked our cards. Again. There was a certain irony at sticking my ethical bank card (‘We don’t invest in the Arms Trade’) into the ATM of Vietnam’s ‘Military Bank’. There’s one for the ‘Moral Maze’ to discuss. Needless to say it didn’t give me any money, realising what a pinko-leftie-greeny I clearly am.

On the overnight bus south to Hoi An that evening the DVD player was blasting out a glittery stage show of Asian power ballads. One of the singers, in all seriousness apparently, appeared to be wearing a green glove puppet on his left hand for no possible artistic reason that we could fathom. Imagine a Vietnamese Ronan Keating with his fist up Kermit the Frog. Or maybe not.

After a stop at the ‘motorway services’, a dilapidated open-sided shed in which hungry puppies competed with similar sized cockroaches for titbits on the filthy floor, one of the two drivers assembled a small metal frame and actually managed to sling a hammock up in the aisle of the bus! This attracted jealous looks from the adjacent passengers as they tried to recline their seats beyond the position of ‘vigorously upright’.

In Hoi An we did a Vietnamese cooking course, our teacher ‘T’ taking us through the preparation of crispy spring rolls, green papaya salad, steamed fish in banana leaf, sautéed vegetables with garlic and pork and prawn fried rice – the Vietnamese equivalent of ‘surf and turf’. Sharing the lesson were another couple, Greg, a teacher, and Elaine, an engineer, ironically from ‘sarf Lahndahn’ too. As we struggled ineptly with the rice paper for our spring rolls T congratulated Elaine on her efforts. ‘First rule of teaching’ quipped Greg, ‘always praise the one who’s struggling’.

We cycled the 4km to the local beach, going there at 5pm to avoid the heat of the day and watch the sunset – the same time as all the Vietnamese prefer to go. Their beach hours tend to be 6am and 6pm, the only people there during the day are basting foreigners slathered in a mixture of sweat and suntan cream. Fruit vendors wandered along the sandy shore bearing fresh pineapples, rambutans and lychees. We bought a delicious, perfectly ripe pineapple which the smiling vendor peeled, pitted and sliced into two pieces with a surgically sharp knife for us each to be able to eat our half like a lollipop, grasping the stalk like a stick – ingenious.

The following morning we set off at 5am to see the Cham civilisation ruins at My Son. “There is a well known idiom” announced our guide, showing off his grasp of English – the word idiom would likely be lost on half the population of the UK, “that those who sleep early and wake early are intelligent and wealthy”. I could think of a snappier way of putting that but I didn’t want to burst his bubble. He then handed out individually plastic wrapped sandwiches for breakfast. The corner of mine had been chewed open by small rodent teeth and a neat semicircle of sanger nibbled away. Breakfast with rats. I knew then it was going to be one of those days.

When I was in 'Nam...

At breakfast the other morning in Hanoi we overheard an older Australian guy complaining to his daughter about his visit to the police station to report a theft. ‘It was terrible, no-one there speaks a word of English!’ We hesitated in pointing out to him that we were in Vietnam and English whilst undoubtedly a passport to profitable work in the tourist industry isn’t officially the national language.

We recalled our own previous linguistic exasperation at the hot baths in Budapest where we’d been utterly befuddled by the arcane entry system. Not a soul spoke English and our Hungarian had not been improved by the handy cut out and keep ‘Useful Phrases’ guide from a subversive tourist map. This contained such essential phonetic bon mots as ‘Egen, hall saga von’ (Yes, it smells like a fish), ‘Fi AH shag em’ (My bum hurts) and the immortal line from the Monty-Python Hungarian Phrasebook sketch ‘Meg foug hah tom AH popshit dat’ (Please may I fondle your buttocks). We’d asked Dave, the owner of our hostel in Hungary about the language challenge. ‘Its simple’ he replied, ‘the baths pay terrible money and anyone who can speak English works in tourism’. I suspect the same applies to the Vietnamese police force.

We caught a night train to Lao Cai on the Chinese border in order to visit Sapa, the cool hill station on the flanks of Vietnam’s highest peak – Fansipan. Our sleeper compartment was certainly ‘compact and bijou’, but wooden panelled and air-conditioned, a boon in the stifling heat and humidity of northern Vietnam. We shared with two mature Vietnamese gents in vests who dozed off as soon as the train pulled away, then proceeded to wake up and have an animated conversation for an hour or so just as we turned off the lights.

Arriving at 6am we avoided the tourist option for the 38km drive to Sapa and instead plonked ourselves in a local minibus. The smiley, female ‘passenger catcher’ was very nice but almost too nice – it took her an aeon to round up sufficient punters in the raucous competition of the station carpark. So we watched enviously as all the tourist buses left and we idled away hustling up a complete load. Eventually, our full complement aboard we set off on the steep winding road up the mountain.

A young Vietnamese girl in the front was squealing with delight as we swerved round the twisting, precipitous bends. Her bubbly excitement soon turned into subdued car sickness however and within fifteen minutes no less than a third of our travel companions had joined her in her ailing. They sat heads down into swiftly distributed plastic bags threatening to chunder, the guy sat next to Fi actually delivering the pungent goods.

Sapa nestles in the crook of a mountain ridge at the head of a verdant valley, up which cool mist and clouds drift in spectral puffs and tufts. Our balcony overlooked this vista, swarms of dragon flies buzzing amongst the vegetation by day while bats flitted erratically past by night. Mammalian: Insect dogfights lit sporadically by the glow of our room-light in the darkness.

The main street is the focus of amicable ambush by women, young and old, from the minority Black H’mong tribe of the area, hawking handicrafts. As if trained by some itinerant marketing expert they had an expert sales patter, excellent English and insightful techniques for establishing your confidence and loyalty then closing in for the kill.

“Where you from? What’s your name? This your wife? Very pretty! How old are you? How long in Vietnam? How long in Sapa?” engaged and flattered the preamble is swiftly followed by a lock-eyed stare and the instruction “You buy from me! Remember? Promise?” Extreme tactics involved emotional blackmail “My mother will be angry with me unless you buy something”. Even making a purchase wasn’t enough to appease “You buy from her, now you buy from me!”. It was also hard to argue with the “I know you have money!” approach. Returning caked in orange mud from a walk one girl even tried the wonderfully sophisticated “You are very dirty, if you buy from me you wouldn’t get dirty!” Sold to the gentlemen with a weakness for attractive, charming females in brightly coloured ethnic clothing.

Jewellery and cushion covers weren’t the only items on sale. Sat in a roadside bar supping cold, fresh beer a skinny, rheumy-eyed woman approached. ‘Smoking? Marijuana? Hashish? Opium?’ she reeled off her wares surreptitiously through the railings. ‘Kom camon’ (No thanks) we replied. ‘Why not?’ she rasped wide-eyed and incredulous ‘Very nice!’ giving us a wide conspiratorial and toothless grin that served to reinforce the old dealers adage – ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’.

We hiked through a series of villages representing different ethnic groups. In the Red Dzao village we got talking to Mei and Nei resplendent in their scarlet head-gear that scraped back their hair-lines – high foreheads clearly a favourite of Red Dzao menfolk. I asked Mei how many water buffalo her husband had given her father in exchange for her hand in marriage, “Only one” came the reply. “Only one!” I exclaimed “but you are worth more than that surely?” I creeped. “Yes, but it was a very good buffalo”.

In SPIEGEL Online...

For any German speaking readers out there an interview I did with SPIEGEL has now been published on their website here.

For those without mastery of the German tongue, just for fun, I have put the text through online translator babelfish and this is the result...(which sort of makes sense-ish). I particularly like the way 'Ed' translates as 'Od'...

; )

The Britisher OD Gillespie orbits the world by ship and course. For it and many Gleichgesinnte tardiness is not a restriction, but a return to the actual sense of the travel - into the world to dive, instead of away-flying over it.

"The departure building", answers Tony Wheeler, world-strolling founder of the Lonely planet publishing house and half God of the baking packman movement, if one asks it for its favourite place in the world. The Kribbeln in the belly before the flight into far of countries, the knowledge, in only few hours of thousands of kilometers removes at another time and climate zone to arrive: For many here a substantial aspect of the fascination of the travel lies.

Not for OD Gillespie. "who wants to away-fly the world to experience, should not not in an aluminum sausage over it", says the British globetrotter, who reports in a Blog on its one year's voyage round the world with its Partnerin Fiona King by course, bus and ship. From Europe their journey goes to Asia and America, out of Costa Rica brings it a banana cargo boat back to England. Instead of seeing its destinations as fast consumable products, Gillespie interest the leisurely changes on the way, reduction are in it the new sumptuousness.

Liquor in the Orient express

"it is more difficult and more adventurous to travel over the landweg but at the same time rich experience", the 35-Jaehrige says a much. "on course travels it is easier than in the airplane to come into the discussion with the Mitreisenden - one spends more than 24 hours with same humans, one closes friendships, divides meals or also times a liquor."

Even if travelers grew up such as Gillespie with Lonely planet travel guides, they do not divide the flight affinity of the publishing house founder. At the same time the climatic debate strengthens the demand for environmentalcompatible journeys.

Some already see a general trend to slow journeys by course, ship, bicycle or to foot, recently dedicated the US magazine "Newsweek" to the phenomenon a title history. Ten-daily's group journeys to the Top objects of interest of a country, until in the detail through-structures like one working day, are at least out from western countries with travelers. Finally one has to do in the non--vacation period enough with ton DO lists. The more hecticness and stress the job brings, the more importantly becomes one vacation, at which one can really reset a course.

In the crowding before the Mona Lisa or in the queue before the Kolosseum in addition if necessary large masters of the Zen relaxation are in the situation. And doesn't a buchtitel sound like "Thousand of places you have tons visit before you" a little like "to five o'clock needs I from you still three contracts and the quarter report"? Thus the "Slow of travellers" looks for destinations, which not on the "Must see" lists. They do not want to return a photo of the Eiffelturm or a liberty statue postcard, but a good history to tell can - perhaps over the meeting with a painter to the Côte d'Azur or an old buffalo breeder in South Dakota.

Or over a eleven-year old Chinese child, who used the complete course travel in order to teach to the British tourist couple Chinese. "long the small boy drew animals all day long, wrote the Chinese characters in addition, let us numbers after-speak", tells Gillespie. "it was fantastic, we had so much fun that the family of the boy forgot nearly, to step out - suddenly they jumped up, said only ' Oh my god ', got their luggage and rushed to the exit."

"That would be genuinly simpler during a flight"

Who travels without airplane around the world, some needs at flexibility and organizational ability. Several container ships stand on the route plan of Gillespie and its Partnerin. With these ships it occurs that they change their route very at short notice. Originally it should go from Singapore to Fremantle at the Australian west coast, instead the "mVs Theodor Storm" head for now Brisbane at the east coast, 3000 miles far away. "the ship by the way comes from Germany, which we noticed particularly at the bureaucratic accuracy with our documents: We had endlessly many copies of insurance documents, medical appraisals and documents of identification submit - that would be genuinly simpler during a flight."

Nevertheless it flies, who in former times in his job as a sea biologist belonged to the everyday life, so far at all did not miss. At least nearly: "as a Faehrverbindung between Japan and China and I failed several times therefore even the birthday of my friend Fiona missed, I was already annoyed. She had remained in China, during I in Japan friends to visit wanted."

The prospect of the deck on the two-day passage then nevertheless still compensated for the delay. "the eastChinese sea is breath-robbing beautifully, the many small islands, the fischerboote on the hunt for tintenfischen, the nocturnal lights of the boats on the enormously calm water surface - a very much easing sight."

Jet-lay in Siberia

From all course journeys, which the pair between London and Tokyo experienced so far, Gillespie has two unequal favorites: the Semmeringbahn in Austria because of the breath-robbing mountain panoramas and the Trans-Siberian railway as total experience. "that is like a complete vacation in a course, in the seven days becomes acquainted with one so many humans. In addition the constantly changing landscape, those comes by-pulled on the window." Surprised it was however from a phenomenon, which it had not really expected on a airplane-free route now: "that is world-wide the only course, in which one jet-lay to one gets - for five time belts in four days we felt actually a little disoriented."

Gillespie believes in a general trend to slower and but longer journeys. It met many Weltenbummler, which in the airplane one way as far as possible away from at home fly and then on the landweg return. "had the possibility still before ten years much less humans of taking a longer time-out from the work to. Today against it there is many limited contracts and the possibility, a yearly Sabbatical to insert ", says Gillespie. "with many the money is not the problem, it must only clarify that they can take themselves the time. Perhaps not equivalent for one year, but at least for three months."

Even who has only two weeks vacation, does not have to rise according to Gillespie into the cheap flier. "who has little time, can themselves nevertheless simply closer goals select", says it. "in Europe there is no apology, because one can be within 24 hours everywhere - without into an airplane to rise." And without entering a departure building. Because times honestly: Soberly many departure buildings regarded hardly more charm than the waiting room in the residents' registration office.

Handful of wet dong...

Here's the latest Observer column about our multi-modal journey across the Chinese/Vietnamese border. There was some debate about whether my apparently weak and rather old 'wet dong' joke would make it in, I haven't obviously seen the printed version but the online one still has it! The full text is below or you can read the article on the Guardian website here.

Crossing a border while airborne is barely noticeable, unless that satellite map on the in-flight TV is reminding you where and how terrifyingly fast and high you are, and the number of cramped hours to go. Traversing borders by land and sea is rarely simple, as you may recall from my experiences getting into Russia, China and Japan, though admittedly these difficulties were largely self-inflicted, due to visa ineptitude and incriminating narcotic photography.

Getting into Vietnam was more straightforward. At the Chinese border town of Pingxiang we caught a tuk-tuk-style converted motorbike to the crossing point we thought was just down the road but in fact involved several miles of motorway. We also managed to change our Chinese yuan into Vietnamese dong on the hard shoulder after being flagged down by a mobile Bureau de Change cunningly disguised as another tuk-tuk.

The Sino side of the border was all immaculate order and brisk Chinese efficiency; it was a little different on the Vietnamese side. In a shabby building we jostled with Chinese tour groups at the border guards' counter. Essentially, you had to force your passport through the melee on to a chaotic pile the other side of the glass. Three uninterested staff then made their way erratically through the heap, staunchly resisting the idea of employing any logical system.

Despite the disorder, they took care to reunite passports with their owners using the photo as proof of identification. This is a recurrent problem for me as, since obtaining my passport in 2000, I've changed considerably. Grown balder and a beard for starters, with travelling tan and weight loss thrown in. These changes are compounded by my facial expression. I sent two photos to the Passport Office, with a specific request to use the 'non-gurning' one on the actual document and keep the 'grinning loon face' for the records. Guess which ended up in the passport. Every border guard now does a triple-take between my face and the almost unrecognisable photo.

Having retrieved our passports, some of us paid an entry tax at the next counter; whether you had to or not largely depended on how much attention the officer was paying as you wandered past. Outside, the complete absence of any fencing meant we could have just bypassed the whole building and entered Vietnam a little more directly.

We took a taxi to Lan Song and were bundled into a minibus driven by a slightly wild-eyed wide boy called Michika. His pet catchphrase was 'I love you!'. He said this to every woman he met, and every man too, while pointing out prospective girlfriends for them. We drove round town filling the remaining seats with apparently reluctant passengers. Crawling past groups of Vietnamese relaxing in the shade, Michika would shout at them, probably something along the lines of 'We're off to Hanoi. The whities are paying. Fancy a ride?'. They'd shrug and get on somewhat unenthusiastically, like they had nothing better to do.

Half an hour later we all sat cheek to moist cheek as we'd filled the bus with more bums than seats. Michika drove the three hours to Hanoi in what we've come to recognise as typical Vietnamese style - three vehicles abreast regardless of oncoming traffic and executing reckless overtaking manoeuvres that require last-second swerves to avoid melding the bus with the approaching trucks. Things didn't exactly calm down when we hit Hanoi. Due to vast import taxes on cars, Hanoi's 3.5 million people own 3 million motorbikes that surge relentlessly down the city's arterial routes in chaotic hordes and clouds of emissions.

Sweating profusely, we ate zingy street food with a lovely, hairy Kiwi guy called Ben we'd met on the train from China. Crispy fried tofu with chilli-laced fish sauce, garlicky spring rolls, crab vermicelli, mustard greens and peppered pork made our taste buds explode. We washed it all down with icy bia tuoi (fresh beer) at 20p a glass. Motioning for the bill, Ben reached into the pocket of his damp shorts and innocently announced he was 'Just going to slip the waitress a handful of wet dong.' There's more than one way to settle a tab in Hanoi.

'Who are you calling slow?'

The slow travel message is spreading...liveMINT the Wall Street Journal's partner publication in India has just published a feature article I wrote for them recently about our slow travelling experiences in Asia. You can read the full article on the liveMINT website by following this link.

Hong Kong Phooey

We caught a luxury bus for the 10 hour journey from Xiamen to Hong Kong. We’re not sure how we managed this as we thought we’d just bought normal tickets (we only paid for standard). Our vehicle had squidgy leather seats to cushion our arses and at lunchtime we pulled into a swanky hotel and got fed a full sit down Chinese banquet. Not exactly your typical Ginsters pasty/‘Welcome Break’ motorway services experience.

At the border you have to fill in a ‘Health & Quarantine Declaration’ which asks; ‘Have you had close contact with poultry or with patients suffering from Avian Influenza in the last seven days?’ We certainly hoped not, but more worrying was the list of symptoms you then had to review; ‘Please mark the diseases or symptoms you have by ticking the boxes below:’ Choices included; Snivel? Fever? Venereal Disease? Psychosis? You can imagine the border police briefing. “Right we’ve got to keep an eye out for bird flu victims – look for runny noses, feverish sweating and er…mouldy penises and madness”. Although news bulletins have euphemistically referred to bird flu victims living ‘intimately’ with their animals I didn’t realise this included (literally) sleeping with them. You’d have to be mad to do that…

; )

In Hong Kong we were lucky to be staying with my Uncle Eric and his lovely wife Gail. My Dad is the youngest of 10 children in his generation of the Gillespie clan (and we’re not even Catholic) and for a variety of reasons I’ve only ever met Eric at family funerals or weddings (sadly mainly the former). So, as Eric himself put it, we arrived ‘relative’ strangers but left as great friends after spending 5 hedonistic days with them in ‘the Kong’.

Their Kowloon apartment was on the 31st floor with a correspondingly vertiginous view over the harbour to HK Island. There is no skyline quite like it anywhere on earth. Myriad skyscrapers jammed onto a thin coastal strip, fertile green mountains above and the ferries chugging across the harbour below. At night it transforms into a neon and laser lit fantasy-land as a million twinkling lights illuminate the city.

We had timed our visit to Hong Kong to coincide with three great anniversaries, the 10 year celebrations of the handover of HK back to China and mine and Gail’s birthdays. The anniversary of the handover was getting a mixed reception from the Hong Kong Chinese. The mainland propaganda machine had been cranked up into 5th gear to mark the ‘return to the motherland’ (brutally unsubtle subtext – ‘are you listening Taiwan?’). HK Cantonese seem to feel a bit like the offspring of divorced, dysfunctional parents, the paternalistic British losing a custody battle to the slightly overbearing and interfering Chinese mother.

Chinese president Hu Jintao flew in and delivered a fairly abrasive speech explaining that the ‘One country; Two systems’ policy that allowed HK it’s relative freedoms was predicated on the one country principle above everything else. He then promptly flew out again before a few hundred thousand Hong Kongers took to the street on the annual march for democracy. Out of sight, out of mind.

Hong Kong was also all about the food. On my birthday we went to a Manchurian Chinese restaurant I’d been to last year and ate crispy roasted leg of lamb and sweet and sour prawns as big as small lobsters. The following evening we took a ferry across the black harbour waters at dusk to Lamma Island, the wet sub-tropical air like breath on our faces, where we enjoyed a fantastic curry. On the very wet Saturday we lunched at Victoria Peak looking down on the tops of skyscrapers looming eerily out of the thick clouds and lush vegetation below.

The foodie highlight was undoubtedly afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel however. It’s Hong Kong’s equivalent of the Ritz and a suitable contrast to the usual cheap and cheerful fare we push into our faces on the road. Two huge not very low carbon Rolls Royce’s were parked outside. Getting into one was some ageing dame, her face as tanned and worn as a Mongolian herder’s saddle (and possibly more comfortable to sit on).

Inside a mixed clientele of crumbling post-colonial geriatrics, miserable faced, over-made up ‘ladies who lunch’, and Chinese businessmen sat joylessly grinding their way through the dainty finger sarnies and delicate cakes as if it was grim toil; ‘Not afternoon tea at the Peninsula AGAIN’. In stark contrast (and I include us in this category) were young Chinese couples and tourists who were practically bouncing with glee as they revelled in their special treat. Perhaps because this is exactly what this kind of opulence should be – a very occasional indulgence.

That night we toasted Gail’s birthday on the pool deck of a harbour side hotel with a bird’s eye view of the vast laser and pyrotechnic display that was the pinnacle of the handover celebrations. Several hundred tonnes of fireworks later we were politely asked to leave the ‘drink as much as you like’ event. The function was supposed to run between 7.30 and 9pm and it was gone eleven as we wound our way a little worse for wear in a taxi to the fleshpots of Wan Chai.
We didn’t emerge till after lunch the following day and it was with heavy hearts that we departed for Guangzhou. It was great to party with friends and family but Hong Kong is not a good place for the psyche of the slow traveller, relentless as the pace of life is there – the seven minute bowl of noodles, the tailored suit stitched overnight and the 24/7 shop till you drop mentality. Consumption is rammed down your throat at every opportunity in ever more bizarre ways – we even saw one shopping centre designed to look exactly like a cruise ship that appeared to have been rammed between the surrounding buildings by a careless Captain. So to avoid all this conspicuous consumption we headed back into China. They just make the stuff there.

Shanghai, Xiamen and Gulan Yu

Here's the lastest of my Observer columns, this one about Shanghai and Xiamen - China's wild west (although it's in the south east). As always you can see the column online on the Guardian website here

We arrived in the heart of China's second city by ferry from Japan. Shanghai is one of the biggest engines of the speeding Chinese economic juggernaut. But it's clear in Shanghai that much of the burgeoning commercial success of the new China is based on counterfeit goods. Plus a mind-numbing array of what might be uncharitably described as 'plastic crap'.

We walked past the historic colonial architecture of the riverside Bund, opposite the futuristic, whimsical buildings of Pudong, all brash, surreal, space-age globes, probes and spires. All the while street vendors proffered us entirely useless products: irritating 'stones' emitting screeching noises when thrown into the air; glowing red devil horns; stuffed mice on strings that scampered convincingly when tugged.

We then suffered the indignity of being practically thrown out of a chemist's shop. Our heinous crime was laughing at and then jotting down in a notebook the different condom brands. I was particularly taken by the Romantic Love Rubbers, the Wonderlife, 'for happy hours by two', and the just plain scary-sounding Nanometer-Silver Cryptomorphic Condom. Clear favourite though was Jissbon, and then we were out on our ears.

We caught the sleeper train to Xiamen, supposedly the cleanest city in China, and it didn't disappoint. It had breathable air, violent blue skies and more than an occasional glimpse of the sun. The journey didn't mean we'd escaped the entrepreneurial culture of Shanghai, however. Even the train guards were in on the act.

One appeared with a basket of 'indestructo-socks' and a highly polished sales pitch. With a real 'I'm robbing myself here, guvnor' tone he gave a lively practical demonstration of the socks' rugged resilience. He raked the hideous, shiny synthetic material with a wire brush, ran a lighter flame over it then held the ends of one sock and swung his whole bodyweight on it from the luggage rack above. The socks just screamed 'sweaty foot hell' even if they would last forever, which they probably will - only to be unearthed by future archaeologists who'll marvel at the durability of early 21st-century Chinese sock technology.

Xiamen is famous for its live seafood, making a trip to a restaurant a grisly experience. You wield awesome power as you make arbitrary decisions on which beasts to devour. The waitress then goes into action with her net, the chef does his bit with the wok and it's bubbling aquarium to plate in literally seconds. Seafood doesn't come much fresher than this.

Adjacent to Xiamen sits the small island of Gulangyu. A former treaty port hang-out for foreign concessionaries, it's a gorgeous mix of grand, elegantly dilapidated Mediterranean-style villas and lush vegetation. Known as 'Piano Island' it apparently has more keyboards per capita than anywhere else in the world.

As we disembarked the ferry we heard the gentle tinkling of distant ivories. It was a magical moment as we sucked in the sweet air, admired the beautiful buildings and listened to the mellifluous tones of the music. At least it was until we turned the next corner, heard the same tune being played and spotted the speakers secreted in the flower beds. A nearby sign on the harbour wall warned us that there was to be 'No tossing', of what exactly remained unclear. We left Gulangyu and China mulling this conundrum with piped piano muzak ringing in our ears.