Sunday 27 May - Cairo, Egypt

Sent a few people an email and / or message this morning. Hope it wasn't too annoying but it's been a while since I listened to the Cats live, and it was good to hear them start the game well and then go right on with it in the second quarter to close the game out by half time. A very strong start to the much talked about 3 game run of Port / Saints / Crows. For this run, I think 1 win out of 3 would have been probably acceptable but disappointing, 2 good and 3 just outstanding. Thus, even though we've won, we really need to win either of these next two to be pleased with our results in this part of the year. That also gets us to 6-3 or 67% strike rate; assuming a target of 14 wins, the par after nine rounds would be 6 wins, so we're back on track.

The emergence of a few players has been great, even surprising - Blake and Varcoe being the two major candidates.

The morning was spent listening to footy, the rest of the day in transit. Our flight departed from Cairo at 4:15pm (scheduled time was 3:25pm) and landed in Bahrain about 7:20pm, around 45 minutes late. The old Gulf Air plane wasn't the most comforting we've been on for sure - it rattled unnervingly like an old 1972 Valiant upon takeoff but did the job. Most interesting was that the TV screens showed no inflight entertainment bar for the flight progress screen, on which the passengers were continuously updated on which direction Meccah was in relation to the plane.

The changeover at Bahrain was quite smooth. Although we only set foot very briefly in this island country, to walk from the plane steps to the bus on the tarmac, it was enough to have already got a little sweat on the forehead. As I type this I'm sitting in HK, which is humid enough, but I'm pretty sure Bahrain had it covered. The international departures area could also be the most affluent place we've been to, obviously driven by the rich oil reserves of the country.

The flight from Bahrain to Honkers was with Cathay Pacific. Although the flight was pretty good, particularly very comfortable, I can safely say that our Qantas flight from Sydney to LA was the best so far. I'm surprised to read since that Qantas has been ranked very low in a survey of the best airlines to fly - I think this is more a reflection of the public applying nothing but the highest standards for the airline.

In fact, all 3 of our airlines are exceptional, particularly in regards to keeping schedules and in baggage handling.

Summarising Egypt, I'm sure we both had a great time. Personally, I'm going to rank it pretty highly in respect of the most fun country to visit. There's was a fair culture shock involved in Cairo and Luxor, which is what makes it so enjoyable. It was also the only Islamic country we visited - it was great to experience the culture of such a religion first hand.

We both really got an appreciation of how much free women are in the Western World, particularly Australia. One thing that came to mind while we were enroute to the airport was that we'd seen so many Egyptian men smoking, yet no women. Men also dominated the workforce, and were the only sex to show any affluence in their clothes and appearance. Most women were required to wear headscarves - indeed, I think the Egyptian men find any female with just moderate skin exposure (i.e. a short-sleeved t-shirt) a novelty.

After all the nights on the squirt in Europe & the UK, amazingly I didn't have a single beer in Egypt.

Pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/milky42


Monday 28 May - Hong Kong

A lot of the day was effectively lost in transit, losing 6 hours between Cairo and Hong Kong. Waiting for us upon our arrival in Honkers at 1pm was Libe's old Queensland uni friend Edward, now a share trader here.

Our hotel is the fantastic Cosmopolitan Hotel in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong the 'Special Administrative Region' (SAR) of China consists of four parts - the Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and the Outlying Islands. The Cosmopolitan is right in the heart of the CBD of the region, overlooking the amazing Happy Valley racecourse.

Happy Valley is one of two racecourses in HK - the other more famous one being Sha Tin. The Valley's location would be akin to having a racetrack where Telstra Dome is, hence the city has been built around the track. Amazingly for a major world metropolitan course, it might be the smallest course I've seen anywhere - just 1400m in circumference, with a straight of 300m. We're headed there for the punt on Wednesday night, the regular weekly fixture at the Valley.

We spent the arvo drifting through the city with Edward. We made our way late in the arvo across the pollution-riddled Victoria Harbour to Kowloon, and had our first of what would be a few visits to the markets in Tung Choi St in Mong Kok / Yau Ma Tei.

These markets are just the best fun to shop at - more fun than I've had so far. Everything is fake, basically all prices are negotiable, the stalls are too numerous to count and most goods are common to a number of them. You can get pretty much everything here - accessories such as belts and ties are very popular, as are handbags, clothes, shoes and DVDs.

Edward's advice on the haggling technique were very insightful and helped me perfect my own bargaining technique. The key elements are offering to pay around half of what the seller has quoted you, to get them initially down as far as they will go, and then to walk away. Invarianbly (read 'always') they'll follow you and/or call out to you offering to meet your price, or a price that is negligibly dearer that what you initially offered (particularly when considered in AUD terms).

After a two or so hour session here, I'm already the proud owner of a pair of 'Vans' for HKD 100 (approx AUD 16), 3 belts ('Hugo Boss', 'Diesel' and 'Gucci' respectively') for HKD 140 (AUD 22), a pair of khaki shorts for 85 (AUD 14) and 3 'Dolce Gabbana' ties for HKD 80 (AUD 14). I'm sure this won't be the last session here either. Libe managed to do a little damage herself.

(Note the use of the ", given I can't vouch for the authenticity of the items)

Already found a few signs and store names worth taking a photo of. A lingerie store called 'The Easy Shop' was quite amusing. Of course, I had to point out to Libe that Nathan Road, one of the major arteries in Kowloon, was named after the great number 23 of the GFC.

Tea was at Yoshinoya, the Japanese version of Maccas.

It's very easy to get around Hong Kong, as due to the influence of the British who only handed control back to the Chinese on 30 June 1997, English is widely spoken and understood and is used throughout for public transport and street signs. Other influences from the British can be seen in the buses, which are exactly the same as those used in London, and the 'mind the gap' warnings on the MTR (the subway).

It's certainly very hot and humid here. Although I've never been to Australia's top end, I'm sure the weather here at the moment would be similar to Darwin. Egypt was hot too, but was a completely different kind of heat - very dry, which was probably less energy sapping than it is here.

Pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/milky42


Tuesday 29 May - Hong Kong

Mum's birthday today. Hoping she got my SMS I sent over the net. Also hoping to get her something good in Honkers - no doubt for the same amount of 'Pat" Cash, I can get her something a little better over here.

Edward joined us for a trip to Lantau Island today, to have a look at the Po Lin Monastery and it's giant Buddha, clearly a tribute to the great Garry Hocking.

The trip involved a 25 minute cable car ride up over a couple of mountains up to Ngong Ping, giving us a great aerial view of the surrounding landscape and the airport nearby. After the Monastery, it was a bus ride down to Mui Wo for a quick feed and on the ferry back to the Central area of Hong Kong Island.

Once back there, we jumped on the well-known Peak tram for a ride up to Victoria Peak (known simply by locals as 'The Peak'). Hong Kong is what scientists call an 'anticline', or a series of steep slopes. Anyone who has been on the tram or up to the Peak will understand this - I'll have a guess and say that the tram climbs the hill at a 30 degree angle for most of it, and then at 45 degrees for a short term in the middle section of the ride. It's actually quite hairy and not for everyone.

However, the rewards for reaching the Peak make the ride certainly worthwhile for those who aren't comfortable on the tram. The advantage of the slope being so great is that the Peak is ridiculously close the city - simply put, the CBD on Hong Kong Island would have swallowed up the land on top of the peak if the government had ever allowed it to do so, and if it was confirmed as being safe to do so (which is arguable I'd say).

The photos we've taken here have awesome backgrounds. It's also a very contrasting landscape to those we've seen since leaving New York on April Fools Day. Since then, it's been the desert sprawl of Egypt, the century-old cities of Europe and the developing world of Peru. Indeed, the differences between Egypt and HK are amazing - dry versus humid heat; desert versus tropical flora; flat terrain versus the steep slopes; poverty versus affluence; urban sprawl versus bunched skyscrapers; the Nile versus Victoria Harbour and the South China sea; ancient relics versus modern sights.

To summarise HK best, in Australian terms it would be equivalent to increasing Sydney's population by 30-40% and building the city in Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. Really, if you were setting up a city today, you wouldn't build it here. However, HK as and where it stands thrives and is just awesome.

We hung around the peak for the rest of the arvo, sitting down to have a coffee in the Peak Tower and wandering around the nearby streets which are home to only the most affluent local businessmen and women. Staying longer allowed us to take in the view for a second time, but by this time the sun had disappeared and the lights of the city had taken over. The skyline was certainly no less impressive under the stars.

Lan Kwai Fong is a trendy area at the base of the Peak, dominated by bars and clubs, particularly western-themed ones. This district is so steep in certain areas that the world's largest escalator system has been built in place of a footpath to allow pedestrians to walk up it. Without the escalator, it would be physically possible but very demanding to walk up the hill, thus its installation here makes sense. But it just serves to underline how undulating this place really is.

Pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/milky42


Wednesday 30 May - Hong Kong

Headed south for the afternoon to Stanley, a coastal town on the southern side of Hong Kong Island where Libe had been on a previous excursion to HK. Libe has been to HK twice, once for a duration of a month, so she knows the place very well.

The markets were a little different to those we were in on Monday night - they were more like little stores, and bargaining was not used (or not from what I saw anyway). Thus I didn't open the wallet at all here - where's the fun?
In the evening it was off to a thing I was absolutely busting for - a punt at the Happy Valley night races, just across the road. Fair to say that this was one of the few things I'd pencilled in on our trip, the last probably being watching the cricket World Cup Final in London.

The racecourse is very spectacular, being surrounded and dwarfed by residential apartment skyscrapers and its own grandstands. It comes complete with its own Maccas, although with barbeque pork and other good local dishes on offer there was no need to lower our standards to a Big Mac.

On a very humid night, the three of us (we managed to get Edward to the races for his first time on the punt) set up camp with a table right on the fence in the middle of the straight. Not surprisingly, the area in front of the grandstands was dominated by foreigners, particularly expat Aussies, standing around drinking and gambling (obviously they were having a good time - how can you not?)

The first of 8 races was at 7:30pm. As expected, Edward's first ever wager landed a $20+ winner, meaning he was punting with the HK tote's money for the rest of the night. I managed to miss this winner, trained by the familiar combination of David Hall and Brett Prebble, however I think I was justified - Ouraja's scoreline did read 8 starts for nothing.

Prebble would ride 3 winners on the night - myself not on any of them. The combined weight of the jockey and my money generally stops most horses, particularly 'good things', I've found. The second winner, again from the David Hall barn, was hammered late (Unc would have called the betting movement a certain 8-letter world starting with 'f' and ending in 'ful', perhaps only known to myself, Tim, Texy and Iano) from $10 into $7, however with the large tote queues at the 'visitors' tote windows I had to get on too early to take advantage of this clear market lead.

There's no bookies here so it's tote only, although the tote pools are so massive that the big punters can bet confidently with the agency. IASbet does operate over the 'net though for Australian punters looking to bet on the races here, and do offer better odds than the HKTAB.

To give an idea of the amount of money bet on these races, the pools for the last race, an ordinary midweeker, were: HKD 23 million in the win, 17 million in the place, 35 million in the quinella and 9 in the tierce (trifecta). In AUD terms, that's 3.7 million in the win, 2.7m place, 5.6m quinella and 1.4 tierce. Given those amounts, you actually wonder why they don't put up more than the prizemoney of between HK $450-750k (AU $70-119k) for each race.

Unlike the clearly discriminatory policies that have been employed by a certain ex-Geelong Racing Club track manager for years, there were female stompers on the track between races (although I can't vouch whether the same philosophies have been employed at Sandown racecourse). There was also a local version of Philly, stomping 50 horses wide where very few horses had been (if any), and getting white paint on his waist from rubbing against the outside rail.

I had a dirty night on the punt - only 1 collect from 2 bets on every race. Edward didn't see a collect again after the first, but still walked out well up, while Libe fared only slightly better than me. However, given the exchange rate is so high (1 AUD = about 6.20 to 6.30 HKD), you can punt HKD 50 a race and not do any real damage. I can actually say that I punted nothing less than $50 on every race on the card, gambled like a spout (i.e. pouring money down the drain), and still wasn't filthy when exiting.

Phuong and Lan, two girls from Adelaide that we were on the Topdeck Europe tour with, fared better than us with a collect on Hall and Prebble's second winner, Silver Mark. This was the one that was backed late, first up from an injury.

Having taken in the first couple of races, and summed up the track, it was pretty clear that you really want to be in the first few around the turn. Thus it made sense to take the speed maps in the form guide in the South China Morning Post into account. What you can't factor in though, is Silver Mark being 'mapped' out the back, which made sense given he was a middle distance / staying gelding resuming over a mile, but being stoked up by Prebble and settling immediately behind the leader. On the turn, I knew I'd done my dukes, but Hall and Prebble were counting theirs.

This wasn't the only time the maps weren't spot on, with a detrimental effect on my pocket.

Hall and Prebble had a third runner on the night, but it wasn't surprising to see it not do much after it 'lost a leg' in the betting after opening favorite on the tote.

The information load here is certainly massive. All trackwork and trial performances are monitored and listed in the form guides. The horses are weighed before the race and the results displayed, with any significant charge from the weight recorded before their previous start announced over the PA. Also, a full day-by-day disclosure of the watering programme and rainfall received is given. Thank god they didn't disclose my punting performance on the big screen as well.

Pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/milky42