Day 26 - Kathmandu, Nepal

My greatest shame on this trip has been my frequenting of numerous Starbucks, McDonald's-es and Burger Kings. It's not that I particularly like this kind of food (except for the coffee at Starbucks) but sometimes when you're looking for somewhere to get food or drink in an unfamiliar town - especially when you're on your own and so not looking for a full restaurant meal - the familiar brands tend to catch your eye. Perhaps more important is the fact that these places generally have free wi-fi. Anyway, enough attempts to justify myself, what I'm trying to say is that there was little surprise this morning when I headed straight for a coffee at Seattle's finest before my visit to the History Museum of Hong Kong.

The weather in Hong Kong had been glorious for the last few days, but had turned by this morning. It was very overcast, and perhaps not t-shirt weather, but I'm from the north so there was no turning back for a coat - a stubborn decision regretted 15 minutes later as the heavens opened! Maybe it was my damp, slightly bedraggled, look, but the museum was not nearly as helpful as it had been a few days earlier: my supposed meeting with the curators turned out to be a case of being left in the resource library along with an administrator who had little idea about anything. However, before he kicked me out so he could go for his lunch, I did get to meet one of the managers who gave me a few pointers on their intranet and showed me their image library, so maybe it wasn't such a waste of time after all.

I left the museum and took the bus to the airport to check-in for my 6 hour flight to Kathmandu (for the final leg of my trip – H-for-Himalayas). The plane, for some reason, stopped in Bangladesh on the way. As far as I was concerned we weren't supposed to be in Dhaka, but actually I felt it was a bit of a shame that I didn't have time to get out and look around as within a couple of hours we were back in the air and on the way to Nepal.

I arrived in the airport and took a taxi to my hostel. The arrival lounge was a little bit crazy again with many many taxi-drivers, tour guides and hotel owners looking to capture a tourist, but it was an officially sanctioned cab that took me through the streets to my hostel. Kathmandu gives the impression of a very poor city: you can see many kids living on the streets and untreated piles of rubbish, but it is also a vibrant capital with many people driving, cycling or walking with a purpose – even at midnight, which was the time that I arrived.

I dumped my rucksack and decided to go for a quick walk around the hotel: it was rather intimidating (as it often is, no matter which city you arrive in) with the tight roads, the hawkers on the street and the lack of streetlights (it was the early hours of the morning after all). There's one thing for sure: there won't be many Starbucks, McDonalds or Burger King escapes for the next couple of weeks!

Jx

Day 25 - Hong Kong, China

Today I decided to take a day off from work. I've been a little under the weather recently, so thought I needed a bit of a break. Still, I'm in Hong Kong, so I had to do something; so my plan was to try to catch some of the East Asian Games that are currently taking part in the city.

I attempted to have a lie-in but sadly I don't think 5am counts as such, so I was out of the hostel nice and early. Yesterday I was stopped on no fewer than five occasions by well-dressed men clearly trying to sell me something - I'm fairly well versed in dealing with hawkers now, so just walked on - but my curiosity was piqued, and so, determined to find out what it was they were trying to sell (I was guessing a haircut) I traced my footsteps from the previous day. It turns out they were all tailors trying to sell me a suit. Either they thought I was someone who regulary wears suits, or they thought I drastically needed a change of clothes (I kinda hope it was the latter). I politely declined anyway, and it was still nice and early when I arrived at the Kowloon Park to attempt to watch the swimming and diving.

The volunteer who greeted me barely spoke better English than I spoke Cantonese, but I soon realised that there were no tickets available for the day. I asked if there were any other events nearby and he sent me in the direction of the cricket. A nice bit of Twenty/20 sounded good, so I made my way to the stadium only to find that he'd mistaken the English word "Cricket" for "Hockey" - and even the hockey was sold out. Ho hum. Back to the drawing board.

After talking to a much more useful volunteer at the hockey venue, I found out that it was a music store that dealt with the event's tickets, and so, with headphones in ears, I lolloped over to the shop. I sometimes wonder if people notice the change in my gait when the theme to Garden Force comes up on my ipod.

There were tickets to the evening's football match between South Korea and China available and so I snapped them up; the game was great. 3-0 to the Koreans. While it may sound quite one-sided, it was far from it, and the atmosphere was great with thousands of Chinese fans outnumbering the Koreans by, I would guess, 200/1. Still, at the final whistle it was the few dozen fans from the peninsula who were making all the noise.

So it's my final day in Hong Kong tomorrow - over all too soon - though I don't really feel that I've missed out on too much. Fly to Kathmandu in the evening for the final leg of my tour - H for Himalayas.

Jx

Day 24 - Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is an incredible contrast to Hawaii. Gone is the laid back atmosphere, the clean air and the empty beaches, and in their place are throngs of people, traffic everywhere and consumerism at every corner.

I am staying in Mong Kok. I didn't just choose the area because of it's funny sounding name; it was mostly thanks to the Guinness Book of Records claim that it is the most densely populated place in the world. And boy, is it busy - there are blocks of flats everywhere and where there aren't flats there are honking cars and neon signs aplenty.

With only three days in Hong Kong, I was determined to make the most of today, so decided to aim for the central and museum districts. But most important things first, I grabbed a coffee and headed for the nearest park. The park was extremely busy for so early in the morning, and it soon became clear why. The East Asian Games (a kind of mini Olympics) are taking place in Hong Kong from today for the next week - and so the park (which is home to the city's largest swimming pool) was all decked out for the event. Tomorrow I think I will try to catch some of the action.

Next it was to the History Museum of Hong Kong. It's great. If you're ever in town, you must go. Full of interesting facts and very very visual; they've clearly decided to make the place as spectacular to the eye as possible. The story of Hong Kong goes right from the formation of the area's rocks to consumerism of the 1980s and 90s, and doesn't miss a trick. You end up leaving believing that there could be nothing else to know about the city. Before I left I spoke to one of the managers, and will hopefully return on Monday to speak with some of the curators.

I then walked down to Hong Kong harbour to take some footage (it was very Hazy thanks to the pollution and lack of wind) and then took the ferry over to the central district to take the funicuar railway to Victoria's peak to see the supposedly incredible views over the city. After the walk up Diamond Head in Honolulu, I must say this was a little bit of a disappointment. Not due to the views, which were stunning, but because when you reach the top it is basically just a huge shopping mall. The locals have seen the popularity of the peak and so have exploited it to its full extent. Maybe I should have expected it - this is Hong Kong after all.

A trip to the small horse-racing museum at Happy Valley followed before I got back to the hostel. Tonight I am meeting a friend of a friend who has lived in the city for years; hopefully to gain some idea of how to spend my final two days.

Jx

Day 23 - Travelling

Very little to report today, it was basically just an 18 hour journey. The only event of note was first thing this morning when I somehow missed the turning for the airport and found myself on the road to the Pearl Harbour naval base. Not the museum, the actual base. With no way out, I had to come clean to security that I was lost, and was given an armoured guard back onto the motorway.

I have arrived in Hong Kong now; will get some sleep and report on the city in the morning.

Jx

Day 22 - Oahu, USA

Today was museum day for me, on the island of Oahu. So I was up early and drove to the North of the Island for my first stop: the Dole Pineapple Plantation. The plantation was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, it was basically a garden that didn't come close to yesterday's botanical trip and field after field of pineapples (spot the pineapple, above). I took a couple of pictures and then went to the main attraction – the world's largest maze (as confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records, apparently). 20 minutes and 33 seconds later and I'd completed the course; very hot and quite a few holes in walls that frustrated maze-ors had clearly made; but really good fun.

The next place to visit was the largest museum on the Island, The Bishop Museum, which serves as the state of Hawaii's national museum. I managed to blag my way into the archives and met a fascinating guy – typical museum curator – who talked at length about some of the treasures of the museum. They included writings of early Hawaiian kings, original drawings from Captain Cook's voyages, and beautiful pa'u cloaks made from up to a million birds' feathers. The feathers were extremely rare - from a bird that has now died out – but it wasn't hunted to extinction, the Hawaiians would carefully catch the bird, pluck a couple of feathers and then let it go. It sadly succumbed a number of years ago due to loss of habitat.

I left Bishop Museum to find the third of my triumvirate, the Lucoral Museum in Waikiki, a small establishment that specialises in gemstones of all kinds. They have the world's largest sculpted piece of ruby quartz as well as many fossils. One family earlier in the year were walking through the museum and said: “we have loads of these in our back yard in Oklahoma” - sure enough, within a few weeks a box had arrived at the museum full of excellent fossil examples. It now has pride of place in its own cabinet.

So with much learned, I headed back to my hotel to write some postcards, and then an early night. It's a long long journey to Hong Kong in the morning – must get some beauty sleep.

Jx

Day 21 - Kaua'i, USA

My final day in Kaua'i, and I was lucky enough again to have Barbara and David as my personal guides for one last time.

Today it was to the Botanical Gardens (on what is known as the Garden Island) one of only five in the USA. Hawaii is known as the world centre for endangered species; this is in some part down to human invasions of habitat, but in the main thanks to the introduction of non-native species that tend to be much more hardy than their delicate Island counterparts, and out-compete them to extinction. The first thing I encountered in the gardens when I arrived was the head gardener removing two very rare specimens that had succumbed to disease. Very sad.

I was shown the tasteless mint and the brambleless raspberries, as mentioned the other day, as well as stinging nettles who no longer need their stings. There was also a project sponsored by Bette Midler (which helps in some way to finance the much under-budgeted Botanical Garden) a Hibiscus Clayii which was sent to Kew Gardens 100 years ago, went extinct on the island and whose descendent was subsequently sent back from England, and the vinblastine plant that is used to treat childhood leukemia.

Following the tour of the nursery, there was enough time for a walk around the private gardens, (above), all the way to the beach, and for a look at the o'o'pu fish that have suckers on their bellies that they use to climb up waterfalls, before we were back for lunch – with some delicious coffee as grown at David's coffee plantation. It was then, with much sadness, that I had to say goodbye to my guides and head back towards the airport.

I had an hour or so to kill before the flight, and so looked into the Museum of Kaua'i, which was an unexpected treat, containing at some real nuggets of information that may well be useful for the show. It's a bit unsavoury, but I never knew about the Ni'aupi'o system of ancient Hawaii where family members committed incest to preserve their royal genes. The result of these nuptials obviously were often very sick or stillborn, but if a child was healthy it became incredibly holy, so much so that everyone had to bow down in their presence. This became such a problem that they would only travel during the night, when no-one could see them. How bizarre.

Anyway, from there it was back to the airport for the 30 minute flight back to Oahu, and for my final day in Hawaii, back in Waikiki.

Jx

Day 20 - Kaua'i, USA

There are thousands and thousands of feral chickens on Kaua'i. They have no natural predators. The story goes that the only crate of mongooses to land on the island was dropped into the ocean after the unloading sailor was bitten on the finger. (as an aside, if mongooses actually *did* get on the island they could be an ecological nightmare; once someone thought they spotted one and the government paid an expert for three years to capture it - three years later the position was stopped, no mongoose had been found). The chickens though, they certainly are conspicuous; they are loud, especially, it seems, at six in the morning...

The island has only one main road, it skirts the coast of the island but only gets as far as the giant cliffs on the north side, so one cannot drive all the way round. Yesterday I drove clockwise to the end of the road, and today it was my plan to drive anti-clockwise to the other dead-end, taking in the sights as I drove.

The first stop was the Kilauea lighthouse, the most northerly part of the Hawaiian island chain. It is famous for having the largest lens of its kind in the world (with the brightness of 2.5 million candles), for its many nesting birds (frigates and boobies especially) and for its position alongside a refuge for humpback whales. It is the very start of whale season at the moment, they're just beginning to arrive. Whales don't feed in Hawaiian waters, instead relying on blubber stored in the North Pacific: they are here to breed and calf. Did I see one? Well, I saw a dark shadow and a large splash, and the group beside me certainly thought it was a whale - if I'm honest, I think it may have been a large wave.

So I continued the drive and stopped at a number of beaches; these northern areas are where the TV series "Lost" is filmed. Having not seen it much, I couldn't recognise specific places from the show, but I certainly could see how the north of Kauai could be used to portray a desert island. I continued to the very end of the highway, at which there is a trailhead leading to the Island's most inaccessible areas, and got a good mile or so up the steep steep trail before I decided it was time to turn back. I certainly got some decent pictures, despite the trade winds battering the cliffs.

So all in all it was a fairly successful day, certainly as far as photography was concerned. Tomorrow I'll hopefully be learning again, as I will be shown around the Botanical Gardens by one of the Island's experts. It's around 11pm here and thankfully there are no crowing chickens; they have evidently been scared away by the inexplicable late-night roadworks.

Jx