The Great Wall of China & a smog free Hong Kong!

Lets start with NO you cannot see the Great Wall of China from space, despite what seemed like a million people telling me at the time! It was a work in progress starting back as early as 7 BC and still being built in 1644 and it is roughly 13,000 miles long.

The port for our trip to the Wall was a good few hours away from the ship as once we again we were docked in an attractive container port miles from civilization and there was separate coaches for all the crew members that wanted to go that day, basically if you had the day off why wouldn't you go?

As you can see from the first picture our cameras were still massive and took Digibeta tapes, with the heat and weight there was no way you could also carry the large old school shitty tripods we had as well. To tackle such a mammoth task of climbing the great wall (well a few miles of it anyway) the tour bus had also provided packed lunches for us which was a small warm bottle of water, a mystery meat sandwich on yellow bread and an apple! A true feast of champions for the task ahead!

It was spectacualrly hard going to film large scenic shots of the wall without PAX and crew jumping in front of the camera, yes we get it but no one wants a video with a bunch of crew in it pissing about except the crew. The section of wall we had to walk was fairly simple and was one of the newer parts and we just managed to get to a section of old wall before we had to turn around and begin to head back to the buses. Apparently the ancient Chinese were giants as you needed both hands to pull yourself up the old steps which had massive gaps between and this was about as far as I got on my first visit to the wall!

I really wish someone had told us that you could hire the horses. I was filming to take you back down earlier as we could have travelled further and then ridden back in style, it was only when we saw some PAX getting off them at the bottom that they told us it was however many dollars (it was cheap!) to get a horse ride back down!

Thankfully there was a bar at the bottom of the wall because of course there is, although this then led to us having to stop mutiple times for piss breaks on the way back to the ship as everyone was shattered, dehydrated, smashed drunk and starving! I can still remember the massive rush by crew to try and get to the buffet in time for food before all the guests got back onboard and we were relegated to the crew mess.

Despite being 28 and in the best condition of my life the wall messed me up, everything hurt and the next day most of the crew were walking around stooped over and aching walking like how most of the PAX walked on a daily basis. Luckily for me it had been my birthday a few days before the wall and my friends in the Spa had given me vouchers for two free massages. As a typical 'guy' I hadn't put much faith in massages and from what I'd heard from the spa girls there focus was to sell as much product to the guests after the massage and thats where the money was made, not really from the actual massages.

Still I ached like a bastard and had an hour long hot stones massage which was very relaxing except for when a bunch of the girls decided to run in and jump on my back to get a picture! I probably didn't do my best work the first time I visited the great wall as I was still learning, the kit we had was really cumbersome, a tripod would have been awesome to use and we were there in the high of summer. Also it was hard to get into work mode when for the rest of the crew it was a day off at a once in a lifetime place and I freely admit the overall grandeur and gravity of where we were definately left me standing around taking it all in when I should have been filming.

Next was a brief stop in Hong Kong, on later contracts we'd have epic overnights and spend two full days there but on the Sun we only stopped for the day. Not knowing much about HK (despite England only handing it back to China just over a decade ago) I still should not have been astounded by the fact that almost everything was in English and Chinese which was great as it was the first place in Asia where you could get around by yourself and understand the street signs, but as this was my first trip to Hong Kong that meant I was on the main city highlights tour.

We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak for the best panoramic views of the city and my first visit was the only time (despite many returns) that I had a clear smog free day and view of the whole city and harbour.

Because I didn't spend enough time on a boat after Victoria Peak it was back on another boat for a harbour cruise, it was one of the more fascinating parts of the day and it looked like a free for fall in terms of crafts on the water. There were massive vessels such as our cruise ships in port, then smaller freight ships, but the most surprising were the tiny barely boats which were little more someone sat in a tyre who would paddle up to our boat and try and sell trinkets to us.

After a long day it was lunch time and I was extremely exicted to try genuine Chinese food and were we in for a treat!

The restaurant has been featured in many movies such as Infernal Affairs 2, Jackie Chans The Protector & Godzilla vs Destroyah, it was not featured in the Rush Hour films that I would have sworn blind it had. As I was learning when you are on excursions the food they serve you in foreign countries is most definitely not the same food that the locals eat themselves and on an official ships tour you generally get the most bland western equiavalent of what the locals eat.

Still it was a great first look at Hong Kong and I'd be back many more times on my later contracts on the Diamond yet I'd never have as clear a day as I had on my first visit!

On the next cruise diaries - The Malacca Incident!