Page 289 – The Points Of Life

How to Explore Hong Kong On Foot: The 7-Eleven Drinking Game

thepointsoflife

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January 7, 2015

How to Explore Hong Kong On Foot: The 7-Eleven Drinking Game

Despite its small size, Hong Kong isn’t the cheapest place to explore. That’s why I’ve come up with this handy guide to explore Hong Kong by foot and have a great time doing so. If you do not like beer, then quit reading now. If you do, then feel free to apply this game to other cities throughout Asia but be wary of the consequences should you try to do it in Taiwan or Thailand.

The name of your tour guide is 7 Eleven. The rules are simple: Leave your hotel and start walking in any direction. As soon as you come across a 7 Eleven, stop in to purchase a beer. In Hong Kong, many beer brands are 2 for the price of one so it helps to have a friend go along with you. Alternatively, it is a great way to meet someone should you find yourself traveling alone.

After purchasing your beer and toasting to a great day in Hong Kong, continue walking while taking in the sights and sounds of this bombastic city. As soon as you come across another 7 Eleven stop in and grab another beer for you and your new friend or devoted travel companion. From there, the game gets a little tricky as you may encounter a 7 Eleven across the street from another 7 Eleven. Now is not the time to practice temperance.

Proceed to the first 7 Eleven and purchase a beer then immediately cross the road and purchase another. If you find yourself understanding the Cantonese neon-lit street signs then you are playing the game correctly. If you find that you are lost, keep walking because your tour guide, 7 Eleven, is only a few more paces away.

The goal is to make it to the harbor of Hong Kong whether you started your tour on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon then make it to the other side only to start over again.

The best part is that the tour will take you to places in Hong Kong that weren’t in your Lonely Planet guide, introduce you to new people who you may not have spoken to in your reserved state, all for less than the cost of a hop on, hop off double-decker bus.

Warning: Your 7 Eleven tour guide is not responsible for the poorly made, badly tailored suit purchased after a few hours on the trail.

Free Calls And Free 3G in Hong Kong

thepointsoflife

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January 6, 2015

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My parents always used to take us on trips. They had some weird rules that stick with me to this day.

The weirdest was having to clean the room and make the bed before the maids came because it was shameful to leave a mess behind. The other was to not to use touch anything because hotels will charge you for everything. This went for using the phone, eating Toblerones, and ordering Spectravision.

Today I’m paranoid of the $12 Fiji water, the $15 shot of Jack, and the $20 charge for watching Ride Along at the W hotel. That’s why when I checked in at the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui I ignored the iPhone like device on the desk.

I suspected the device to be a trap to get me to do all the illicit activities for which my parents warned me in a more expeditious manner only to find that menacing paper under my door the morning of checkout with an outrageous bill that I wouldn’t be able to dispute.

Then I did something I don’t usually do. I read the fine print. In this case it was big print that said “Stay Connected”. I learned that the magical phone allowed guests to freely call their home country AND explore the city with an interactive guide and 3G data.

How outstanding is that? So if you see a call coming your way with an 852 number attached, that’s just me calling to say hello, I love you.

Bargaining Abroad, I Lost the Battle

thepointsoflife

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January 5, 2015

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This is part of the Trip Report So Long Mongolia, Hello SE Asia (December-January 2015) which covers:

Catch up by reading the preview, The Banana Pancake Trail to Myanmar Starts This Monday, then the overview, Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Disney, Home, where the game time decision was made to leave Mongolia for good.

Ask anyone about my bargaining skills and you they will say that I am the best.

Don’t believe me, then stack up your “best quality” purchases with the following (which should also be used a basis for all negotiations going forward):

Sunglasses: $1, SE Asia

Jeans: $12, Shanghai

Tailored Suit: $73, Shanghai

Cashmere coat: $73, Shanghai

Underwear: $1.25 SE Asia

T-Shirt: $1.50-2, SE Asia and China

Boars Shorts: $2

Tailored Shirt: $12, Shanghai

Gym shoes/loafers: $8 Shanghai

Leather shoes: $20 Shanghai

DVD: 70 cents, SE Asia

Watch: $3, SE Asia

Longyi: $4, Myanmar

Polo shirt: $4, Shanghai

Big Polo horse: $4.50, Shanghai

Taxis: Forget it

This story serves many purposes:

1. It is a baseline for where your negotiations should begin.

2. It is to give you that terrible feeling of buyer’s remorse which you cannot runaway from no matter how much you rationalize that “it’s so cheap compared to home.” You aren’t at home, think local.

3. And it is to tell you how pointless the whole thing is. All your negotiating strategies e.g, the walking away, the poker face, the comedic tug-of-war with the merchandise, and the calculator game of he goes high then you go low then you go higher than his highest, all of it is for naught. Why?

Because in Myanmar the airport won’t exchange the money FROM its currency, the kyat, back to dollars. That’s right, it’s a one way exchange.

Now I know what you are thinking, why did you take out so much kyat?

Because the Internet misinformed me that there aren’t ATMs in Myanmar and it you’ll get a crap rate if you exchange outside the airport.

Both are fiction: the rate is far better on the street 1050 kyat to $100 instead of 1032 at the airport and there are ATMs all over.

I ended up with $35 worth of kyat, a closed duty-free shop, and bad restaurant food.

Why Myanmar why!

<==Back to Out of Burma Thanks to Avios – Onto Hyatt Regency Hong Kong==>

Out of Burma Thanks to Avios

thepointsoflife

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January 5, 2015

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Time to leave Burma. I’m taking the 1am express flight out of here. It beats the express bus from Bagan to Yangon that took ten hours because it’s a direct flight aboard Dragon Air and only costs $80 + 5000 Avios.

That’s a good segue to get back to points on this points and travel blog. Planning this trip here I didn’t have an exit strategy since I didn’t know when or if I was headed back to Mongolia. I still don’t. But I do need to stop blowing cash on guesthouses that retail for $30, $40, even $50 depending on the number of insects you want to engage with in pillow talk.

That’s why tomorrow I’m going back to the affordable Hyatt Hong Kong, either the Grand Hyatt or Regency, depending on my thirst for luxury. While these cost hundreds more a night, it will be nice to rest easy knowing that my wake up call comes from the front desk not from the singing children that double as housekeeping for my room in Bagan.

Here is the financial summary of my Myanmar exodus:

Actual cost of Hyatt room: outside my budget

Points cost of Hyatt rooms $0.00 + 15k per night

Actual cost of Dragon Air flight: $900

Points cost: $80 + 5000 Avios.

Cost of eating a delicious pizza while back in civilization?

You already know that answer.

<==Back to Bagan Travel Guide – Onto Bargaining Abroad, I Lost the Battle==>

Are You a Naive Traveler?

thepointsoflife

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January 4, 2015

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What kind of traveler are you? Visiting Myanmar has opened my eyes not from the 2000 pagodas that roam the horizon but from the naive imbeciles I have met while I have been here.

Years before I made Burma my 72nd country visited, I used to feel apprehensive to tell other foreign travelers that I am American. This was especially the case if the traveler was European, who by virtue of his geographic locale fancied himself to be a more worldly, more refined explorer.

Over the past few days I’ve come across this prototypical or atypical Euro traveler (depending on which side of the aisle you are on) who goes out his way to be gracious to the local populace, overuses the word ‘amazing’ in any description, and fails to recognize the reality of the country he is visiting.

Instead of being sheepish about my views of my experience both positive and negative in order to not be classified an ‘ignorant American’, this time I made it a point to school the misinformed that pretty pagodas and smiling faces don’t equate to social progress.

“They’re having an election next year,” a German replied to my shrewd assessment of the situation on the ground. “When has an election washed away all the troubles of yesterday?” I countered. (See Afghanistan/Iraq war pre and post President Obama.)

“Riding elephants for half a day instead of an arduous trek is more ethical than having an elephant chained in a zoo,” another said.

These convenient rationalizations have nothing to do with Mr. Traveler’s views on social responsibility and everything to do with Mr. Traveler needing to rationalize that the dollars (euros) spent while traveling are not always used for the most pious of purposes, no matter where in the world he is.

To be clear I am not advocating a boycott of Myanmar and elephant riding. I’m advocating an end to this naive mindset that the world is an endless field of beautiful flowers, make it your playground.

Travelers from all countries should hold themselves accountable for where they are going and the activities engage in without fooling themselves that their mastery of ‘hello, thank you, and goodbye,” in the local tongue does nothing to cure the situation on the ground: “I took a picture for Facebook. Everyone smiled. Everything must be all right.”

If I’m pigeonholed a dumb American for thinking otherwise, it beats the alternative of believing that the architects of man-made wonders constructed them so one day motorbikes, buses, and masses of polluting travelers could come and visit.

Bad Bandwidth in Bagan

thepointsoflife

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January 2, 2015

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All the effort spent building 2000 pagodas has not been reciprocated by building a reliable WI-FI network in Bagan.

Instead, the city has focused on price gouging tourists for bug infested hotels for over $30 a night and jacking up the entrance price for the sites from $15 a month ago to $20 per person now.

If you haven’t made it to Myanmar yet, I suggest coming as soon as possible. The country is definitely understanding the fundamentals of supply and demand and are not apologizing for it.

For all the organic, Whole Food readers who will say, “You’re supporting the local economy, its people,” then you’re naively believing the funds go into the locals’ pockets. (And milk shouldn’t cost $8/gallon.)

Tourist fatigue has set in Myanmar especially in Bagan where the haggling, my favorite past time, has taken on a darker tone with vendors and horse cart drivers (the local taxi) refusing to negotiate because “We know you have the money.”

Well they aren’t getting it from me regardless of how price inelastic the demand for pagodas.

Still the best way to see Bagan and avoid the scammers is by bicycle which can be rented for $1.50 a day. I have no cycling skills so let’s see how this ends up. Most likely with the horse cart driver reprimanding me for not employing their services.

The Press in Mandalay

thepointsoflife

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January 1, 2015

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The press in Mandalay is at a crossroads. The country is on the cusp of modernization while simultaneously stuck revering antiquities of the past.

The preceding is not a reference to the infinite shrines, an unrivaled creation of man unlike any other in the world. It is an attribution to the outdated railway system, the dilapidated buildings of the city, and the isolationist policy of a country hesitant to reveal itself to the world.

The city Mandalay was the last royal capital of Burma before its annexation by the British and devastation during World War II. Today, it, and many of the cities throughout Myanmar are shells of their former selves. Traffic congestion, rampant poverty, and a crumbling infrastructure muddy the mystique of the Land of Golden Pagodas.

Despite political progress, Mandalay’s pales in comparison to the advancement of its powerhouse neighbor. When nightfall comes, the city literally goes dark. But for the lights from the whizzing of motorbikes, it would be next to impossible to know that you were situated in the economic hub.

In the heart of the city there is an absence of street lights and intermittent Internet leaving little faith that true change is on its way. On the way out of the city, there’s a state-of-the-art airport puzzling visitors as to where this country will go.

Burma or Myanmar, no matter the reference, the future of what will happen here is anyone’s guess.

Happy New Years from Mandalay

thepointsoflife

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December 31, 2014

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Top places to spend New Year’s according to critics are the following:

1. Times Square New York

2. Sydney Opera House Australia

3. The Strip Las Vegas

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

#68569 Benghazi, Libya

Scroll, scroll, scroll.

Keep scrolling.

Where is Mandalay?

I have no idea but it has to be somewhere at the very bottom. There is absolutely nothing to do or see here besides drunks crashing on motorbikes, rocket-propelled fireworks, and random people walking around with no place to go.

I was back in the room well before midnight plotting where I would go next year.

Get on the Bus to Mandalay [Bay] sic

thepointsoflife

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December 30, 2014

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Like a Spike Lee joint I got on the bus then onto another bus then onto another bus to go from Ngwe Saung back to Yangon to the bus station then to Mandalay.

The trip took almost a full 24 hours. I left the beach town at 10am and am about to pass out with a room overlooking the bay of Mandalay.

This is where the comparisons of Las Vegas’s Mandalay Bay and the real town of Mandalay end. There is no bay in the city of Mandalay. Vegas made it up and nobody cared to call them out for it as they were too busy enjoying the wave pool.

My initial impressions of what I’ve seen left me disappointed that a name as cool as Mandalay could have a town that doesn’t live up to its Vegas billing.

Here’s the view from my hotel. It’s slightly different from Viva Las Vegas.

So What We Get Drunk…

thepointsoflife

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December 29, 2014

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“So what we get drunk, so what we smoke weed…”

While Waka Flocka may not be on the ballot for 2016, his message shouldn’t be disregarded. No, I’m not endorsing marriage a juana but I am saying “so what” since we’re all having fun and we don’t care who sees.

Relaxing on a beach in Myanmar with a bottle of Myanmar reminds me that the complexities of capitalism need not inhibit the pursuit. Entrepreneurial ideas come to life when you are relaxed when you are carefree. Implementation of them? well that’s a different story.

Either way, a toast to those who say “so what” cuz that’s how it’s supposed to be…”livin young and wild and free.”

Better yet, how about my latest freestyle rhyme: I pour my own beer, sip my own cup, put my hands up…cuz I don’t give a f!@k.

No smileys people, no smileys.