HCMC & Hong Kong: war is stupid and people are stupid.

Howdy again. I apologise for the recent gap in updates for anyone who is becoming hooked beyond all sense on my travel stories. It's understandable. Please see your GP, who will immediately prescribe you some hard drugs or send you for an unnecessary operation.

So I left Vietnam, spent some time in Hong Kong and now I've reached Sydney! After getting two hours' sleep overnight on the plane my body clock is once again in a sense of confusion re. the arse/elbow conundrum, and I am a greasy-haired jetlagged mess. I'm sitting here attempting to gather my thoughts in a strange new land. At the moment Sydney is cold and wet like England don't you know!

Well Ho Chi Minh City turned out to be mad and hectic; a bigger and busier version of Hanoi without the old-world charm. It's full of concrete skyscrapers and neon signs, and the busy streets are over-run with biblical swarms of motorbikes and cyclo taxis. There are a few interesting sights to see but once you've done that it's just like any other big city in Asia. And Christ there are a lot of motorbikes!

Cyclo taxis are a bizarre invention: a one-seat bicycle taxi where the passenger sits in front of the pedalling driver like a kamikaze wheelchair patient! I've not tried riding in one but it's meant to be shit scary - you have literally no protection against the traffic hurtling towards you. Tourists are warned against using them due to the risk of muggings and bag-snatchings if you're a cyclo passenger.

The bus stopped in the central backpacker district of Pham Ngu Lao (trust me, it's much easier to say than to spell), which is a concentrated touristy area much like Khaosan Road in Bangkok; a bustling street densely packed with hotels, tourist agencies, restaurants and bars. Everywhere you can sense the hum of machinery for milking the constant supply of tourists. I found a cheap room for $7 (US) a night in a tiny family guest house hidden down a quaint alleyway; a shoebox of a room hoisted high up in the armpit of a congealed mass of tangled urbanity. I felt more like a degenerate lodger in a French art-house film than a backpacker, and I loved it!

Ho Chi Minh City was known as Saigon in its colonial past, and within Vietnam it is still widely called by that name. It's famous for historical stuff, i.e. things that happened in the past. Primarily it was the capital of the old Republic of Vietnam, who America decided to "assist" in the war. As we all know that didn't quite go to plan - the commies from the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) ended up winning, rolling victorious into Saigon in 1975, by which time the yanks had long since buggered off.

I went to see the Reunification Palace, which was once the headquarters of the Republic's government. Here in 1975 the NVA's tanks stormed through the gates to historically end the war. Strangely it has a boxy 1960s facade that makes it look more like an NHS hospital than a palace, but it looms on a grandly impressive scale amidst expansive grounds. Many of the rooms are preserved in the way they were found in 1975; there are subterranean comms bunkers complete with the original equipment, the President's bedroom, luxurious reception suites and even a gambling room with Austin Powers-style retro furnishings!

The same afternoon I visited the War Relics Museum, which was more of a sobering experience. Thousands upon thousands of photos unflinchingly catalogue the horrors of war; one exhibition tells the stories of the many fearless war photographers who did one mission too many with the US troops and never came back. There are lots of old warplanes and tanks standing outside; having seen the end effects of these ruthlessly-engineered killing machines it's suddenly hard to take pride in our monkey race's technological mastery.

The Cu Chi tunnels are a vast network of underground tunnels, sniper holes and various nasty booby traps that the Viet Cong secretly constructed outside Saigon. These allowed them to launch surprise attacks on the enemy and the Americans in their own back yard. The tunnels are still there for tourists to visit so I went on a day trip to see this piece of war history.

Our group, led by a jovial grandfatherly Vietnamese chap nicknamed 'Slim Jim', crawled through a hundred metre section of tunnel that was specially enlarged to allow tourists to get through. Some of the original tunnels were as small as 80cm high by 80cm wide! Only a diet of rice and communist rhetoric could leave you thin enough to get through a space that small. The Viet Cong excelled in their ability to hide out in tight confines, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The enlarged tunnels were still a bloody tight squeeze to get through with my bulky western frame!

Near to the tunnels is a firing range where tourists can shoot with live ammo. A dollar buys you one bullet. I stood by while some others tried it, and live ammunition is bloody loud let me tell you! Bondy despises war in all its forms. "War is stupid and people are stupid", as the Culture Club once sang.

I did another day trip, round the Mekong Delta - a network of muddy brown rivers fanning off from the Mekong towards the coast (forming the conclusion of the river I travelled on earlier in Laos, that runs all the way down from Tibet). That was dull in a pleasant sort of way. Rivers look like rivers on your holiday photos, no matter what country they're in.

Also there was a lunch buffet featuring evil-smelling durian fruit and a short concert from a traditional folk band. I've liked a lot of the other Vietnamese music I've heard, but not this lot. Their timing seemed out and they were playing random notes all over the place - it sounded more like a Captain Beefheart album than anything meaningfully oriental! (Not that I'm knocking Beefheart - the man was an insane genius - but there is a time and a place for that sort of thing.)

The next day (11th April) it was time to leave. After some fruitless attempts to track down an airport bus, I endured a nailbiting ride to the airport on a motorbike taxi, hanging on for dear life with my big rucksack strapped to my back. It was an adventure to tell the grandkids about, but next time I'll pay extra and sit indoors in a proper taxi!

Flights from Vietnam to Hong Kong are bloody expensive for such a short distance, so I found a cheaper route there via nearby Macau. Macau is a small city state on the coast of China, that as a 'special administrative region' allows Westerners to come and go freely without so much as a nod and a wink to the top brass.

Until 1999 it was under Portuguese rule, and was actually the last place anywhere in Asia to be under European rule. Go Europe! I only passed through, but it left me with the distinct impression of being a drab wasteland full of casinos where the Chinese come to gamble away the weekend. I don't like casinos much in case you wondered!

The tourist information girl at the airport was nice though. With her help I found a bus to the ferry terminal, and boarded a gleaming hydrofoil hovercraft catamaran-type thing which propelled us at high speeds towards Hong Kong. Also, being thick, I inadvertently purchased the most expensive type of ticket and ended up sat in the VIP lounge at the front of the boat. I helped myself to not one but two complimentary cups of tea to ensure I got my money's worth. The businessman sat next to me was an executive manager at one of the casinos. We didn't share much in conversation, with him working in casinos and me hating casinos!

After an hour of gliding serenely past the shadowy mountains of south-eastern China we rounded a corner of the land, suddenly confronting the vastest cityscape of skyscrapers you will ever see! (We'd got to Hong Kong in case you're wondering.)

I alighted from the ferry in one of the vast terminal piers on Hong Kong island, suddenly aware of a new and pressing difficulty. Darkness was falling and I'd not got anywhere to stay! I'd tried several times during the day to phone ahead and book at a youth hostel, but they were all full up.

A quick search of the Central district for anything hotel-like proved fruitless. I wandered from block to block in a vast streetlit kingdom of monolithic skyscrapers, overpasses, underpasses and sterile shopping malls. Quaint Blackpool-style electric trams scurried between the tall hulking buildings. But there were no hotels.

I caught the underground MTR train to Causeway Bay, a couple of miles down the road. Causeway Bay is a shopping district similar to Central, where the streets are bathed in the overwhelming kaleidoscopic glow coming from galaxies of gigantic Chinese neon signs.

Despite the influx of Chinese culture since 1997 the road names all remain stoically British; Gloucester Road, Lockhart Road, Wellington Street and the like all have Chinese translations on the bilingual street signs. It's a crazy mix of east and west with a character all of its own, and after getting over the initial culture shock I began to like it!

Behind the glitzy shop fronts the conditions are cramped and the buildings are often decaying. I found a place to stay, upstairs in a poky hostel bizarrely called 'Bin Man Hotel' (next to another simply called 'Clean Hotel')! The room was small and basic but set me back 300 Hong Kong Dollars, just shy of twenty quid. I was starting to panic at the expensive prices after the relative cheapness of Vietnam!

I consoled myself by heading out for dinner and a drink in the Lan Kwai Fong party district. I chanced across a small Chinese eatery which was an experience in itself; a condensed, speeded-up version of a regular restaurant! You queue up outside, then the waiters quickly usher you in, shove you on to a table with a load of random strangers, and jot down your order before rushing off. You eat, then you take your slip of paper to the till to pay, and off you go. No nonsense, no messing about. The turnover of customers is so rapid it's more like being sat in a beehive than a restaurant!

I also discovered the immense delights of Chinese condensed milk buns - they resemble small toasted tea-cakes and are possibly the sweetest thing I have ever tasted. If a bread product could be said to represent heroin, this would surely be it.

Thanks to the restaurant's 'seating randoms together' policy I got talking to Lish, an Ozzie guy, and we set out on an unprecedented alcohol and hookah-pipe binge. It was a good laugh but Christ that was an expensive night. I am loathe to disclose how much I spent but it was more than I would ever spend on a night on the lash in Blackpool. A pint in Hong Kong can easily set you back 4 quid! That's worse than London even, surely!

The next day I quickly bade farewell to the overpriced Bin Man Hotel, catching the Star Ferry across the harbour to Kowloon, which is on the Chinese mainland but still forms part of Hong Kong. From my conversation with an English guy in a bar the previous evening, I knew it would be a much cheaper place to stay in than Causeway Bay. Kowloon has more of everything Hong Kong island has; skyscrapers, malls, traffic and British-sounding street names. I ended up more by accident than design at the notorious Chungking Mansions on Nathan Road.

Chungking Mansions isn't a mansion so much as a giant concrete nightmare. It's a tower block full of hostels and shops that boasts a cult following among backpackers. It was originally built in the 60s to house the area's large Chinese population; a domineering grey slab of a building nearly twenty floors high, that looks like it hasn't seen a coat of paint (or a window-cleaner) in nary a year.

The bottom two floors house a fascinating honeycomb of small markets, Indian restaurants and stores. From there upwards the building sprouts into several different blocks, each housing a bewildering cornucopia of cheap 'n' nasty guest houses. 'Death trap' and 'fire risk' are two tags it has acquired in recent years. Nevertheless it is a big hit with travellers, and it's packed out all year round. Vast queues form waiting for the lifts; there are just about enough of them to cope with the sheer volume of people heading up into the abyss, and a security guard is on hand in the lobby to marshall the crowds coming up and down.

After protracted inquiries with a number of hoteliers wandering about in various states of nakedness, I found a room to stay in a place on the 16th floor of A block. The guest house owner was a wizened old Chinese man with a mole on his face that had a long hair growing out of it!

This would be cheap, 9 quid a night. But it smelt bad. And it looked worse than it smelt. The grey tiles on the walls were straight from a prison cell, the strip-lighting flickered a sickly shade of yellow, and though I had a window it was far better to keep it shut! The window opened out onto a sort of dark internal quadrangle, festooned with foul-smelling AC ducts, that stretched down as far as the eye could see into the nefarious bowels of chez Chungking. Was this really to be my domicile for the forseeable? Beggars can't be choosers.

I hurriedly set about doing some sightseeing, heading over to Lantau Island for a go on the much-hyped Ngong Ping 360 ride. This is a brand new attraction where you are carried high over the sea and then on over the top of some densely-wooded hills, on an epic cable-car journey that lasts for miles. In clear weather you are witness to some stupendous views of the surrounding territory. I cursed the murky grey clouds that were obstructing my view! It was still worth doing for the occasional glimpses of scenery.

The end destination of Ngong Ping village is marked by a gigantic bronze Buddha figure on a hillside (the Tian Tan Buddha) which is the largest of its kind in the world. It was a eerily majestic sight, looming through the mist with the palm of its hand outstretched as the cable car descended. (Buddha says, 'practice cable car safety!')

I went for a walk up close, to study its giant Buddha face inquisitively for clues of enlightenment. No clues came, but I found a machine that sold me iced coffee in a can. Then I went for a walk through the woods to the 'path of enlightenment', a series of giant wooden pillars carved with Chinese characters that were laid out to form the infinity symbol (∞) from above. 'God/Buddha = infinity = enlightenment = a Good Thing' was the message I think.

The next day I got a bus to Aberdeen, a small fishing town hiding round on the other side of Hong Kong island. On impulse I hopped on a ferry to nearby Lamma island, which is green and pleasant. It boasts a huge range of seafood restaurants equipped with displays of exotic-looking fish, lobsters and crabs swimming in tanks.

I'm no expert but I suspect there were a few endangered species in amongst them! Presumably you point to the one you want to eat, then wait at your table salivating like a barbarous Chinaman. I just ordered a plate of squid and they seemed sufficiently depersonalised to consume, coated in thick yellow batter.

Yesterday (14th April) I checked out of Chungking Mansions and headed over to the eatery on Hong Kong island to enjoy the delights of condensed milk buns one last time. I choose not to choose life - I chose something else! Then I caught the tram to Victoria Peak. This is a very steep tramway that takes you to the top of the big hill, where you can look down on Hong Kong and Kowloon in all of its immensity. Thousands of skyscrapers jostle for space on the shoreline, presenting a fantastic spectacle of man-made engineering from above.

But then I had my plane to Sydney to catch, so I rode the metro one last time with my bags, over to the airport. It felt like an ending. Travelling in Asia is bewildering and frustrating at times, but I certainly will miss the endless variety and new discoveries it presents. From here on it's back to the west and its elevated cost of living! I shall have to find work.

Hong Kong airport is modern, sparkling and bloody huge - getting to your departure gate is a marathon three-day trek for which you need a sleeping bag, tent, compass and a couple of Sherpa guides.

As the plane lumbered into the sky, I was treated one last time to the awesome panorama of Hong Kong's skyline, in glorious night-time technicolor. This is in all honesty one of the definitive sights of the modern world, and it topped off what has been thus far an amazing journey. My three months in Asia are at an end and a whole new adventure is set to begin in Australia.