Preamble

I bring along a journal whenever I travel, and write if I find time to, on planes, trains, buses, airports, cafes, or my room. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but they also don’t tell the whole story! I sometimes find my photographs inadequate as a travel record. An eye for photographic composition just doesn’t come naturally to me. The camera I use is also rather bulky, which makes photo-taking a bit of a hassle. Lastly, I’m just too plain lazy to take too many pictures when I travel.

This site is still very much under construction as most travel locations have yet to be completely covered. I’ve a substantial backlog of pen-and-paper journal entries that have yet to be edited and posted. They will, I hope, appear here some day.

Email me at 1sttimetraveler -at- gmail -dot- com

From Ayutthaya to Bangkok

It costs 200,000 Bahts for a new tuk tuk, 140,000 for a used one. The tuk tuk driver tapped out those numbers on the calculator. He was driving me to the pier for 80 Bahts but I couldn’t bargain, for the guesthouse was very inaccessible and don’t get many tuk tuks. I agreed instantly with his quoted price, which was 20 Bahts more than the price I paid for my trip from the pier to the guesthouse. Anyway, I had saved quite a bit by renting a bicycle for two days.

That tuk tuk of his can’t be driven in Bangkok, so he said, and I’m guessing that the two cities probably have different traffic regulations. He added that he wasn’t going to sell his tuk tuk anytime soon. Well, it was a good deal. I was really wondering if I could buy a tuk tuk and travel the length of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos one day. For 4000-6000 USD, it’s a versatile way of getting around.

Then, feeling that he needed some challenging questions, I asked him: “Here…Ayutthaya…support Yingluck or Abhisit?”

“Yes.”

Bad questioning technique! I decided not to press on.

I was back in Bangkok after a 2-hour train ride and felt an urgent need for a shower. The windows on the train were open in full, letting in dust, sand and stench. I found unidentifiable black specks on my skin. They smear out when I try to flick them off.

My room was a pleasant surprise. It was properly furnished, had air-conditioning, a TV, a refrigerator, and most importantly, a proper bathroom with hot water and toilet facilities. Indeed, years of making do with super budget travel accommodation had lowered my standards. A much needed warm shower later, I was ready for Bangkok’s Chinatown on the eve of the Chinese New Year. I was leaving Thailand the next morning and Chinatown was the only thing left on my itinerary.

What a crowd it was! I hate crowds, but Bangkok’s Chinatown is quite well spread out that there’s always room for pedestrians. I found it hard to find seats even though street food stalls were in abundance. Oddly, I was hit by a craving for cuttlefish, so I ended up having two sticks of grilled cuttlefish seasoned with Thai chilli sauce, along with other street fare that I could eat while walking. Eventually, I found a stall that served some up broth in claypots. I pointed out to the stall owner that I wanted what the next table was having, and she spoke to me in Thai. I tried speaking simple Mandarin, hoping that my message would get through, and she finally said: “是这个？” (is this it?), pointing to the dish on the adjacent table.

Actually, I still didn’t know what I was ordering. I was hungry and would settle for anything. A minute later, I discovered that I had ordered a satisfying bowl of fish maw soup, which only cost me 70 Bahts.

Over at the Chinatown Gate at the traffic circle…

What seemed like a yearly ritual was taking place. People would line themselves up in a few rows and waved their hands to the commands of an announcer over the loudspeaker.

What was said over the loudspeaker I could not tell — it was all in Thai. After all that was over, they lined up in a single file and swiped their wallets and notes against the stone lion statues.

I was extremely fortunate to visit Wat Traimit. Admission was free for the day to allow devotees to worship there. Fortunately it didn’t suffer from the same sort of Chinese New Year’s Eve overcrowding at certain other temples in Asia. The temple houses the largest solid gold seated image of Buddha. Being a non-Buddhist, I decided not to enter the main chamber. I did, however, cast my 10 Bahts into the wishing bowl. Hopes keep us alive, don’t they?

And yes…the pomegranate juice. I was hesitant to try these drinks from the street-side stalls at first. After the first bottle, I was hooked. The pomegranates were about the size of two adult fists. A number of them were opened to reveal their red pulpy seeds and displayed enticingly at the stalls. Freshly made chilled pomegranate juice tasted so refreshing and so much better than those I find off the shelves of supermarkets. After I bought my second bottle, I asked the stall owner for the price of that handy manual pomegranate juice extractor and where he bought it. It cost 300 Baht and he pointed in the direction of a place called “Sam Phet” (or Sam Phaeng?). Too bad I had to set off early the next morning for the airport.

Someone else has a better picture here.

It was a good trip. I was quite fully occupied, but I was free to take my time as well. 1 or 2 days in Ayutthaya is just about enough, and so was the mere one night in Bangkok. I wanted to catch the Chinese New Year bazaar and nothing else. I was very pleasantly charmed by the grace of the Thais and regretted not learning more basic Thai phrases to soften out awkward moments. The Thais were ever so keen to not offend, so much so that I was at times slightly embarrassed at my brash touristy ways. Thailand is a country I’d like to revisit!

The rest of Ayutthaya

People here aren’t that pushy. With an abundance of ruins and historical sites, Ayutthaya is perhaps even more of a tourist-land compared to Jogja. Generally, I didn’t feel that the locals were out to rip tourists off. I even felt that most didn’t have much of a drive for profits. The lady at the pier happily accepted my 4 Bahts, even though the price for crossing the river with a bicycle should have cost 6 Bahts — I didn’t know that at first, but maybe she wasn’t sure either! I was pleasantly surprise to see the sign “free for today” at the entrance to the most prominent ruin in the city, Wat Phra Mahathat. The entrance fee was waived for the day! Unlike at the temples in Jogja, the sites in Ayutthaya don’t have much in the way of markets parading kitschy collectibles and stall vendors hankering for tourist attention. It was a place where I felt at ease with being a tourist.

The distances were manageable and I had a great time cycling around the city. I met the guesthouse staff this morning on my way out, told him that I was looking for bicycle rental, and off I was on his scooter to the rental shop. It was my first time on a scooter!

My Ayutthaya photos — a mish-mash of elephants on streets, floating markets, night markets, Lunar New Year bazaar cum stage performance — can be found here. It was two days from the Lunar New Year, and the city’s tourism office had put up a night market, lasting about a week, celebrating all things festive and Chinese. The guesthouse staff pointed out to me that the event also celebrates the anniversary of Thailand’s diplomatic ties with China. This being Thailand, it had the sights of the festival, but not quite the sounds. The Thais who have descended from Chinese ancestors generally don’t speak Mandarin and they have assimilated very well into the Thai society. The festival was also not a public holiday in Thailand I was left to ponder upon the status of this festival in the Thai society.

Despite my initial apprehensions and dismay with my accommodation, Ayutthaya was really pleasant. Map in hand provided free-of-charge by the bicycle rental company, I had no trouble navigating around and getting to my destinations. The roads are wide enough that bicycles have room to maneuver without upsetting other drivers. The bicycle also put me out of harm from the ubiquitous stray dogs. Some barked at me even when I was on the bicycle, but they can’t outrun me. In the larger scheme of things in the animal world, speed counts!

First time Thailand

I’ve got to remind myself next time that location is everything when I’m traveling. Misguided by the advertised river-side view tagline, I booked a guesthouse that was really out of the way. There’s nothing much in the vicinity. There were a few other guesthouses along the way, some street-side shops and that’s about it. The staff from the guesthouse emerged from the darkness to greet me, and to lead me down a dark gravel alley, then to where my room was. There was something dodgy about the place.

I decided to take a walk down the road to find food for the next morning. There’s no refrigerator in the room, so bread and confectionery was all I could afford to have for breakfast. Was there even any staff manning the guesthouse at that hour? It looked really spooky, when the shut windows block the light from inside the rooms completely so that the entire compound appeared abandoned from the outside. I suspected that I was the only guest there!

And yes, the dogs. I was besieged and barked at by a few hungry ones during my night walk. Fortunately, I looked straight ahead and continued to mind my business, so I didn’t return home with rabies. Most of the dogs I’ve seen are really docile and happy to be left alone. I shall remember to let sleeping dogs lie.

The place was more spartan than I expected. I suspect that they don’t even have bicycles for rental. I shall find out tomorrow. The ruins of Ayutthaya had better make up for these initial discomforts. Here’s what the place looks like during the day. I was sorry to hear from the guesthouse staff that the dark line across the outer wall was an effect of last year’s major flooding in Thailand. Situated just next to the river, this area seems quite badly hit. If the water mark is indicative of the depth of the flood waters, I reckon that it must have been at least 3 metres deep here. I later noticed similar water marks on buildings in the city centre. I later explored the other areas of the guesthouse compound and saw the disrepair brought on by the floods — broken wooden structures, abandoned rooms and disorganized belongings. The place was no where near what it used to be, especially at those areas closer to the river.

By the way, this is the first trip where I had to make so many transfers between modes of transport. To start off, I took a bus from my home to the airport (no thanks to the non-existent taxis), where I took my flight for Bangkok. Upon arrival at Suvarnabhumi, I transferred to the Airport City Line and then to the city’s subway to get to Hua Lamphong Railway Station. Then I took the rather antiquated but still functional train to Ayutthaya, where I took a ferry across the river. Finally, for 60 Baht, I took a tuk tuk to the guesthouse. In one day, I’ve traveled by land, water and air!

Going home

The whirlwind Macau/Hong Kong/China trip was short, but it was really quite momentous, especially for my father. In his side of my extended family, he has the closest links with my relatives there. It is his wish my generation would continue keep up the links, or at the very least, have a grasp on the typical “where we came from” narrative.

It was a memorable 80th birthday for Dua Beh as well. It must have been the first time  most of them met relatives from Singapore.

A female relative, probably the wife of one of my uncles or cousins, or even my aunt, said to my sister and I that: 这是你的家 (this is your home)! Spoken in Mandarin instead of Teochew in case we didn’t understand, that unexpected line stuck with me. In the Chinese psyche, the act of 回家 (going home) hold an added significance, aside from its more perfunctory and literal meaning. Some of the elderly relatives encouraged us to visit more frequently and reminded us that we are welcome to stop by anytime we desired. All necessities will be provided for! It felt as if our huge extended family is really headquartered in Shantou in the larger scheme of things and that there exist another superlative level well beyond my seniority in the family.

While I was overwhelmed by their warm reception, the entire experience felt surreal and even a little undeserving for me. Imagine being flown thousands of miles from home into a sort of mini celebration thrown up by people you haven’t met in your life!  My half-cousins and I are related through our grandfather, but that alone does not explain much. There is a lot of family history that I am too young to bear witness to. As I’ve alluded to previously, Grandma had helped them through rather difficult times. I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the extend of that help, for tough times are best forgotten, but I’m sure most of my uncles and cousins would have lived through the Cultural Revolution. So much is unsaid. So much happens only in the present.

Despite our blood ties, we are really people of two different lands, much like a single species forced to live and evolve in two different ecosystems. I was wondering if all the hospitality we enjoyed was precisely a consequence of our separation and the fact that we aren’t used to interacting as a normal family would. Our histories would continue to diverge, along with our languages and customs. My father found memories; I found historical facts in a textbook.

We might meet again. I was quite tickled when someone — it could be my uncle, aunt, or cousin — suggested that they all make the trip to Singapore when I get married. Well, that’s a big if! That sounds like quite a party!

Food

Other than the slight tendency for food in certain parts of China to be on the oily side, I was fine with the food in Shantou, and didn’t fall sick as result of them. Home-cooked food tended to have less oil. There were some notable ones.

As I’d mentioned elsewhere, we were offered glutinous rice balls, or tang yuans (汤圆) the day we arrived. I wish I could find them on sale in Singapore. Grandma used to make them out of flour and sugar. They don’t taste very sticky, just tangy and slightly sweet and they don’t have fillings. Those commercially available ones are larger and usually don’t come in this fashion. Where can I find them?

We celebrated Dua Beh’s birthday at a restaurant, probably one of the better ones in town. There was just too much food and I had difficult finishing my share of each dish.

I still don’t know what this greenish pancake like dish was. It tasted starchy, sweet and is probably lightly fried. There’s quite a bit of oil on the surface.

We had what is called tau-kwa over in Singapore, except that the skin is thinner and the texture of the beancurd inside is much smoother. Very fine powdered sugar was sprinkled on top, just like the way Grandma used to put sugar on the tau-kwas we ate in Singapore. At moments like these, some of her eating habits started to make sense. Anyway, I thought the Singapore tau-kwa seemed like a imitation! The skin was thicker and the sugar more coarse! Well, it’s the best we’ve got and Grandma was just trying to recreate the tastes from her home in that faraway land.

Braised goose meat, a Teochew specialty, deserves special mention. I think we had goose meat for 3 out of the 4 meals we had there. All parts of the goose are eaten, including the liver, heart, intestines and coagulated blood (it tasted like beancurd). Braised foie gras, anyone? I had to get one of the ladies to explain the parts to me to get the goose anatomy right. Hope no goose was force fed.

Back at the apartment, and before we left, we had ang kueh, which I would clumsily describe as glutinous rice covered in a glutinous rice flour skin. It’s fried slightly before eating to produce slightly crispy skin and also to warm the contents. The ones we had were not as oily and less salty than those in Singapore.

We paid a visit to the market on our street tour of Cheng Hai on our last day there. Coming from the city, it’s easy for me to get squeamish about the slaughter of live birds in the market, before the buyers’ eyes. I noticed another implement which looked like a de-feathering machine, but I didn’t have the heart to stop for long to figure out how it worked.

The ancestral home

My father had been back to Shantou to visit his relatives, but he had never gone back to the village he lived in for the first 5 years of his life.

The clan originates from the Guan Shan Village (冠山乡) of Cheng Hai District (澄海区) in Shantou (汕头). Life had definitely got better in the past decades. Many of them had either moved to other provinces for work, got married and moved out, or moved to better apartments in Cheng Hai District. Some of the older folks still choose to maintain a home in the village, even though they are quite free to move into their children’s homes. After all, a middle-class home is quite spacious these days if there aren’t that many kids around.

It was a short drive to the village. We had to pass through not very well paved roads on the way there. City dwellers like my sis and myself were definitely quite fascinated by some of the rural sights, even though I’ve seen them in many other places.

Some of the village dwellers recognized my relatives. I think it was momentous afternoon for my father, for he had never set foot on that village since the day he left China. The village looked old and neglected. Along the way, I saw what looked like weaving machines spinning. Textile manufacturing is one of the main industries in the district.

Neglect could be desirable if one has an interest in historical artifacts. We found the rooms that Grandma used to sleep and cook in, the room that my father used to shower in, the well they used to get water from, faded black-and-white photographs of our relatives in their youths, and various other dusty corners stowed away in my father’s memories.

The now unused well they used to take water was conveniently situated near the shower room. I supposed people must have been remind of a certain well-known Chinese saying there and then.

We walked around what seemed like a labyrinth village, peering into rooms and hallways. It struck me that some living areas don’t have doors and people freely roamed through their neighbours’ places.

We also visited the ancestral hall, which houses the tablets of distant ancestors. A hall like that made sense in the days when extended families lived in the same few villages. With family members now resettling in different provinces and even different countries, how relevant is a place like this? In its lull state, it is mainly a humble-looking storage space, with folded up tables and stacked-up chairs, perhaps on stand-by for the next wedding or new year feast? Or, are they but remnants from the last occasion the entire village gathered?

We found the room that Grandma and my father used to sleep in. Fortunately, someone has the key to the now unused room. The room was quite dark when we were there, but I felt it was quite a moving moment for my father, who enthusiastically posed by the bed for photos, and asked Dua Beh to join him. It was a rather typical piece of furniture of that era made for commoners.

My aunt happened to have a home in the village which she stays in sometimes. If I recall correctly, she moves between her village home and her son/son-in-law’s place. Compared those of the other villagers, her home looks more well-furnished, with more properly tiled floors, properly painted walls and more modern furniture.  With our tour done, we emerged from the other end of the village back to the court where the cars were parked, and posed for group photos.

The visit was a significant one for my father. He at least has lingering images of his childhood in those old corners and rooms. He had been speaking about returning to the hometown for many years, and that day, he saw his wish realized. And maybe he also felt he ought to share that moment with us, which was his reason for doing this visit this time round. I was, of course, much less affected, if at all. It was not a time and era that I could related to. The place is part of my family’s history, but as I stepped on the grounds of my ancestral home, I felt I was little more than a photographer looking out for angles and shots worth committing to my collection.

DIVERSION!

House visits are obligatory, especially larger and better furnished ones. After the village visit, we made a detour to one of my cousin’s factory. I might have heard about him from Grandma, who in my vague memories, mentioned that a relative had started a factory in China and was doing quite well. That day, we visited his toy-manufacturing factory. To be precise, it was more of an assembly plant. He bought parts and assembled them for export and sale. The plant was situated in a rural area and he led us around the assembly floors. It was a Saturday and we saw less than 10 workers fitting parts together in very repetitive motions. My rather down-to-earth and soft-spoken cousin scooped a bagful of the same toys and insisted that we bring them home for souvenir! It was too much of a hassle for us to bring them onto the plane, so we had to refuse. Eventually, we had to accept just two pieces. Let’s just say I’m way too overaged for the toys, and so are my other cousins in Singapore.

The “wow” moment came after that. We were led up to the higher floors of the factory, where his home is. The floor area must have been at least 2000 or 3000 square feet, a luxury for the typical middle-class folk in Singapore, even those who live in the smaller landed properties. The lower floor was for the kitchen, dining area and living room, while the upper floor was for the bedrooms (I counted at least five). He has three children, each aged 20, 17 and 15, and he has a room for each of them. Quite excited by our presence, his wife took a stone word carving on display and insisted that we accept it (it would bust our cabin baggage allowance). We also had to accept boxes of premium grade tea. Coming from Singapore, and therefore being easily awed by spacious homes, I forgot all about taking photos. We left for Dua Beh’s home not longer after, so we could take a break before his birthday dinner.

With an export-favoured exchange rate, low labor cost, fast turnaround time and low living costs, there are many more of such factories in China.

Shantou, China and relatives

Shantou, also known as “Swatow” in the Teochew language, is a coastal city near the border of Guangdong and Fujian provinces. To be precise, the paternal side of my family originates from the Cheng Hai (澄海, or teng hai in Teochew) District of Shantou. My late paternal grandfather is our common connection to our relatives in China. His first wife unfortunately passed away at a rather young age, leaving behind children who were to become my half-uncles and aunt. Subsequently, he took a second wife, who become my grandmother. As the story typically goes, conditions were difficult in China in those days, and many had to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Various parts of South-east Asia became popular migration choices for the peasants of southern China.

My father is my grandmother’s first child. Together with my grandfather, the three of them left Shantou for Singapore in the 1950s, leaving my half-uncles and aunt behind in Shantou. My father was only 5 years old at that time. As time went on, my grandfather’s brood rooted themselves in different lands, and those in Singapore became the only members of my father’s extended family that I was aware of. Grandmother had a total of four sons. Grandfather’s income wasn’t enough for the family of six, so my grandmother had to work to make ends meet. What they had left of their income was remitted to China to “help the folks back home”. I had vague memories of my grandmother packing clothes to send back home when I was much younger. My father mentioned that things were so hard to come by in China during those days that we even had to send cooking oil back! That’s not to suggest that life in Singapore was very much easier either!

We met up with my half-cousin and his wife the day we returned from Macau. He left Shantou for Hong Kong in his twenties, probably for the same reasons Grandma left her hometown. He had since settled down with his family in Hong Kong and obtained Hong Kong citizenship. He spoke Teochew and Cantonese, so I wasn’t able to keep up conversations with him. Anyway, the same goes for my other relatives in Shantou who spoke mainly Teochew. I was meeting him for the first time and he didn’t look his age at all. I would have thought he is in his forties, but he is in fact in his fifties, and has a daughter just slightly older than my sister, who’s in her early twenties.  It find it really hard and odd to address him as an older sibling, or “ah gor”, as Teochews would say. He, however, had no difficulties calling my sister and I “ah muay” and “ah di”. My father was in touch with him more frequently than most other relatives in China, so he became the most immediate connection to that other extended family that I’d never met.

We had to wake up early the next morning to catch the bus to Shantou. My cousin and his wife came along with us for another special occasion. Previously unknown to us, my father’s eldest brother (we would address him as Dua Beh, or 大伯) was going to celebrate his 80th birthday that one night we were staying over! Few things get more coincidental than this. We were going to stay over at Dua Beh’s apartment for a night before heading back to Hong Kong.

The bus took the coastal highway and reached the bus terminal at Shantou after a 6 hours’ journey. Dua Beh himself, together with a few of my uncles and cousins were there to send us to Dua Beh’s apartment in their cars. They had planned to spend time with us over the weekend and were clearly very excited to see us. My two cousins (both probably in their 50s) drove us to Dua Beh’s apartment, where we were to stay for the night. Their conversations were not so hard to catch, so I thought on my way to the apartment. The Teochew language was familiar to me, having spoken it with Grandma when she was still around. I can still understand most of it, even though I’ve lost my ability to speak the language fluently. I find it really exotic to hear it spoken freely, by the young and old, on the streets of China in lieu of Mandarin. How would one, for example, discuss current affairs and the economy in Teochew? How would one date a girl in Teochew?

Dua Beh’s apartment was really spacious. 150 square metres, or about 1600 square feet, I was told. It has 3 rooms and comes with storage and balcony areas. Public housing don’t get so generous in Singapore anymore.

Even though we arrived rather late in the afternoon, lunch was kept warm and ready for us. Dua Beh’s wife and my father’s elder sister were waiting for us at home. It was apt in a very Chinese way that we were served tang yuan (汤圆), or glutinous rice balls, which symbolizes reunion (团圆). The Teochew variety is sweet and without any filling, just like the ones Grandma used to make for winter solstice (冬至). They are quite unlike those we get in the food stalls back in Singapore, which come with fillings of various flavours such as peanut, yam, red bean or green tea. Lunch consisted of at least 5 dishes and I think there was pork and goose meat?

Our trip was short and we wasted no time. We were all packed into two cars and driven off to the old village of Guan Shan (冠山乡), our ancestral home, for a quick visit.

Macau in less than a day

The trip to Macau was for my Mum. I don’t think she had any memories of her birthplace, but I’m sure she would have loved to revisit the spot. Clues to the location were provided by my maternal grandmother, now in her 80s. All she could recall of the place was the name of the street they had lived in, and the noodle-making shop near her home. Their previous dwelling place had been torn down for newer buildings, though the noodle-making shop is still there!

We took the last ferry for the day to Macau from the Hong Kong airport. It must have been about 11 at night when we reached the hotel which was situated in a neighbourhood of lower-end casinos. My first visual impression of Macau was like that of any other major cities. There were tall buildings that looked like offices and brightly decorated shopping malls that any city boasting a vibrant night-life should have. No, those were mostly casinos.

We headed out for supper at a small restaurant located in a rather shady lane after depositing our bags in our room. The streets were filled with pawnshops for the convenience of gamblers who needed quick cash. These joints are easily identified by their three-character signboards, which would say “X X 押”. Looking down, namecard-sized cards littered the alleys — most of them showed pictures of female models in compromising attires. As we walked down the mostly empty streets, the three of us — father, son and daughter — looked rather out-of-place there and then.

The casinos open 24-hour, and so do the eating places. The vegetable, soup and congee we ordered were very comforting after a long journey. The price was reasonable too, even though the restaurant’s patrons would be used to splurging astronomical sums at the casinos. The tables were occupied by groups of Mandarin-speaking (it could be some other Chinese dialect) gambler-tourists as we ate. I overheard someone mention that they had spent “a few millions” the previous night.

After supper, my father suggested that we visit The Venetian, one of the newest casino built on an island south of the Macau peninsula. I haven’t been in a casino, but I also wasn’t very interested in visiting one. I find the gambling phenomena really repugnant and pointless. After taking a walk through the smoky gambling floor filled by tourists of various colours, we left in a taxi which sped across the impressive bridge that links the island of temptations to the mainland. It was past midnight and we ought to take a rest.

The next morning, we visited the street Mum used to live. The taxi driver was slightly puzzled with our destination and wondered why any tourist would want to be there early in the morning. Rua Da Tercena, or 果欄街 (roughly pronounced as gor lam gai in Cantonese) was a street in what looked like an older section of town, with its narrow carriageways and pavement tiles quite reminiscent of parts of Lisbon. According to this article from CNN, the street had been around for at least a century. In its earlier days, it was home to many antique dealers but fell into neglect in recent years, no thanks to overriding government interests in the casinos. That morning we went, most of the shops were either closed or looking abandoned, but we got lucky…

The taxi driver dropped us off at almost exactly the spot where the noodle-making shop was. By a stroke of good fortune, the shop was open for business. We bought packets of Grandma’s favourite 虾子面 (ha zai mein – shrimp noodle) and took pictures of the shop’s vicinity. I spent a few moments taking in the sights of the street and wondered if Mum had any memories of the place, or if she, as a 3 year-old toddler, realized she was leaving her birthplace for good the day they boarded the ship for Hong Kong. We posed for photos with the shop’s owner, an elderly gentleman probably as old as Grandma, before moving on.

With our top priority task behind us, the rest of our time was spent on standard tourist fares. We visited the relatively well-funded facade of the Ruins of St Paul (colloquially known as 大三巴, or dai sam ba in Cantonese), went up the fortress (Fortaleza do Monte) for a view of the city, visited the Macau Museum, and bought local foodstuff.

Then it was time to head back to Hong Kong. Macau’s famous for the pork bun (猪扒包) and Portuguese egg tart and we decided to give them a try at the ferry terminal. The pork bun looked simple and no-frill and I really enjoyed it. It was nothing more than a piece of grilled pork sandwiched in between crusty toasted pieces of bread. Can we find it in Singapore?

Over lunch, I was listening in, from time to time, to the people at the next table. Gamblers again. I think it was a group of four men and women who came with a tour group. Speaking in Mandarin, some went on about how they had spent hundreds of thousands of renminbis at the casinos. I doubt if they won anything. Besides, winning probably wasn’t the point. What’s important was that folks back home know that they have been to Macau, and that could well afford to while away those hundreds of thousands of yuans at the casinos. As they left the table, they also left behind mostly uneaten plates of food. Well, what’s a little food wastage if heaps of cash worth many magnitudes more had been splurged at the casinos?

I don’t know what to feel about Macau. I’m rather disgusted with the many casinos that flourish uninhibited in the city, attracting compulsive gamblers whom I hold much disdain for. On the other hand, my memories of Mum will be entangled with a certain quiet lane there.

Back to the roots

As I’d told my friends, it was a trip I didn’t expect. I thought North Korea would be my last trip overseas this year, so I wasn’t really in the mind for travel. Not much research was done — not that it’s needed anyway, given the short time I would spend at my destinations.

Mum had passed away recently, and we got to know from my father that it was one of her last wishes that we visit her birthplace in Macau. She came to Singapore with Grandma when she was only 3 years old and I don’t she had ever been back there. It was a trip we — my father, sister and myself — undertook for her. Better now than later.

On top of that, my father wanted to take the chance to visit his ancestral home in Shantou, China. He too, had come to Singapore at a very young age, but he still holds memories of his old home. Rather untypically, my father’s side of the family extends over China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Well, my paternal grandfather actually had two wives when he was still in China. The first had passed away at a rather young age. My grandmother, his second wife, migrated to Singapore in the 1950s with my father in hand. The off-springs of my grandfather’s first wife remained in China, while those of his second wife grew up in Singapore. I only saw my grandfather from photographs — he passed away before I saw the world. Consequently, I now have half-cousins who are very much older than I am. In fact, almost all of them are married with children (my half-nephews and half-nieces) who are about as old as my sister and myself!

My itinerary was all planned out for me, so I didn’t have much to do before the trip. We would fly to Hong Kong and take a ferry to Macau where we stayed for a night. After visiting the street where Mum used to live, we would return to Hong Kong, meet up with my half-cousin and his wife, and then leave for Shantou the following day. We would stay at my oldest half-uncle’s place in Shantou for a night before returning to Hong Kong where we would catch our flight back to Singapore. A lot of it was quite touch-and-go.

Flight to Pyongyang

There are only a few points of entry to the hermetic country. One can either travel by air via China or Russia, or cross the bridge over Yalu River by rail. We flew on a night flight on Air China to Beijing, which messed up my sleep cycle.  The food was edible (by my standards) but not wonderful. I was reading the Chinese papers (brought in from China), chatting with elderly couple seated beside me, and finally trying to get to sleep.

I arrived at Beijing the next morning feeling sleep-deprived. The alcohol didn’t help. Was it a 6 or 8-hour flight? The shops were mainly closed at that hour and we had a 6-hour wait for our next flight ahead of us. Eventually we found an Air China lounge that had everything we wanted, and more. There were comfortable beds and shower facilities. Food was free flow, so we had our breakfast and lunch there. I didn’t sleep very deeply, but it was a good rest nevertheless. It rained quite heavily as I was sleeping and I later heard the announcement that a plane had to be delayed because it was struck by lightning (ouch). I wondered if we were able to take off for Pyongyang. The food was free-flow, and I sampled the beef noodle, peach (it was good!), ice-cream, instant noodle and dim sum. The chilli-flakes soaked in chilli-oil was particularly memorable. I had to gorge myself on good food while it was free and available, in case I saw no more of it in North Korea. I took a quick shower before we left for the boarding gate.

The gate was at the end of the terminal. Perhaps it was a route not flown very frequently? I got a window seat on the Air China flight to Pyongyang. North Koreans were beginning to make their presence felt as we noticed a few men on the plane who wore Great Leader badges.

I was glad the flight was only about an hour or so, for leg room was limited. The plane flew in a southerly direction, and some of us could probably tell where China ended and North Korea began from the amount of economic activity on the ground. What looked like densely situated warehouses, factories and homes gave way to a pristine, hilly and untouched landscape. The North Korean landscape is quite beautiful from the air.

The flight landed safely, but it took more than 10 minutes to taxi to the airport! As we were queuing up for our turn at the customs, we noticed people who carried what looked like a “North Korea diplomatic passport”, a document only the very privileged in the country could ever dream of carrying. Our bags then got checked at the X-ray machine. The guard requested to see the contents of my bag which contained electrical plugs and adaptors, but that was about it.

I surrendered my cell-phone at the customs and began my week-long hiatus from the rest of the civilized world.