Saturday morning trying to escape bank boredom I spot these two gangsters preparing for an explosive breakfast. My foreign face and the blatant photoshooting didn't bother them in the least. With broken mandarin and lots of giggles we manage to establish a mutual appreciation for gun powder in the morning, as we seal the deal with a smile, they spare one of their precious firecrackers for me to ignite. You had to admire their patience and dedication trying to untangle a line of firecrackers into single units, any ol' regular adult would just fire the whole thing but where's the joy in that, 300 single explosives equals 300 times more fun.

Lacking exposure to corporate socialization in the past i was taken by surprise from the blending of work and what I considered my own life. Lost track of company parties, dinners, and events that had us carrying trickling red faced comrades back home after too many shots of baijiu and countless bottles of beer. Accompanying the boss to after hour clubs, or KTV's was also a new experience. A company trip was planned postponed and reached mythical status throughout the year, destinations kept changing and had me googling mountains, plains and islands. All gears got in the right place last weekend and after a mysterious message in the intranet warning us to bring an additional set of clothes (cause we would get wet)! Intel from Chinese colleagues told about rivers caves and boats. Of course you cannot sacrifice man-hours for the mere shake of fun especially in a corporate context so the whole trip was set on a weekend (having too much free time is not good for you anyway) and of course we had to work the few hours before departure on Saturday, (aspiring bosses/dictators take notes).

Boarding on a bus along with members of 2 other sister companies we meet our baseball cup wearing guide which seemed especially young and to my absolute horror we get the dreaded tourist hat that when worn marks you distinctively as part of a herded tour. Apparently only me and another foreign member frown upon the idea as the rest of the gang are pretty relaxed about it, there is something natural in team forming for Chinese people or they can hide their revolt instincts much better than me. Funny contradiction with tourist hats is that it beats the purpose of distinctiveness when all tourist groups in sight wear the same one. Leaving the city of Tonglu behind we disembark in a famous cave, passing through LED illuminating stones i realise that i ve probably been to more caves this year than at any other point in my life. Caves always have some imaginative signs that proclaim visual formations on the rocks but in reality you rarely see the promised galloping horses or sitting Buddhas.

Gathered in the hotel we had another lovely dinner drowned in Cheerday beer. The problem with drinking in China is that there is no salute word, only "Gam bei!" (which translates as dry glass). So every time the glasses are raised you have to down them and you are supposed to honor a drink with pretty much everybody. To be a boss or to conduct business here you need a strong liver. A surreal closure for the night with a game of Uno, disputes over contradicting rules from Honk Kong, Spain, Greece and prawn crackers.

Sunday morning cruising peacefully on a boat through a green river, sightseeing, water pistol duels and early lunch in a government controlled restaurant which had the worst, tasteless, watered boiled food i 've ever tried in China. You could sense the disappointment through the dull motion of chopsticks over the table. Quick hike to a nearby waterfall and gearing up with life vests and extra large helmets. In small batches we are driven in the beginning of the rafting course were we split in teams of two, grab paddles and hop on an inflatable boat. Second set of clothes was worth the hassle as you get soaked in cold water from the first minute. Maneuvering the river with plenty of spinning and rock bumping a serious naval battle erupts and peaks at the middle of the course were 10 boats stop and start a gruelling water fight. Nearly drowning inside our own boat we had to flip it over while getting drenched from passing crews. Cold water and no mercy could be the motto of the day. Bumping our way through the remaining rocks, puddling through the rhythmical clackety clack of teeth on teeth we finish the wettest team bonding of my short corporate history.

When i first landed in Hangzhou it was June, a different kind of heat reduced unnecessary clothing and made respiratory systems working overtime. Delicate Chinese feminine feet exposed through skirts, dresses and ridiculously small shorts. At nights the river bank was flooded with couples through a strange juxtaposition between an utterly erotic atmosphere and a lack of public displays of affection. Over the course of 10 months i barely glimpsed couples kissing in the streets. Holding hands and hugging is a more acceptable form of intimacy here, it is quite natural also for members of the same sex to walk on the street embraced without the slightest element of sexuality. The social repression of public erotic gestures classed with stacks of condoms on every shop and supermarket (a byproduct of the infamous: "one child policy"?). I don't know what happens behind closed doors but this city projects a sexuality that could put Paris to shame. A strange duality between exposed and hidden, repression and lust, consciousness and unconsciousness. Slowly pieces of the city started clicking together like parts of a puzzle there were areas predominantly erotic by inheritance or by design much more than anywhere else i 've ever been. First the main attraction of Hangzhou right in the center of the city, West Lake, once a smelly swampy wetland now artificially transformed to a pearl that attracts millions of tourists billions of couples and innumerable newlyweds.

Wedding photography must be one of the prime businesses here, as the unwritten law of marriage states you have to hire a professional crew and make a (heavily Photoshopped) wedding album with poses predominantly around West lake. It is one of the small pleasures of life here to take photos of the whole setup, dozens of brides in stunning dresses (with blue jeans & sports shoes underneath) waiting in line to capture the perfect crop of the lake. An army of photographers rearranging legs, heads and expressions, happiness with surgical precision. Every park, sidewalk, path, hill and public area is build like a scenery of a romantic movie and immediately populated by couples. You can almost sense it in the air, or hear it in Chinese mellow pop songs. Even taste it through delicately presented sweet pastries in Chinese bakeries.

A romantic layer surrounds the city, a suffocating sexuality is repressed underneath, everything about face (a complex Chinese concept about social appearances). This might explain the popularity of massage practice which also is in a dual state of legitimacy and illegality. Younger and older generations, the tight grip of governmental control over the Internet and the massive explosion of Japanese porn industry (AV) transmitting underneath. Marriages and mistresses walk hand in hand in wealthier circles of society. As the temperature flirts with 25°C the city blossoms once more, outlines of slim figures and warm nights. Spring...

Another attempt for mountain conquering on Chinese soil, this time much closer than Huangshan (-shan (山) mountain) and hopefully less crowded. Arriving at night we manage to secure a room the last scraps of dinner and a few wild gazes. Clouds dominate the morning sky and soon bamboo forests are covered by mist, which creates a magnificent atmosphere and narrows your optical field to 20 meters. Once again a notorious Chinese obsession to artificially enhance natural sights. For the second time i pay entrance to see a mountain! a catch 22 as you need money to maintain all the structural elements and personnel which to my humble opinion were redundant in the first place. Preconceived paths drive you through the various spectacles, a history of sword casting tradition unfolds as you walk. It's the most natural element that steals the show. Bamboo forests in their full blossom creating a green, jungle like, interlocking canopy. A melody builds up as wind dances their leafs and lingers the tall trunks. The spell breaks when a bus storms on the road behind, with the help of the fog we elude souvenir vendors and head back. Searching for a restaurant in a small village on the root of the mountain i see a gruesome spectacle. A skinned hide of a cat is nailed on an electric pole for public display... some kids play a few meters away. A bitter medieval feeling in my guts.

Ground keeps moving and planes shift as the world twists and rearranges its parts through economic decisions. China used to be the global sweatshop but now factory workers are considered expensive. How dare they disrupt global production and not be content with 1E per day??? Ungrateful factory workers!!! Though production is slowly moving to other countries with cheaper slaves emm workers, like India, Africa, East Europe, the factories in China still spur products en mass. And even if the rest of the world decided to relocate production the ingrown demand of Chinese consumers will feed them for a long time. Transformation is taking place internally as Made in China wants to become Designed in China. This is the 3d factory i visit and compared to it's predecessors much cleaner, well adjusted and presentable. The whole visit is part of a competition in connection with Zheijiang university that translate in me infiltrating a group of design students and visiting a fork lift factory along giggles and a school trip atmosphere. All my reluctances, to reveal the camera, drop as we walk inside and all the students start shooting like excited tourists on summer vacation. We get a tour of the whole factory, starting from laser cutters to individual components and the journey of a fork lift in the assembly line from start to finish. Impressive coordination and industrial automation. Factory workers are not that enthusiastic about swarms of student paparazzi documenting every move they make, but is hard to escape the assembly line. Final stop is the factory canteen, a sight by its self. Corporate canteens have the same effectiveness as any  ol' factory, methods and output change but the need for mass production stays the same, as usual that takes its toll on the taste. Packed in a bus on the way back with happy, red cheeked & rice fed, content students. Industrial espionage has never been more fun.

I count my remaining Dongs, deduct a couple of hundred thousands for the hotel and the, inflation brought, feeling of wealth disappears. The plan is to "eat" my remaining money on a culinary exploration through the center of Saigon. Places on the map, seemingly disconnected, are joined together. Marrying opposing flavors, triggering every possible taste bulb. Walking countless blocks from one place to the other makes you hungry again. There are many ways to travel and one of them is through food. Social, cultural, topographical & historical factors all blend together inside a pot or a pan or a dish. From fresh coconuts to elaborate dinners and the slow ceremony of coffee making. Discovering a country one bite at a time. There is a restaurant were US soldiers used to eat, unconscious of the fact that a floor above the Tet offensive was boiling, together with their soup. Paying for the room i gaze at the stack of passports, now's the time for identity swapping. During the short flight from Saigon to Guangzhou summer has slipped away. I walk around in denial wearing a t-shirt amusing Chinese people who tighten their jackets. In Hangzhou 2-3 extra layers of clothing are deemed necessary. 3 AM and luck of sleep are not your best allies for fending taxi drivers with outrageous proposals. Not a stranger in this town. Empty roads and zero degrees. Back in China.

What is the first impression of a new city? Airplanes give you enough time to acclimatise and cut the element of surprise, trains come a little closer but for maximum impact overnight bus is the undisputed king. Dazed and disoriented, (from a 10+h ride, involuntary breaks at dodgy rest stops and stiff joints from weird sleeping positions on seats clearly not designed for your body type) you arrive in the middle of an unknown city at 5:00 in the morning. Walking up and down to force blood circulation, i feel strange, this time just before the break of dawn reveals a different face. Drunk foreigners gulping their last beer, a small group of transvestites with striking hairstyles having breakfast on a street food stall, neon lights and the sounds of a waking city. A permanent memory in my brain. Sipping a cup of strong Vietnamese coffee i wait for the tourist offices to open. Last days of sunshine and a strong craving for blue waters. I want to ditch the combined buzz of million mopeds and disappear in a tropical beach. Unfortunately my wild plan gets trampled by the return of the masses which produces a shortage of tickets. I could go to that remote island with white sand and palm trees but then i could not return... That's the exact moment in time when i feel the chain pulling from the other end, back in China. So close and yet so far... 3 days in Saigon then, adaptability at its finest. Quick breakfast and the quest for the cheapest accommodation.

Setting a deal in the street i end up in a surreal hidden hotel which seems like a time travel loop hole, the dorm rooms have a distinct feeling of orphanage, wood, tiles, sinks, toilets, showers and 9 beds all in the same room. The bus ride takes its toll and i doze off in one of the bunk beds. Even after 3 hours is still early morning. A different city in the daylight. Street hawkers have increased in numbers but after 12 days i 've built my resistances. Fending mopeds is another acquired skill, purely for survivalism . In Saigon you have to admire the organic tangled web of electric cables that cover every square of the city. Infrastructures like this are not build, they grow. I choose some destinations on the map and start walking, the best way to discover a city. Unlike China i can read the names of the streets which makes navigation much easier. The War Remnants museum is not hard to track, Tanks, warplanes, a Huey and the fat familiar curves of a Chinook, decorate the entrance. The museum's name passed though many waves from: "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government" in 1975, to Museum of American War Crimes until the politically correct name of present day. Don't let this fool you though, inside the horror of war is ever present.

Vietnamese curators don't hold back on shock effects. Two floors packed of war crimes and atrocities that make you question your own race. A special room documents the effects of Agent Orange, which was flushed all over Vietnam leaving it's mark on many generations, photographs and jars with preserved human fetuses are too much.. Lot's of families with small children happily trotting around, not exactly a place to bring a kid. History through the eyes of the other side of the mirror. Having enough culture shocks for the day i retreat to a nice cafe and bury myself in a paperback noir i found in a previous hostel. There is a big collection of books laying in dusty selves across Vietnam. The extra weight of a finished book is not something you want to drag all over Asia, so travellers leave them behind like past romances. So far i had a nice selection of books and much like their previous owners i move them one a little further from their previous position. You don't even have to buy a travel guide, plenty lying around on hostel tables. Getting rid of the garbage, i have accumulated on my bag,  i found one passport photo from the visa batch, a black pen is nearby, a combination bound to happen.

Even though calendars stubbornly insisted on Winter, train hopping and bus ridding a few longitude clicks South, magically transformed February into June. And to think that a few days before i was freezing in China... Tropics at last, a quick fight with angry waves sun baked skin and the embrace of t-shirts as the official outfit for the rest of the journey. Mui Ne, a small town few hours away from the buzzing Nha Trang. Just a road, lined with guesthouses, hotels and palm trees, now and then piles of coconut shells stacked in small hills. I rent a mopped for the third and last time. The owner a Dutch expat, operating his small rented office in tandem with a massage shop, tells me i am the first Greek customer he ever had and in a moment of inspiration proclaims: "Zagkorakis!". I try to gather some intell' about a weird custom i 've read about, Lizard fishing. (which, according to the small passage, is the art of fishing lizards! in the dessert surrounding Mui Ne, armed with a fishing rod and some bait). He haven't heard anything but takes me to his neighbouring restaurant were i see a sign advertising lizard bbq, among other tastes. On the back they open a container which houses a beautiful dessert lizard in a wonderful explosion of blue tinted colors. Just as every inclination to taste lizard meat disappears i steer my mopped stallion towards the sand dunes. Apart from the atmospheric landscape, that makes local photographers camp there for days waiting for the perfect sunset moment on sand, the main attraction is sand surfing. The principle is to climb the steepest dunes and slide down on top of a plastic mat, much like sliding on snow minus the cold. Gangs of toddlers run up and down frantically, families, teenagers, screams of joy are rumbling down the slopes. Light transforms the landscape from white to red and then back to copper, for a faint amount of time you glimpse the illusion of a vast dessert. Night sets in, a fresh coconut by the sea waiting for the next night bus towards the final leg of my journey. As South as i can get till i run out of time.

The only way to cover actual distances while on ground is by travelling overnight. Be it train, bus or horses if for any reason you avoid airplanes but want to connect distant points in a country (or several) you ll have to crumble in spaces that would make a human factors scientist eat his anthropometric books. Trains are preferable but routes and tickets are subject to various elements. Chasing the summer to Nha Trang our only option is the infamous Sleeping Bus. Trying to embark makes the driver bark some commands while throwing some plastic bags, no shoes allowed in the sacred interior, bliss for the smelly feet fetishist. 3 rows of double decker beds divide the bus with small corridors in between. Top floor, the realisation that a coffin would probably be more comfortable and introduction to the rest of the travellers, a multicultural mixture of people from all over the world. Part of a bigger mosaic travelling through Southeast Asia. the so called Banana Pancake Trail although i doubt many of them know it. (From Wikipedia: The Banana Pancake Trail is the name given to the well-trodden and constantly growing routes around South East Asia travelled by backpackers and other tourists. The Trail has no clear definition but is used as a metaphor for places that are well-visited by mostly Western tourists who have left their marks on the local tourist industry, which has created restaurants, hotels and entertainment catering to these travellers' needs. The term '"Banana Pancake Trail" is usually used tongue-in-cheek as an affectionate nickname and in reference to the many guesthouses, cafes and restaurants catering to backpackers that serve banana pancakes as a form of sweet breakfast.  The Banana Pancake Trail is sometimes associated with travellers who use Lonely Planet travel guides, due to the fact that this publisher's books were the first to provide information about the region and were therefore used by many backpackers. The influx of Western travellers led to the rise of many restaurants serving food adapted to their needs, including banana pancakes and other comfort foods like yogurt with muesli and honey). There is a universal experience that connects bus travelling all over the world, the dreaded Rest Stop in shady establishments. It almost warms my heart and transfers me back to Greece on involuntary stops to shrines on the national highway. In this random rest stop somewhere in Vietnam, pitch black and a few more hours till Summer.

A weather beaten sign with a faded model, sparkling blue waters and people under wooden umbrellas marks the way to the beach. The small road is twisting among sand dunes, scenes of colourful cemeteries and graves blended in the sand. The colours are not those of a tropical paradise, but our timing is off by at least a couple of months. So how does a tropical beach looks without a makeup? Without the added effects and swarms of tourists. The crackling of brown waves and happy chatters from locals in seaside restaurants doesn't disrupt the silence. We take a table close enough that you can deep your feet in sea sand. The lack of common language is solved with gestures inside the kitchen. We must have done something right as 2 plates of enormous red prawns appear. In the middle of nowhere, holidays, friendly locals, and the sea... brown or blue it still feels like a paradise.