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(How NOT to) Go to Guizhou: the Hidden Beauty of China

“Go to Guizhou, the Hidden Beauty of China,” the TV advised me.

“No thanks mate – I already did, and it was kinda shit,” I replied.

I was sat in my Airbnb in Taipei, doing some work with the TV on in the background, half-watching a CNN panel pissing their pants about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s latest scandal. The frequent salvos of advertising that seem to make up half of CNN’s airtime were at that time pushing this ‘Go to Guizhou’ ad hard, bombarding their viewers with images of beautiful limestone karst formations stretching away into the mist and tiered waterfalls tumbling down cliffsides into emerald pools; colourfully dressed Zhuang or Yao villagers were shown giving performances of traditional music & dancing or serving up the local specialties; lush rice terraces were shown cascading down hillsides into dramatic river canyons.

(The video embedded above isn’t the CNN ad, but definitely contains some of the same footage so I’m guessing is the work of the same organisation)

It really did look like an amazing place on the screen – and to be fair, from what little I’d actually managed to see of it in the flesh a few months earlier, it really was that beautiful. But my own trip through Guizhou en route from Sichuan & Chongqing to Yunnan (and on to Southeast Asia) had proven to be a frustrating endeavour, the beauty mostly seen only through rain-spattered bus windows.

I’d arrived in Chengdu from the Tibetan Plateau after a failed attempt to visit Lhasa and points beyond, and was aiming for Laos and Thailand; this involves travelling via Kunming, provincial capital of Yunnan, and would usually suggest a backpacking route through Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to get there. But I’d done that route before, and was looking to see something new; a dogleg route through Guizhou, one of China’s most overlooked corners (by foreign visitors and the rest of China alike) seemed like an interesting alternative.

So from Chengdu I’d revisited Chongqing (it was fascinating to see it again almost a decade after our hilarious hotpot experience there, to see how much it had changed yet somehow stayed the same), and then left Chongqing on the train to Guiyang (provincial capital of Guizhou); this was the old, slow type of train, with some lovely views as it trundled along river canyons and past looming mountain ranges. It was blissfully quiet for most of the 9-hour journey, until we stopped somewhere about 2 hours north of Guiyang where the train picked up a full complement of passengers. It got dark then too, making those last 2 hours pretty dull and uncomfortable (though hardly the worst journey I’ve experienced in China), so it was nice to finally arrive in Guiyang.

To the rest of China, the province of Guizhou is synonymous with the twin scourges of excessive rain and excessive poverty, the most backward part of the country’s backward interior, as boonies as it gets. Yet in Guiyang I found myself in a city as presentable as any other provincial capital in China, if not more so than most, and one that seems to have avoided the worst of the environmental carnage going on elsewhere; certainly not the most exciting of places, but I found it to be friendlier and more likeable than most big Chinese cities.

That said, it’s still a dirty great city mostly consisting of faceless concrete blocks, and it was Guizhou’s natural attractions I was keen to see, so I just stayed in Guiyang for a couple of nights to work out what I was doing – I stayed at Shu Hostel which is a decent place, and the manager (or owner maybe, I wasn’t sure) was a great source of information.

The province of Guizhou covers an area roughly the size of Cambodia, so there’s obviously far too much to see in just a quick run through; I figured I’d just pick one area to stop off and check out for a couple of days between Guiyang and Kunming.

Guizhou’s attractions are many, both natural and man-made; the mountains, limestone karst, river canyons, lakes and waterfalls provide great natural beauty, and the many hill tribe villages have become the focus of “heritage-based tourism”.

These sights are spread across the province, but those lying roughly along my route to Kunming were Huangguoshu Waterfall (near Anshun, a couple of hours outside Guiyang), and the Maling River Canyon and Wanfenglin Scenic Area of karst cones (both near Xingyi, roughly halfway between Guiyang and Kunming).

Huangguoshu looks stunning – it’s China’s largest waterfall and Guizhou’s most famous attraction, and is apparently well set up for tourist visits with accommodation options in Anshun and good transportation connections from there. I should really have gone there first, then on to Xingyi, but I was on a tight budget and in a bit of a rush so opted to head directly to Xingyi – I was more interested in Maling Canyon & the limestone karst than I was in Huangguoshu falls, plus Xingyi is roughly equidistant from Guiyang and Kunming, making it an obvious place to break the journey being around 4 hours from each – at least, in theory…

But, of course, ‘in theory’ and ‘in reality’ are two different things. The bus trip from Guiyang to Xingyi was fine, bar the absurdly inconvenient location of Guiyang’s long-distance bus station out on the edge of the city – a common strategy for newer bus stations in China, to reduce inner-city congestion. A sensible system and it’ll work fine once the Guiyang subway extends out there, but until then it involves a long bus ride and is a bit of a pain in the ass!

The fun & games really got started though once I arrived in Xingyi; as had happened two weeks earlier in Xining, I fell foul of China’s longstanding but until recently unenforced laws requiring hotels to have special foreigner licences. Traipsing through the cold evening (it was November and Xingyi is a thousand metres above sea level) from hotel to hotel around whatever bus station it was I’d been dropped off at (I really wasn’t sure where I was, and couldn’t get online) I was repeatedly turned away, until finally the front desk staff at one of them asked me to take a seat while they made a call.

So I took a seat for ten minutes, glad to be in out of the cold and next to a heater, and got a bit of a surprise when a PSB van turned up; three burly armed cops demanded my passport and told me to get in the van. What the living fuck?! Is this me disappearing into Chinese detention for a spot of ‘correctional treatment’, culminating in a forced TV apology for my democratic ways? Well, no, probably not; I hadn’t been up to any political agitating. But I wasn’t too keen to get in a PSB van without knowing what was going on; the cops spoke no English, and the hotel guy spoke just a little more. But that was enough for him to say the PSB were there to help me, and there didn’t seem to be anything else for it, so I got in the van. They then drove me miles across town to the Xingyi Yike Hotel, which was, as had been the case in Xining, a far pricier place than I was intending to stay at. I had no idea if there were any other cheaper hotels where I’d be allowed to stay though, and in any case these PSB guys weren’t going anywhere until they’d seen me check in, so I just had to suck it up and pay. As it turns out, if you check Hotels Combined for Xingyi there’s actually a decent number of options in town – 7Days Inn is a good bet if you’re trying to keep costs down; there are also a few options in Wanfenglin, so that’s probably the best place to stay if you’re there for the scenery.

Not only was it painful to pay that much for a room, it stuffed up my plans for visiting Maling Canyon and Wanfenglin the following day as I was now nowhere near the bus station, and the poor English at the front desk (and my poor Chinese) meant I couldn’t work out the local transportation from the hotel, other than to just take taxis everywhere. Given that I’d just blown way more than I wanted on accommodation, and would have to do so for two more nights to check out both scenic areas or one more night to check out just the canyon, it all started to seem like it wasn’t worth it; in the end I decided to be satisfied with having seen Guizhou’s karst through the bus window, and having snatched a glimpse of Maling Canyon from the highway when the bus had crossed the Malinghe Shankun Bridge the previous evening, and so I checked out and, thus defeated, headed for Kunming.

My photos from this journey are virtually unusable, snapped through bus windows on a broken camera, but here’s a couple which at least give an idea of the spectacular scenery:

Scenery in Guizhou — Limestone karst along the highway

Speaking of bridges, check out this list of the world’s highest bridges – of 91 bridges on the list, fully 40 are in Guizhou, and of the 33 on the ‘under construction’ list, 15 are in Guizhou. Also give this video about the new Beipanjiang Bridge a watch:

That gives you some idea of how dramatic Guizhou’s scenery really is – definitely a place with sights to see, and no wonder it’s being pushed as a tourist destination… but then, it’s all well and good saying ‘Go to Guizhou’ and promoting it as a destination for international visitors when you don’t even allow most of the hotels in one of the main sightseeing areas to accept foreigners!

So anyway, having seen Guizhou’s beautiful mountains and canyons through the bus window, but not actually managed to visit any of them, I made for Kunming; fittingly though, even that proved harder than expected. The bus departed 30 minutes late, then with some major construction taking place on the highway we took some crazy back roads through the mountains, and it took several hours more than it should have; there was also a random change of bus, the passengers with all our luggage waiting on the dusty roadside for half an hour to be picked up (though this was actually something of a relief as the first bus had an absolute swarm of flies buzzing around inside, landing repeatedly on ears and noses). This all led to a very late arrival at Kunming’s East Bus Station (not yet connected to the city’s subway system), and I then had to deal with a bunch of shitbag taxi drivers trying to rip me off before managing to work out the bus to get downtown. To top the day off, the guy at the hostel had no idea about my reservation and I ended up in a crappy room with no hot water, just because. But that was just one of those days.

So, between the accommodation and transportation misfires, I didn’t have a great visit to Guizhou, though the massive potential for tourism in the province was obvious. I should also mention the region’s delicious cuisine, which is very spicy and also very diverse due to the ethnic diversity; the street snacks in the market were awesome. The people are also kind & friendly – shout-outs to the guy I chatted to on the train who pointed me the right way at Guiyang Station, and to the random girl who stepped in to help me flag a taxi in Xingyi just as my blood was starting to boil.

Had I had more time to be flexible / a bigger budget / done my research better and booked ahead, things would’ve gone better, sure, but I was travelling on the fly after other plans failed to work out and, at least for the time being, Guizhou isn’t as easy as other parts of China for winging it. What I will say for sure is that it’s a gorgeous place, and were it a country in its own right I reckon it’d be world-famous for being a beautiful one. Hopefully the accommodation situation will improve over time (including more options for budget travellers), and once the transportation catches up with eastern China it’ll be much easier to get to and around Guizhou. Until then, perhaps the best way to visit Guizhou (or Xingyi, at least) is by train from Kunming, and do a cycle tour of the area – like these guys did

Though you probably won’t have to wait long for the transportation to improve; shortly after I passed through Guizhou the new bullet train line opened from Guiyang to Kunming – too late for me to use, but could be helpful for you (not to mention everyone who lives there). Guiyang is also already connected by bullet train to Guangzhou and Shanghai, with another line north to Chongqing under construction. Update: the Guiyang-Chongqing line opened in early 2018, cutting the travel time from 9 hours to 2h15m.

According to this Wikipedia entry on the new Zhaozhuang Bridge, Xingyi is also getting a metro system – this should make things much easier for checking the area out. Furthermore, I guess that by the time most people ever read this, the Xingyi – Kunming highway which my bus couldn’t go on will be spick & span and in service, and Kunming’s Line 3 should have opened (it was supposed to open in June 2017 Update: it opened in August 2017) to connect the East Bus Station to the rest of the system, and the journey from Xingyi to Kunming will be a breeze.

Such is China in the early 21st Century; the gleaming tendrils of the high speed rail system feeling their way out to the darkest corners of the interior, new highways burrowing through mountainsides and soaring across canyons, China building and blasting and paving its way with concrete. Travel there at this point in time is often still very frustrating, especially in the interior which can sometimes feel like going a decade back from the coast, but even when it doesn’t go to plan it’s always fascinating.

So, yeah, Guizhou is indeed the ‘Hidden Beauty of China’, and if you have time for something extra between, say, Yunnan and Yangshuo, perhaps you should consider going. Just be prepared for possible frustrations, and have a flexible enough schedule & budget to deal with them.

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A Near Miss With One of Thailand’s Deadly Rich Kids

Southeast Asia, Thailand, Travel tales

Bangkok traffic: Thai driving is some of the deadliest on Earth — Bus, car, tuk tuk, bike: survival of the biggest? (photo credit: see below)

So there I was, bottle of Singha in hand, strolling along the street through On Nut (a suburb of Bangkok) towards the Skytrain station to go meet friends, when this car brushed past me – a matter of millimetres from connecting – angled off the road, and crumpled itself into first the lamppost and then the wall directly in front of me. Had he been an inch further over, or had I been one second further ahead, I would’ve been squashed very much between a car and a hard place.

This was one of those typical roads which make up the capillary system of suburban Bangkok; not the wide thoroughfares which compose the major arteries, not the alleys of central Bangkok with their houses and shop fronts opening to the street (and, accordingly, high foot traffic and – one would hope – therefore more careful driving), but a narrow road between the high outer walls of housing developments, very much for the favour of suburban drivers rather than those on foot.

Fact is, like pretty much all major SE Asian cities, most of Bangkok outside the downtown core just isn’t a very walker-friendly place; but I am very much a walker, someone who likes walking here, there, and everywhere, and started out trying to do so when I first moved to Bangkok. This was in the winter months, when the relatively cooler and drier weather makes walking (just about) bearable – in the months of the hot season (March to May) and wet season (June to October), the idea of walking any real distance in Bangkok is mental!

But living there in the cooler months, I fancied I could try walking a bit – at least for the couple of miles to the Skytrain station, instead of taking a songthaew or a sketchy motorbike ride. The songthaews get horribly packed, they get snarled up in traffic, and they leave you breathing all the fumes; the bikes are way faster and more comfortable (and more expensive), but I just don’t like getting on bikes in SE Asia… the drivers all have helmets, but you don’t get one as a passenger… and I’ve seen an accident in Vietnam and an accident’s aftermath in Cambodia, and you ain’t getting me on a bike.

Anyway, much as I may love Bangkok, I quickly learned that even with decent weather walking can be pretty unpleasant in the Thai capital; the roving packs of soi dogs can be outright dangerous (and the guard dogs in peoples’ gardens are also thoroughly obnoxious as you pass), the waterways you cross smell utterly foul, the suburban bushes are overflowing with garbage, and, as I experienced that evening, walking puts you in the line of fire of some of the shittiest driving on the planet.

As I walked along that narrow road with no sidewalk I kept myself between the drain and the wall, as you do, the small space which serves somewhat as a pedestrian walkway. As you walk along there, the cars are passing perhaps two feet from you, so it’s pretty close already; all it takes is for someone to fall asleep at the wheel, be a drunk-driving piece of shit, or somehow or other lose control and drift over slightly, and you could find yourself directly in their path.

I guess this guy who missed me by a whisker in his shiny sports car (not so shiny any more, dickhead – ha!) had dozed off perhaps fifty metres behind me as he drove along this straight stretch of road, and drifted over to his left; thus he angled off the road, just missed me, and wrecked his car right in front of me, right where I would’ve been walking a second later.

“Holy. fucking. shit!” pretty much sums up my immediate thoughts, followed by, roughly, “well, shit, this car just nearly killed me but now I’m the closest person to the scene of an accident and I guess it’s on me to help the occupants, if I can.”

I didn’t yet have a Thai SIM card in my phone so I couldn’t make an emergency call, but I could see a few people looking on from the 7-Eleven at the corner of a side street up ahead, and some were on their phones; so I just went to check on the car’s occupants, ready to (at least attempt to) recall and finally use some long-since-forgotten first aid training, if necessary.

But I wasn’t even sure who was in there, never mind their condition. If you spend some time in Thailand, you’ll notice that many cars drive around with blacked-out windows. This seems especially true of the cashed-up ‘high-so’ (high society) rich kids who drive around drunk in their daddy’s flash cars, and I now found myself looking at such a car, all smashed up and with steam venting profusely from the engine.

I couldn’t see in through the windows to check how may people were inside, so I just hurried round to the driver’s door, which was still operable – unlike the passenger side which was utterly mangled, as would have been any poor soul sat on that side.

Opening the door, I found the driver was thankfully the sole occupant, a local lad of perhaps 18; he appeared to be uninjured, so I asked him if he was ok… and the smell of hard liquor hit me square in the face. This fucking little dipshit smelled like a goddamn motherfucking whisky distillery, was clearly in no fit state to be behind the wheel, and had just only very narrowly not killed me. He looked blearily up at me through glazed and bloodshot eyes and mumbled something unintelligible; disgusted, I let rip with a torrent of the most colourful expletives I’ve possibly ever unleashed, which I doubt he comprehended a word of – even if the guy did speak English he was too shitfaced drunk to do so at that point in time.

Obviously, if this had been the UK or Canada or Japan, I would’ve stuck around to give the police a statement and tell them that this stupid little prick just almost killed me. But it occurred to me that if I did so that evening, in that city, I might just be making things worse for myself; you can’t exactly trust the police when you’re in a military dictatorship (even one like Thailand which at least outwardly looks somewhat functional), and if this kid was indeed the son of a rich and powerful family he could very likely wriggle his way out of any real consequences anyway – as have so many of Thailand’s ‘deadly rich kids‘.

So did I really want to go through any ballache dealing with the police and the bureaucratic nightmare that might result? I decided not, and hastened away from the scene, leaving this drunk-driving douchebag still sat in the driver’s seat of his expensive wreckage; a short time later I heard the wail of sirens, and hopefully the police found him still sat there and he was appropriately punished. Even if not, he’d just written off an expensive vehicle and I like to think he at least learned a lesson from the resulting financial consequences, or preferably from being ripped a new one by his old man.

So I continued on my way to meet friends in Asok, and told them over beers about my lucky escape; they shared their own stories of the many accidents they’d witnessed in Thailand, mostly involving bikes and scooters. And in the mere four months I lived in Bangkok, I went on to see another three accidents (all involving bikes), but thankfully nothing too serious.

A crashed bus in Bangkok — Found this crazy shot on Flickr! Hopefully no-one was seriously hurt (photo credit: see below)

Looking the stats up, Thailand has the 2nd-highest per capita road fatality rate in the world, behind only Libya. It’s actually quite odd – Thailand is wealthier and more developed than the neighbouring countries of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, and has far better infrastructure, but yet manages to have a much worse road safety record. Surely this is something their government should be trying harder to rectify, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be a priority. Have a read of this sobering BBC report, and check out this amazing video about Bangkok volunteers who spend their time taking care of deceased traffic victims, with the utmost respect and dignity; truly, truly, very impressive people, but why are volunteers even required to do that? Sort your shit out Thailand (if you’re not too busy jailing people for writing Facebook posts and the like)

So anyway, what does this mean for a traveller to Thailand, and SE Asia as a whole? Well, personally I’ll always take a metered taxi instead of a tuk tuk or moto (air conditioning, windows, and metered fare vs rip-off with traffic fumes in your face – already no contest before you even consider which one comes out worse in a collision), and you will never, ever catch me renting a motorbike or scooter in Thailand or anywhere else in SE Asia. Or in fact anywhere else at all, for that matter, because I don’t have a scooter licence and I know that means my insurance wouldn’t cover me in the event of an accident.

The best way to not be in a bike accident is, of course, to simply not rent a bike; but if you do, make sure you’re actually insured to do so – something which requires you to have a proper licence. If you’re not, and you have an accident, and it’s serious, you’re basically fucked.

You also won’t catch me taking any (more) night buses in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, etc – I have done so on a number of occasions, especially in Indonesia where distances can be huge (think one driver for two days straight, sleeping only at meal stops – as I experienced during a pretty terrifying journey on the Trans-Sumatra Highway, though at least it led to me learning to appreciate Led Zeppelin), but you know, it just isn’t worth it. Crashes do happen, and the night buses can be pretty shitty experiences even when they arrive safely.

And of course you may very well be in an accident through no fault whatsoever of your own – so again, make sure you have decent insurance. Check out World Nomads as they offer flexible travel insurance which you can purchase even after you’ve already left your home country – I once found out how important that bit of small print can be when my camera got pickpocketed (which was, in fact, another lesson I learned in Bangkok!)

Just a week or so after my near-miss with a drunk-driver, I got bitten by a dog… at that point it seemed like Bangkok was trying to tell me something, and though I stuck around a while longer I stopped walking to the Skytrain and I was already making plans to move back to my beloved Taipei. Bangkok remains one of my favourite cities to visit, but I doubt I’ll go back to live there again!

Any stories or questions about Thailand’s roads? Leave me a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Photo credits 1:Pedro Alonso 2:Walter Lim (both via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

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Dog Bites Man: on soi dogs, getting bitten, and rabies shots in Bangkok

Southeast Asia, Thailand, Travel tales, Wildlife

Bitten in Bangkok

Khao San Road, circa 3am… (and this is not the first story I’ve told on these pages that picks up at that time & place!) …my Canadian buddy’s waiting for me in the street while I pop in to a bar to grab us two more beers and make use of their restrooms.

(drinking in the street on Khao San, toilets are an issue; you have to use the (paid, shitty) public toilets, pay to use a hotel’s, or, best, pop into a cheap bar to take a leak and grab takeout beers… guys can also pee in alleyways of course, but that’s running a high risk of being cornered by a pack of ladyboys… happened to me once and I only narrowly escaped!)

Heading back out to rejoin him and resume whatever political debate we’d been in the middle of, I suddenly felt the most unexpected of sensations – a set of sharp teeth sinking themselves into my Achilles tendon… this fucking little bastard dog just ran up out of nowhere, unseen and completely unprovoked, and got stuck straight into the back of my leg!

I shook it off, and when it gathered itself to lunge again I aimed a kick at its face, which didn’t connect but caused it to back off. At this point, the owner of the bar intervened – very much on the dog’s side! The mangy little mutt didn’t look like anyone’s pet, but she was obviously fond of it and told me to leave it alone.

Me leave it alone? Haha… I was most definitely not the aggressor here!

Fact is, Thailand unfortunately has an issue with street dogs, or soi dogs (soi is the Thai word for alley); living rough on the streets and forming into packs as wild dogs do, they have tough lives. It’s awful to see animals living in lousy conditions like that, but that’s not the only issue. They can also be really sketchy, sometimes outright aggressive, and human fatalities do occasionally occur directly from dog attacks, and more frequently from rabies contracted from dog bites.

As much as I pity the soi dogs, they also shit me right up; though this was the first time I’d actually been bitten, this wasn’t the first run in I’d had…

Territorial Soi Dogs in Ayutthaya

On my first visit to Bangkok, my buddy Danny and I took a day trip up to Ayutthaya; as we got off the boat across the river from the station, a random dog snapped at Danny’s bare ankle, Danny just pulling his leg away in time. Totally unprovoked, and of course it makes you worry about rabies. A short time later as we walked to the ancient ruins, we rounded a corner to find a pack of seven or eight dogs straggled across the road; their ears pricked up and they all stood and took interest in us, and not in a friendly way judging from their body language. We turned back and found a different route.

Ayutthaya… cool place, but watch out for the soi dogs!

A Face Off with Two Soi Dogs on the Laos Border

A few years after that, when en route from Chiang Rai to Laos, I’d spent the night in the Thai border town of Chiang Khong (this was before the 4th Thai – Lao Friendship Bridge existed, and we hadn’t made it in time for the last boat over the Mekong); my beloved Leeds United FC were playing in the League One Playoff Final that day, and I went off in search of an internet cafe to follow the game (smartphones and wifi everywhere weren’t a thing yet). I totally failed to find an internet cafe though, and in fact the whole town was shuttered up for the night; but what I did find was a pair of stray dogs blocking my way back along the town’s only road.

Attempting to calmly pass them didn’t work; they jumped to attention, growling and snarling and adopting threatening postures. It seemed they’d attack if I got any closer, so I backed off and waited for them to hopefully lose interest or wander off.

But they stayed right there, so I tried to pass again by walking flush against the wall at the side of the street, giving them as wide a berth as possible; but they still wouldn’t let me pass.

I couldn’t see any other way around, but there was a pile of bricks at the side of the road. I picked up a brick in each hand, and decided I’d just call their bluff and walk past them; and if they actually attacked, I’d just have to fucking well bash their skulls in… or get ripped to shreds… even odds, perhaps; any more than two though and there’d have been no chance.

So, thus armed, I approached again; as they snarled and gathered themselves to lunge, I told them (as calmly as I could) to chill out and let me pass, and started walking through.

They snarled; they growled; and then they ran at me. This was it, they were actually attacking, I was in a fight to the death with two dogs… shit! I raised my right hand, brick at the ready, and shaped to smash it into the first dog as it leapt – and the dog slammed on the brakes, whimpered and yelped, and ran away with its tail between its legs, its companion following suit.

I guess they were as scared of me as I was of them; their threat display was menacing, but all it took was a threat display in return and they backed off. These dogs live hard lives, and have likely taken a kick or two before. And so, thankfully, I got back to my guesthouse unshredded (where I eventually learned (via SMS, I think) that Leeds United had lost the final).

Bangkok’s Soi Dog Problem

There are an estimated 8.5 million (Bangkok Post, via Wikipedia) to 10 million (Canadian Medical Association Journal) stray dogs in Thailand with 300,000 in Bangkok, 1 in 10 of which are estimated to have rabies. Dog attacks are a regular occurrence (I can’t find any full national statistics but according to the above CAMJ report, 1.3% of foreign visitors get bitten), occasionally severe enough to be fatal – and even if the wounds themselves aren’t severe, the victims sometimes get rabies and that is virtually always fatal.

By day, the soi dogs look positively wretched and pathetic, curled up in gutters and keeping a low profile; but come midnight when the road and foot traffic dies down and it’s dark, packs of soi dogs roam the streets and you don’t want to bump into them when they’re on the move with their tails up. Half a dozen growling dogs in a dark alley is seriously scary, even if they are skinny little things. Some people even carry weapons for just that reason.

It isn’t just the soi dogs that are scary in Thailand either; pet dogs very much double up as guard dogs, and walking through residential areas at night you’re constantly subjected to aggressive barking from the dogs in the houses you pass. It’s not so bad by day, but even then they’ll still sometimes give you a bit of verbals as you pass. The houses all have high walls and solid gates so it isn’t scary per se, but it’s extremely tedious and they don’t half scare the bejesus out of you sometimes when you’re not expecting it – what’s more, the barking of the house dogs attracts and excites any soi dogs in the area. Between the aggressive guard dogs and the roaming packs of soi dogs, I quickly learned to simply not walk around late at night.

In a perfect world, all of these poor animals would be rounded up, the rabid ones put down humanely, and the rest adopted and taken in by people who would show them a bit of love. Some lucky dogs do get adopted, but given that that’s not going to happen in anything like sufficient numbers what really needs to happen is a large-scale program to spay & neuter enough of the existing dogs to control the future population. The Soi Dog Foundation is a Phuket-based charity also active in Bangkok which runs adoption and spay & neutering programs; if you want to help, check out their website (and here’s the Wikipedia page for more background reading)

So anyway, back to Khao San Road; I’d just been bitten by this little shit that may or may not have been a pet, or perhaps semi-stray, and now the bar owner lady was giving me shit for not being happy about getting bitten!

Although it was a bit like adding insult to injury that she was having a go at me, it was actually a good thing from a rabies perspective. And that was the real issue – although the bite did hurt a bit it was only a small dog and I was wearing jeans and socks, so the wound was light. But a light wound is still enough for rabies transmission, and a rabies infection is a death sentence; if the animal is wild or stray, a full course of shots is required (usually 5 shots over a month) with the first within 24 hours of the bite.

But if the animal is known (e.g. someone’s pet), it helps as the animal can be observed – rabid animals are only contagious in the final days before death, so if the animal is still healthy 2 weeks after biting you, you’re in the clear. You still have to have a shot within 24 hours and a second a few days later, but the full course can be discontinued if the animal can be observed and confirmed healthy within the relevant timeframe.

So, while I didn’t appreciate the bar owner taking sides against me, at least it would help that the bar staff seemed to know this animal… or at least, it should have helped. But when I tried to ask about the dog’s health, where it lived or if it belonged to anyone, she got really defensive; when I persisted (politely) I was told to fuck off, right to my face, with a few guys appearing to back her up. Having seen some vicious beatings on Khao San in the past, I knew I had to just walk away and accept I’d need the full rabies course.

It did occur to me I could still report it to whatever body is responsible for dangerous animals and rabies in Bangkok (if indeed there is one), but it also occurred that the dog would likely then be destroyed, and I’d have made some enemies on Khao San Road – not a good idea when you live in Bangkok and drink on Khao San several times a month! And perhaps that’s why she got so defensive of the dog – she didn’t want it getting put down. Fair enough I suppose.

Hungover Sunday Hospital Visit for Rabies Treatment

So, anyway, there I am on Khao San, they’ve just told me to fuck off and pulled the shutter down to end the conversation, and my buddy has to leave soon anyway with an early morning flight to catch. So we finish those beers and call it a night, and I head home to deal with the bite. This means first thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the wound, then getting to a hospital within 24 hours for the first shot. As I got home at 4am, I decided to get some sleep after cleaning it, and head to hospital when I woke up.

Not how I like to spend my Sunday, especially when hungover! To make matters worse, the public hospitals close on Sundays so I had to fork out for a swanky private clinic (the Sukumvit Hospital next to Ekkamai Skytrain station, near where I was living at the time – yes, Sukhumvit is usually romanised with an ‘h’ in it, but the hospital styles itself without the h for whatever reason). I have to say it was top notch – the doctors and nurses were excellent and all spoke great English – but factoring in the consultation fee, a rabies shot, a tetanus shot, and some antibiotics, made it by far the most expensive night out I ever had in Thailand!

Fortunately (and to my surprise) they said the rabies vaccination I’d had many years earlier was still good, so I only needed two shots rather than the full 5 and this would be the same regardless of whether the dog could be observed or not, so no need to try checking back on it.

A few days later I went for the second shot at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University Hospital (near Victory Monument Skytrain Station), which was far cheaper but still gave exemplary service and care. The young doctor cracked a nice joke referencing Khao San’s reputation for crazy behaviour, asking if I was sure it was actually a dog that bit me?!

This actually happened in the same month that a drunk driver almost took me out when he totalled his sports car right in front of me… seemed like Bangkok was trying to tell me something! (and I took the hint – I moved back to Taiwan a short time later)

So anyway, a few injections and that was that. Not nearly as good a story as my Canadian friend who got savaged by a monkey in southern Thailand a few months before that and had to get all 5 shots – she was a good source of advice!

Should You Get the Rabies Vaccination Before Travelling?

So is it really worth getting the rabies vaccination in advance before you leave? Well, the shots are likely more expensive at home, but in the event of a bite you only need 2 shots, which will be far less disruptive to your trip than having to make 5 separate hospital visits! And on the one hand, only 1.3% percent of foreign visitors get bitten by dogs in Thailand; but then on the other hand, a whopping 1.3% percent of foreign visitors get bitten by dogs in Thailand! That works out as more than 400,000 tourists per year, which is quite a lot really (and that’s not even counting monkey bites).

One line of reasoning is not to get vaccinated in advance as, in the event you do get bitten, you can then claim the costs back on your travel insurance; this is probably fine so long as you’re never going to be more than 24 hours away from a clinic, you’re able to cover the cost of the full course until you can make your claim, and are prepared to accept the extra disruption to your trip of making five separate hospital visits. I always use World Nomads for my travel insurance, especially as I’m usually buying insurance on the go when I’m already overseas (which most travel insurance companies don’t allow – as I once found out the hard way when my camera got pinched in Bangkok); however, another thing to consider is that if you’re not vaccinated, in the case of severe bites they’ll also want to give you an immunoglobulin injection which a) may not be available outside major cities and b) sounds deeply unpleasant (it’s a big old injection, apparently), so take that into account too.

What to do if You Get Bitten

Firstly, clean the wound thoroughly with disinfectant, soap and water, or whichever of those you have available, and then seek medical attention – remember, the most crucial thing is to receive the first shot within 24 hours. If you’re somewhere remote like rural Laos, you need to get yourself to a large town with a decent hospital as pronto as possible.

As for the animal, if it’s possible to observe it for the next couple of weeks, and if there’s a relevant authority in the country you’re in, then it’s worth contacting them and possibly saving yourself having to do the full course of treatment; otherwise, you have to assume the worst and get the full set of shots.

For more detail, see here

Again, don’t forget to buy a good travel insurance policy! If you did leave home without one, World Nomads will still cover you.

And finally, if you want to help soi dogs in Thailand, here’s the link to the Soi Dog Foundation again.

Have you had any run-ins with soi dogs in Thailand? Been bitten? If you have any questions or stories, leave me a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Dog photo credits 1&3:Thai Dogs 2:nist6dh (all via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

On Khao San Road, late night beatings, and sticking your neck out

Southeast Asia, Thailand, Travel tales

Street party on Khao San Road — Khao San Road at night: lots of sketchy fun! (Photo credit: see below)

“That little fucker just tried to take my wallet!”

Not from what I’d seen… “You sure mate?” I replied, “looked to me like you just bumped into each other.”

We were drinking and dancing in the middle of Khao San Road at 3am, as you do, drunk on buckets and still chugging big bottles of Singha from the street stalls. I was with this Belgian guy called Albert I’d just met once previously (the week before), a friend of a friend who was living in Bangkok, and if I was a 6 on the drunk scale he was probably a 9; not quite a write-off, but too far gone to make much sense (or remember much later). We’d lost the other guys we’d been out with and were getting stuck in to the weird & wonderful zoo that is Khao San Road in the wee hours of a Saturday night.

This was a short time before the military took power in the 2014 coup d’etat, before they cracked down on the wildest elements of Khao San Road. Packs of predatory ladyboys prowled on the lookout for foreign tourists too drunk to notice a missing wallet, the party went on all night with no curfew enforced on alcohol sales or loud music, and there were a lot of drugs being taken – not so much by backpacker party addicts, but by the local kids.

The drug of choice was yaba, some sort of shitty amphetamine derivative (crystal meth, more or less) manufactured and smuggled in from Myanmar, and a lot of the local kids were on it, wild-eyed, sweating, and dancing like nutters.

On one occasion around that time, myself and a few others tried to help a girl who appeared to have had a bit too much yaba – her eyes rolled up into her head and we tried to stop her bashing her skull or swallowing her tongue while she had a seizure. The police from the station at the end of the street were absolutely fucking useless when asked to help; nasty stuff, and it definitely seemed to be causing a few problems.

The combination of drunk tourists (hailing from Europe to America, Japan to Brazil, all over the place) with the local party kids, the ladyboys, the hill-tribe ladies hawking their wooden frogs (and the colourful hats right off their heads), the heartbreaking sight of the street kids selling roses and ‘I ♥ DICK’ bracelets, and even the odd random hooker from Sub-Saharan Africa, made for some wild scenes on the street; a total zoo, sketchy for sure, and usually a lot of fun.

(It’s been a bit less mental since the military takeover and subsequent crackdown, but only relative to what it was before – it still qualifies as a madhouse by most measures!)

Bad taste fancy dress masks for sale on Khao San Road — Always a random touch (photo credit: see below)

I say it’s usually a lot of fun, because there are always victims – the Manchester lad who’d been robbed blind by a girl he took back to his room, the Canadian guys who’d had their passports swiped, the Korean girl who’d had her phone swiped. And the high energy atmosphere could sometimes turn sour in an instant; one time I saw a couple of backpackers running from a bunch of tuk tuk drivers who caught them down the street and gave them a short, sharp beating. On another occasion as I was sat with a Korean friend having late night street food a fight broke out just down the road between two groups of Thai kids; my friend went over to see what was happening, and the stall holder (who she was friends with) called her back, warning they might start shooting so she shouldn’t get too close (not that the stall would’ve been a much safer place had firearms been used). Then there was the time I saw a big American skinhead get into an argument with a stall holder; he threatened physical violence, with the result that he was subjected to exactly that. Within moments an entire crew of Khao San lads had descended on him and dished out a brutal 5-second pasting and then disappeared again just as quickly, just like that.

I love Thailand and the Thai people, but you simply do not fuck around with the locals there; sound practice anywhere really, but especially so in Thailand where verbal arguments can quickly become fatal confrontations if someone feels they’ve lost face, and on Khao San Road they’re very used to obnoxiously drunk foreigners and not shy about dealing with them vigilante style.

A busy bar on Khao San Road — Khao San Road, early evening (photo credit: see below)

So when my drunk Belgian mate bumped into a yaba’d-up local kid and got it into his head it was a pickpocket attempt, I tried to reassure him otherwise and change the topic whilst manoeuvring us away from the kid and his mates; any trouble and we would come out of it very badly. Unfortunately, these kids were high as anything and covering a lot of ground with their hyperactive dancing, and before we’d moved far enough away one of them bumped into my buddy again… “That’s it!” he snapped, “I’m not taking this shit!” and went to remonstrate.

So this Belgian guy drunkenly accused this mashed Thai kid of trying to steal his wallet; the Thai kid, high as a kite and with eyes bulging, insisted he’d done nothing. The kid actually looked mortified at the accusation, and I believed him; meanwhile his crew had gathered round, we were outnumbered 5 or 6 to 2 and were the ones causing the scene in the first place, and I urgently tried to persuade Albert to drop it.

“C’mon man, he’s just wasted and bumped into you, you’ve still got all your shit, right? Lets just go get another beer down the road,” I suggested, and he seemed to realise that was the best course.

But just as the situation appeared to be diffusing, Albert had a rush of blood and raised both hands to the kid’s face, middle fingers up in a pointblank double bird.

“Fuck. You!” he shouted, before turning and walking off.

“Shit,” I thought, “what happens now?”

In the space of a second I watched the kid’s face cycle from aggrieved innocence, to shock, to anger; he and his friends started shouting to each other and the other guys they knew on the street, and in moments there were a dozen of them, including one huge guy who emerged from the shadows somewhere who I think had been involved in battering the big American guy a week or two earlier, and now they were all picking up empty beer bottles and taking off after Albert.

“Fuck,” I thought, “they’re going to smear him into a red paste on the sidewalk, and I’m literally the only other person who knows it or has any possibility of preventing it.”

Shit, shit, shit… what to do? Do nothing, Albert gets fucked up; do something, maybe he doesn’t, or maybe I just get fucked up along with him… or maybe I get pasted in his place! He was the one being out of order (not badly enough to warrant getting bottled and headstomped, you might think, but in Thailand, for sure), and I don’t even really know the guy so am I really going to stick my neck out and risk a beating on his behalf?

But although this all flickered momentarily through my head, it wasn’t really a question; doing nothing wasn’t an option. I wasn’t sure what to actually do, but I had to do something…

So I sprinted after them, catching up a few seconds before they’d have caught Albert a short distance from the waiting taxis at the end of the street, and got round in front of them… and then what do I do?

I had no idea, so I just raised my palms and pleaded with them to let him go.

“Wait, wait, please stop,” I said, or words to that effect, and then turning to the big guy who seemed to be the leader, gave the deepest, most respectful wai I could or ever have (the wai is the Thai greeting where you place your palms together with the tips before your face; the lower you incline your head and the higher you raise your hands, the more respect you show).

I started explaining that the guy they were after thought someone was trying to steal from him but was completely drunk so made a mistake and accused the wrong person, but he cut me off with a question.

“Are you his friend?”

“Not really… I just met him once before… but I think he’s a good guy and he’s just too drunk tonight… if you let him go, next time I see him I’ll tell him he was wrong to say those things,” and I wai’d deeply again.

There was a bit more back and forth, the guy complaining about the insults Albert had given, me apologising profusely on his behalf, waiing repeatedly, and ending my English sentences with the humble Thai suffix khap.

Finally it all seemed to be up to the big guy, and the others (and myself) waited for his decision; I was effectively throwing myself on his mercy, and though I tried to hide it I was absolutely shitting my pants, bracing for a rain of bottles to the back of the head.

But the blows never came, and after the longest of seconds he finally let me off the hook.

“Okay, okay… there is no problem. But you,” he said, jabbing his finger in my chest, “you go home right now.”

“Okay, khap,” I said, and we moved away in opposite directions, me heading for my hotel round the corner on Soi Rhambuttri. I tried to find Albert on the way, but I guess he was already gone in a taxi, completely oblivious that he’d just come so close to a vicious beating or that I’d prevented it by practically prostrating myself to the local hard nut; in fact, he was probably still feeling angry about someone trying to pick his pocket, and perhaps even feeling pleased with himself for giving them a mouthful for it.

I never saw Albert again after that, and I left Bangkok a short time later. So I was never able to tell him, and to this day the way he probably tells it is that some little shit tried to steal his wallet and he told them to fuck right off… well… that is, if he even remembers it!

Moral of the story? Khao San Road’s a lot of fun, but watch out for yourself and others and absolutely don’t get into any aggro with the drivers, stallholders, and party kids (and make sure you’ve got good insurance). Show respect and you’ll receive it; show disrespect and you’ll likely get your head kicked in…

Got any Khao San Road stories? Leave a comment below!

For more Thailand posts, click here

Check out my Thailand overland travel guide

Photo credits 1&2:Filipe Fortes 3:NeilsPhotography 4:Ronald Tagra (all via Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence)

Leshan: Big Brawl at the Big Buddha

Chengdu, China, Travel tales

The Great Buddha of Leshan in China‘s Sichuan province is one of the largest statues in the world, 71 metres tall, and the largest stone Buddha. It can easily be visited as a day-trip from the nearby city of Chengdu, especially since the opening of the high speed rail line connecting the two cities; however, I was actually staying in the city of Leshan (乐山) for a few days while extending my tourist visa at the Leshan PSB (Public Security Bureau, 公安局, gonganju) i.e. the police. The Leshan PSB is known for being the easiest & friendliest PSB at which to extend your visa – this was certainly true in my experience.

So on my first full day, after visiting the PSB in the morning and submitting my documents to apply for the visa extension, I took the bus over to the Big Buddha in the afternoon. Visiting the PSB is usually something to dread – a week or so earlier I’d made the mistake of attempting an extension at the big PSB office near the Lama Temple in Beijing, which was a soul-destroying, hair-tearingly tedious (and futile) experience – but the Leshan PSB lived up to its reputation for friendliness. The officers there even smiled, which was quite astonishing. By contrast, the visit to the Buddha, itself so composed and serene, turned out to be rather stressful; an awful lot of people were visiting that day (this was during the Chinese holidays, and to get from Beijing to Sichuan I’d endured this journey), and as is often the case in China a certain proportion of them weren’t exactly watching out for others or being very patient or polite about things.

Such is life in China in the early 21st Century – queues are made to be pushed in front of, space exists to be filled (and if you leave any that’s your own fault), and others are often treated as inconvenient obstacles rather than people. Crowds can be stressful, and some of the people in them can be total bastards; but generally speaking this is merely tedious and annoying, something to either be put up with or perhaps to join in with (if you can’t beat them join them, fight fire with fire, etc). It isn’t usually dangerous though; but when people are being selfish morons on a narrow staircase carved into the side of a vertical cliff-face with a raging river far below, things get pretty sketchy!

And that’s how you approach the Leshan Big Buddha; 1300 hundred years ago it was carved into the rock face of the cliffs along the river and can only be seen from boats on the water or from up close, so after paying the entry fee (100 yuan) you find yourself walking up a mountain path to eventually reach the height of the Buddha’s head, emerging at the top of the excavated amphitheatre in which the Leshan Buddha sits. From here you can get a good look at his head before heading down the steps; narrow and steep, they’re cut into the side of the cliff, zigzagging down to the Buddha’s gigantic feet. At points you have a drop off the side right to the river, with just a guard rail in the way; I was standing at exactly such a point when the commotion started.

I couldn’t understand what it was they were shouting about, but two fat middle-aged men with their vests rolled up over their sweaty and proudly displayed paunches got into a heated argument right there on the steps, a short distance behind and above where I was standing. The staircase was completely stacked with people toe to heel on the steps, lined up like hot and bothered dominos, breathing down each other’s glistening necks, and there was absolutely no room for manoeuvre between the rock face on my left and the guard rail (and long drop) on my right. Not a good place for a punch up.

Their entire families were now weighing in, old and young, male and female, all yelling at each other; I can only guess that one party felt the other had pushed in front of them, or perhaps someone had trodden on someone’s toes… it probably didn’t help that it was a sweltering day with punishing humidity, so tempers were even shorter than usual. Old ladies and teenagers on both sides were now screaming at each other, and then someone threw the first punch; in a split second these two families engaged in a full on brawl on this jam-packed, precarious staircase, clambering over one another to join battle.

And just as the hundreds of people on the steps were lined up like dominos, now they started to fall like dominos; the two fat men had grappled and fallen, setting off a chain reaction down the steps. I saw people tumbling down towards me, grabbed the guard rail, and hopped over it; with my feet on a little rock ledge I clung on to the rail as a mass of limbs and shouting collapsed downwards just in front of me. To this day I’m amazed that it didn’t result in a full-on tragedy; a couple of years later this fatal crush happened during Shanghai’s New Year waterfront celebrations, and I thought again how fortunate all of us on the Leshan Big Buddha steps that day were to not have been caught up in something similar. No-one was crushed, no-one was knocked off the cliff into the river, and as far as I’m aware no serious injuries were sustained; the falling dominos piled up at a corner of the zigzagging steps, and thankfully the chain reaction didn’t continue around the corner.

I continued to perch on my ledge and assisted the people nearest me as everyone tried to disentangle themselves and get upright again, while these two morons continued in their attempts to trade punches. Somehow word got up to some security guards who appeared surprisingly quickly, working their way as fast as they could (i.e. not very fast) down to the brawl, and somehow they were able to restore something resembling order – I’m guessing it was the uniforms – and eventually managed to get the warring parties to follow them back up the steps, picking their way slowly through the mass of people.

With things calm once again I finally hopped back over the rail to rejoin the line on the steps, and in due course completed the standard Leshan Big Buddha visit… you make your way down, snapping photos, for the worm’s eye view next to his feet, and then exit the amphitheatre via a tunnel on the other side which ascends through a series of caves back up to the Buddha’s head. There are some other trails you can then wander from there, visiting various temple buildings also dotting the mountainside, and I got chatting to an Irish-Chinese family (they even offered me a teaching job at their school in Wuhan) and we all agreed it was remarkable no-one had been seriously hurt in the fracas.

Perhaps even more remarkable was that the two families were still fighting as we made our way over to the path back down to the road; they’d obviously kept right on arguing as soon as they’d been brought back to safety at the top of the steps and were still now screaming in each other’s faces a good hour after it’d all kicked off, the security guards standing close at hand and at the ready. Completely ridiculous behaviour, and we could still hear those idiots shouting long after they were out of sight.

Anyway, brawl aside the Leshan Buddha was great and is well-worth a day of your trip if you’re staying in Chengdu. As noted above, Leshan is also a good place for a visa extension at the PSB; this requires staying for a couple of days, and while the town doesn’t have that much else to see it does have plenty of awesome food – the cold, spicy 5 yuan dandan noodles make a great breakfast, and the barbecue joints hit the spot for dinner. You can also easily continue on from Leshan to nearby Emei Shan (somewhere I’ve yet to visit, but will do so whenever I’m next in Sichuan)

Any questions about visiting the Leshan Big Buddha? Or got any good brawl stories to share? Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Make sure to sign up for a VPN service before arriving in China so you can use the internet as normal – see here

For more China posts, click here

See my China overland travel guide here. Use 12go Asia* to search & book Chinese train tickets.

Drunk Sleeping on the Train in Japan – and Getting Stranded in the Wrong Prefecture!

Japan, Kyoto, Trains, Travel tales

The Shiga countryside near Maibara — The admittedly very beautiful countryside around Maibara, Shiga Prefecture

The cool air wafting across my face, combined with the train’s extended lack of motion, coaxed me out of my slumber.

“Shit,” I thought, “where the hell am I?”

To which the answer was: I was drunk and jet-lagged on an empty train in the Japanese countryside, which was standing stopped with the doors open at some station apparently in the middle of nowhere. It looked very much like this station was the last stop, but exactly where this station actually was I had no idea. Looking confusedly at the time I realised I must’ve overshot Kyoto by at least an hour, and it was now after one in the morning… fuck!

Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture: after sleeping on the train I woke up on the wrong side of it! — Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. I woke up on completely the wrong side of it, with no way to get back!

I’d arrived in Japan the week before to take up a job teaching English in Kyoto, and after an absurd boot camp at my company’s regional head office in Osaka (a ‘training course’ which was more about breaking our spirits than it was about training us how to teach English) I’d started my job in Kyoto.

This had all come about because I’d had to leave Canada (unwillingly!) when my Canadian visa expired, where I’d been teaching English as a side-gig to teaching snowboarding (Vancouver is both a ski town and a popular study English abroad destination for ESL students). I’d heard this Japanese company was conducting interviews in Vancouver, and the start dates were just after I had to leave Canada so I went for the job and thus found myself back in Japan a short time later.

While teaching in Vancouver I’d made an awesome bunch of Japanese friends – students and staff from the school – who mostly lived in Osaka and Tokyo, so when I’d got the job in Kyoto we’d started making plans to hang out in Osaka (Kyoto and Osaka being located right next to each other in the Kansai region). My manager from the school (a died-in-the-wool Osakan) had always insisted that the Japanese food in Vancouver was rubbish, and like all good Osakans she saw it as her personal mission to convince anyone & everyone that Osaka has the best food in Japan. She’d sworn she’d show any of us the real deal if we were ever in Japan, and now I was, and she came good on that promise.

She invited me to a dinner party at her friend’s place in Osaka on that first weekend, and we ate an absolute feast of amazing home-cooked Japanese (and Italian) food washed down with copious volumes of quality French reds and a bottle of añejo tequila. This dinner party started at lunchtime, and I ended up boarding a midnight train back to Kyoto thoroughly pissed up, still a bit jet-lagged, and full to bursting with food. Unsurprisingly, I dozed off in pretty short order.

It’s something you see in Japan quite a lot: people totally passed out on the train, either due to alcohol or work-related exhaustion, sleeping like babies, and always going completely undisturbed. Any Japanese or long-term resident of Japan can probably tell you a story or two about waking up at the end of a line. It’s not so bad when it’s a subway line and you can just get back on the other way, or even better the Yamanote line which just goes round and round central Tokyo – one of my Japanese mates once slept for a full 8 hours on the Yamanote line after a heavy session!

But if it’s the last train of the day, you’re gonna have to fork out for a taxi or somewhere to sleep… and if it isn’t a subway line, but a long-distance JR train, and you find yourself in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in the wrong prefecture, then you have a problem!

So there I was, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, in what appeared to be the wrong prefecture. It’s only 26 minutes from Osaka station to Kyoto station, but I woke up some 90 minutes after boarding, at the end of the line, at 1:30 am, in some place called Maibara.

Maibara Station (this was taken on another occasion when I changed trains there, and actually shows the bullet train tracks rather than the bit I woke up in that night)

I dragged myself to my feet, the situation dawning on me slowly at first, and then sprang into action as I realised I might be stranded… I drunkenly lurched off the train and stagger-ran along the platform towards one of the JR station staff, yelling, “Kyoto! Kyoto?” at him, gesticulating at the empty platforms around us.

He saw this wild-eyed drunken gaijin mess coming at him, mastered his panic, and raised his crossed forearms in a big X, the universal Japanese symbol of ‘sorry / you’re screwed / can’t help you’.

My Japanese was still very basic at the time, but I was able to ask him a question or two and understand enough to know that that was indeed the last train, and that the next train back to Kyoto was indeed in the morning, after 5 o’clock.

What I wasn’t able to understand was where exactly Maibara was. Maybe not too far, I hoped, and went out to find the taxi rank.

…where I learned a cab would cost hundreds of dollars! “Okay, you’ve gone pretty bloody far,” I realised, “so what now?”

The name Maibara (米原) literally means ‘rice fields’, and it really did seem to be a case of calling a spade a spade because I could see fuck all else there, other than the small gathering of businesses clustered around the concrete of the station’s immediate environs.

Maibara, Shiga — In front of Maibara Station

And then I saw the shining lights of a 7-Eleven, that 24-hour beacon of hope in even the most obscure of Japanese towns. There I could ask for directions to a karaoke place or internet cafe in which to crash for a few hours; they always have a map stashed behind the counter somewhere, which the guy pulled out to show me I’d gone flying past Kyoto and was round the other side of Japan’s biggest lake, Lake Biwa, in Shiga prefecture.

He also explained that the nearest karaoke places and so on were in the next town back towards Kyoto, a place called Hikone.

So that became my mission; get to Hikone, get an overnight deal in a karaoke room for a few hours’ kip, and get the first train to Kyoto.

Unfortunately in the store I’d also realised I hardly had any money – just about enough for a karaoke room and the train, but not for a taxi to Hikone (and I didn’t have my ATM card or any money yet in my Japanese account).

There was a policeman out front of the store, so I checked with him the correct road for Hikone and how long it would take to walk. He laughed at the question, but reckoned it’d be about 45 minutes.

So off I marched through this chilly spring night past fields of moonlit rice paddies, listening to the croakings of an army of frogs, cursing my idiocy, and copping regular facefulls of spiderwebs. That policeman was full of shit! He’d clearly never walked it, and even though I shook off my drunken legs and got my march on it still took about two hours; on and on I walked, laughing at myself, cursing myself, and occasionally appreciating the silver countryside and the chorus of frogs, and finally arrived in Hikone.

By that point there were only a couple of hours left to kill before the train, so the money I’d earmarked for a karaoke room was instead spent on some food and a hot drink from another 7-Eleven, and I slept on a bench for an hour outside the station until it opened up for the first train.

And so, finally, tired and hungover, I was on the train heading back to Kyoto… it gradually filled up, picking up more and more passengers at each town along the line, a horde of grey-faced grey-suited salarymen making their grim way to a new week of grind, early morning commuters heading from their homes in Shiga to the office in Kyoto or Osaka – a daily routine I was glad wasn’t mine (it was Monday morning and I had Sundays & Mondays off), and I wouldn’t have swapped places with them even in the shattered, post-drunken, thoroughly disheveled state I was in. They were starting another long week of commuting and working, while I was on my way to crawl into the blessed sanctuary of my futon, utterly knackered, but one lesson the wiser – that lesson being, avoid drunk sleeping on the train in Japan!

And I never did so again – whenever I was drunk on the train after that, I always stood by the doors! Though it proved not to be the last of my misadventures on Japan’s railways…

Have you ever fallen asleep on the train? Where? And where did you end up?!

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For more posts on Japan see here, and check out my quick guide to Kyoto

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