[Huzige]

BEIHAI 北海

BH has always been considered by the locals as the poor cousin to Hainan海南岛 – the beaches in BH are not as nice, and Hainan as an island has the natural advantage of being labeled (by Chinese of course) as “Hawaii” of the South China Sea. There are not as many flights into BH, but nevertheless a very popular destination for the local tourists during the hotter months. Development has not been as fast as Hainan, where breaknecking constructions activities were only slowed down during the financial crisis. By comparison, BH just chugged along at more leisurely pace – although recent focus by the central government on third-tier cities has brought more developments. Meanwhile, BH has also became infamous for the darker side of MLM activities with many get-rich-fast schemes on offer resulting in official clamp-down in recent years.

We arrived late evening at BH’s Fucheng Airport in rather cold weather, taking the only flight from SZ for the day. I asked the security guy at the airport if the taxi drivers run their meters – he said they should, but tried to ask for “reasonable price” if the driver gives a flat rate, although he politely told me he did not know what a “reasonable price” would be. We asked the first taxi driver on the queue for the rate to our hotel round the corner from BeiBuWan Square北部湾广场, and was told RMB80 inclusive of toll for the 25km trip. We called the hotel and they said the same price, so we decided we have an honest driver. The driver then commented we must be foreigners – asked him why so and he said we were too polite – walao eh! So, if you want to be mistaken as a local – you better be rude, loud and generally inconsiderate – then again, we found the locals actually quite friendly although many of the people in businesses are from DongBei – we figured they must be escaping from the freezing weather of Dongbei and decided to stay on. In fact, our driver is from Dongbei too and he has been in Beihai for six years.

We were starving after checking into our hotel Overseas Chinese Hotel华侨宾馆 (reportedly owned by the WuJing武警,) especially on a cold night – it must have been 10degC or lower with the wind-chilled temperature. We headed to the DaBaiDong大排挡 on ChangQingRoad长青路 less than 10 minutes walk from the hotel. The place is still hopping – the whole stretch of the road with stalls offering all kind of seafood and more at reasonable price, reminding me of Singapore & Malaysia in the 60s. Some brothers may take some time to get use to the hygiene standard though. But the place is opened till very late – or early – like 3 or 4am.

With our stomach filled, we decided to take a walk on the wild side – in the BBW Square – which is actually a park with the usual statues with glorified figures and Chinese imagination gone wild. And we quickly noted many moving creatures under the trees. But EZ decided to rename BBW Square as “Monster Park” after we noticed that the FLs who tried to entice us with the famous calls of “去吗QuMa?” are probably of the same vintage as me – no, I lied, maybe a decade or more younger but they do not even look enticing to me on a cold wintry night! Needless to say, we did not ask what would have been the damage. EZ did not want to linger too long at the park – he was worried that he may get nightmares!

We played tourist the next day, doing our usual walk through the beach area. The cold weather and drizzling rain made sure that the famous Silver Beach银滩 was deserted except some died-hard tourists. No MM was at sight to offer “PeiYou陪游” – and from what I heard, there are still MMs offering such services during the warmer months. In the good old days – like in the mid-90s, you get many SYTs offering a romp in the water on the beach for RMB50, but I heard that you only get middle-age ladies these days offering such services. So, I consoled EZ that he didn’t really missed much. The rain gets heavier – and we decided to have a warm cup of real coffee in the lounge of Shangrila Hotel to sit out the rain, as well as compensating me for unable to get a decent cup of coffee during lunch. We were at a local fast food joint for lunch and the only coffee they offered was pre-mixed with sugar – even EZ found it to be too sweet. We can only speculate on the number of locals suffering from diabetes!

BH also offers many interesting architectural delights, with many several century-old consulates and colonial-style buildings that have fared reasonably well in the tropical climate - being the place where all the “gewilos” embassies set up shops during the 1800s in this southern outpost during the time of weak Chinese emperor. We walked through the “老街LaoJie” (Old Street) that is within walking distance from BBW Square and has many renovated old buildings (many more than 200 years old) but is getting understandably more touristy. This is the place to go in the evening if you want to do your pub crawls and meet locals (and maybe get lucky) – with more than 40 bars and clubs – there are also many eateries offering Chinese and other gweilo favourites such as hamburgers and burritos. But we also noticed one on Sichuan Road, at the corner with LaoJie that offers dog and pussy, urrgh… I mean cat meat. I understand prices on LaoJie are reasonable and considered by many to be the centre of nightlife in BH. There is even a pub, called “Way Inn” that is reportedly owned by a Dutch and the only foreign-owned pub on the street. But we did not have the time to revisit the place in the evening, as we decided to check out the KTV scene.

There are plenty of choices for KTVs, and many large billboards with flashing neon lights giving the come-ons and making the choice difficult. We decided to check out one mentioned (and I may add more than a year ago) by a friend – a place known as “HaiShangHua海上花” at HeAnShanGang和安商港 near BBW Square, but when we got there it has “停业装修Closed for Renovation” sign at the lift. We then decided to go across the street (北部湾中路) to check out Sao Paulo Night Club圣保罗夜总会 located at the Triump International Commerce Hotel 凯旋国际商务大酒店 by first asking about the prices. We were told the minimum charge is RMB380 for a room that can take 10people. Gongzhu公主/KJ will be RMB100 and the mummy will also be expected to be tipped at a minimum of RMB100 and 200 for exceptional service. We were told the mummy does not get any salary and she lives on the tips and commission from the MM. I understand there are about 30 rooms with about 40MMs. The MMs are 200 to sit and 800 for s/t – we were told no o/n – WTF? Moreover, not all MM will go out. Our mummy brought three who could go out, and we picked two who happened to be from SZ – although my MM grew up in BH. EZ’s MM looks real young and loves to sing and dance. According to my MM, all the KTVs in BH has the same sitting rate of RMB200, with the exception of the newest joint called YiDaiJiaRen 一代佳人国际商务会所, located at Sichuan Road 四川路 where the sitting rate is RMB300. The place was opened last April, and we were told this is a classy joint and also reportedly the most expensive – with only 30 big KTV rooms. One of its talking point is that all the KTV rooms have glass windows that allow everyone in the KTV rooms to see the MMs (mostly model grade I was told) doing the cat-walk and you just call out for their numbers should you fancy their company. (In view of the fierce competition, I wonder when will a KTV in CP comes up with this concept of MMs walking continuously pass all the KTV rooms with full size glass windows to allow picking, instead of the chaotic Flower Street?) It also has live shows by popular artists. It is supposedly owned by a businessman from Fujian, but I have no idea if it is related to the many KTVs of the same name in other cities such as Shanghai & Xiamen – and we later learnt that the newest KTV in QZ also has the same name. The above info has not been checked out as we just didn’t have the time – maybe a brother has already visited it and can share his experience, or someone with fat company expense allowance can check it out in the near future.

Anyway, we did enjoy ourselves with the ritual singing and dice games, although my MM gave many hints about having to attend a friend’s birthday party. I decided to let her go earlier due to the frequent phone calls from her friends. But I was pleasantly surprised when she did come back after the birthday girl has cut her cake – so, I presume the party was genuine and it is a nice gesture to come back since I have already tipped her. The KJ is a cute and chatty SYT – a typical local MM who tends to be short and petite. But at the end of the night, we both decided that we rather be vegetarians than to have a RMB800 s/t, even though EZ’s MM was getting extremely friendly.

Earlier in the evening, we have also checked on the quality of the FLs on BBW Square and decided there was no significant improvement from previous night even in the earlier hours of the evening. And on our way to supper, EZ insisted that we bypassed the BBW Square to avoid having any possibilities of nightmares – although I did take another look and they look familiar from previous night encounters!

And thus it was a quiet night for the “father & son” team as we were not keen to check out any of the many SNs on offer – enticing they may be in a cold wintry night. But perhaps we were just trying to recover from the excesses of the acclimatization period in CP/HZ/DS.

We thus have a good rest before taking on QZ next…