Some final, random thoughts on my experiences in China:

Fujian/Kejia Food: Is very oily. Perhaps it was a function of being in a tour group and thus having to eat at proper restaurants with meals having more courses than you can count, but I was really put off by all the oil dripping from the food. Going inland made no difference. Also, many courses were soup based, and these courses increased as we went inland. I guess the farmers prefer soup based dishes in order to fill up their stomachs. Finally, there is a serious lack of dessert. The only desserts aside from fruit were fried pumpkin. However, in Xiamen we did manage to get the most famous of Fujian desserts. I don't know how to call it in English, but it's basically a sweet yam paste that's made with lard and is very delicious and fattening. Mmmmm.

Travel: The Chinese checkpoints at airports all had an obsession with waterbottles. Apparently someone tried to smuggle some sort of acid or something on board an airplane disguised as water. So every checkpoint will open up and sniff your water, or you can drink it for them. It's up to you. Also, when arriving you cannot leave customs without turning over your baggage claim tickets- another security measure. If travelling by road, be aware that many inland roads have been cut up by lorries, carrying heavy loads for the mining industry. The government repairs them quickly, but repairs initially involve tearing up the road surface to re-lay the tarmac. Thus, part of your journey may be on smooth and wonderfully pristine roads; another part you will be bouncing up and down on heavily damaged roads; and a final part you may be taking detours around roads under repair.

Environment: Oddly, very good and very bad. Every city I went to not only had recycling, but every single public rubbish bin on the street was divided into at least two compartments- one for recyclables, and one for unrecyclables. In Xiamen they were divided into as many as four- paper, plastic, cans and others. Frequently there were signs exhorting people to be environmentally friendly, too. It was quite astonishing to see how environmentally conscious China is. However, because of all the heavy industry, the air was very dusty and everytime I took a photograph at night, the flash would bounce off a cloud of otherwise invisible dust flying around.

Cross-Strait Relations: One of my most amusing moments was seeing a large sign on the coast facing out towards Taiwan, proclaiming, "One country divided into two, unite into one China." We could see a white billboard on one of the Taiwanese islands, which apparently reads, "Three nationalities." I'm not sure who they mean by the third. Both sides do get very competitive throughout the year, striving to outdo each other in terms of festivities, for example. The fireworks display during the Spring Festival goes quite insane because both sides will attempt to have flashier, longer lasting and more impressive fireworks. Quite a treat for the residents.

Culture: Unlike the Northeners, the Southern Chinese were friendly, warm and very helpful. I had gotten so familiar with the cold unfriendly Chinese from Beijing and Shanghai, who snapped at me and pushed instead of queuing, that to come to a warm place like Fujian and experience wonderful local hospitality was a surprise. For the first time in China, I felt like I had come home to my ancestral homeland. It goes to show how different the North and South of China are. Westerners tend to think of China is a monolithic society, just as Easterners think of America as a monolithic culture, but of course, both have very intense variations within the state. As someone whose roots lie in the neighbouring southern states of Guangxi and Fujian, I felt very much more at home in the warmer and balmier climate of South China.

I had a wonderful time in Fujian, even despite hating being herded around in a tour group. It's warm and friendly and accomodating. It's also throughly modern and advancing at a rapid pace. With so much exciting potential, I am resolved to return to South China often, and to one day live there for a while.

Attention hog that I am, I loved it all, of course. The first time was luck: I held one of the tickets that was randomly drawn, and so went up to play a local gambling game. I didn't win anything but left with a consolation prize of a deck of cards. Next time up, they were looking for volunteers to do a local dance, and despite having two left feet I managed to cling on to the girl and get the rhythm right. So far, so good.

The big finale, though, was a re-enactment of a local wedding. Traditionally, of course, weddings are arranged by matchmakers- and so the dancers playing the matchmakers (all three of them) perched on the edge of the stage, looking out at the back of the audience, looking for a hapless groom. Being in the second row, I thought I was safe and concentrated on the events unfolding behind them on the stage. Next thing I know, a burst of laughter erupts around me and I turn my head to realise that the three matchmakers are looking... right at me.

Hiding under my hat made no difference; they came and got me and next thing I know I was wearing the sash and getting 'married' off to a girl I hoped was pretty (a very accurate sentiment, for in the old days men didn't meet their brides before marriage). I did the traditional bowing, got to raise her veil- and to my immense relief, she turned out to be quite pretty. Unfortunately, I can't remember for the life of me what she looks like.

As my cousin observed later, I've undergone basically all the proper rituals for marriage; even my family was there to bless the event. However, my grandfather, despite having long been nagging us older grandchildren to get married, was unimpressed: "I'm only interested in the real thing, not this kind of thing!"

"Plus the great-grandchild that comes with the real thing, right?"

"Exactly!!"

Basically, if you imagine a huge stadium with rooms instead of seats, that's what the basic model looks like. All have some unique characteristics, of course. The one we visited had an internal ring as well, with a hall in the centre instead of a large courtyard. The size varies greatly as well, as does their age. The newest were only about a hundred years old, but the oldest was over 1,200 years old- and has been continuously inhabited since it was built in the Tang Dynasty.

We had a typically Hakka lunch, a home cooked meal by a local chef who took great pride in his work, wearing a tie and dressing up for tour groups which pass through. Like all other peasant fare in China, it was extremely robust and filling, extremely fresh, and very oily. Hakka communities being self-sustaining, it was also grown around the corner, fertilised by local manure and fed by local farmers. It certainly gives a city person like me a new perspective on my food when one walks past fields reeking with human waste and sees vegetables growing in them, and knows that one will be eating vegetables that only a short time ago was in the same position.

We were given a tour by yet another young and pretty tour guide, who was extremely fluent with the architecture and history of the buildings. Why are so many of our tour guides young and pretty? Is it luck? I certainly saw some less attractive tour guides showing other people around. But they still looked pretty good. Perhaps it is because China has 1.2 billion people, and with so many people looking to get a leg up and advance themselves, they use every single means they have at their disposal- including, of course, their looks. With that many people, you're bound to have an extremely large number of attractive people working in the tourist and service industries, as those are the industries where charisma matters. Either way, I didn't complain. I talked with her for a while and learnt she was also born in the Goat year but just after Chinese New Year, making her roughly 10 months older. She had worked as a guide in the area for just over two years already, and had assumed I was a lot younger given my propensity for clowning around (my mugging for the camera when we were taking photos made a big impression on her apparently!). In fact, she was quite surprised to learn I am a teacher.

"I supposed you get on very well with the kids," she chuckled, "Do they see you as one of them?"

Lacking the capability to be witty in Chinese, I merely laughed in response. I'm lousy at flirting in a language I am fully proficient and familiar with the colloquialisms and slang; I had no hope in a language I only use for conducting business transactions, arguing with taxi drivers and ordering food.

I walked on and soon lost myself among the street vendors and bright neon lights of the city's shopping district. Zhangzhou, despite being far inland, seemed as bright, modern and bustling as Xiamen, if much smaller. I was surprised by the number of smart boutiques and lifestyle shops that lined the busy streets. Up above me from a balcony overlooking a street, loud music and the exhortations of an aerobics instructor were clearly heard from the street. The influences of several different cultures could also be seen in the variety of stores, catering to a populace flush with new money and hungering for different experiences and ideas. I saw Japanese-style shops selling cute little trinkets, home furnishings shops with equipment on display more modern than anything I remember seeing in the UK, 'Crate and Barrel' style stores with sleek yet functional home appliances and equipment, and clothing stores that offered the latest from both the fashion houses in Europe and the exciting new generation of Chinese designers, all for a people aspiring to a lifestyle that was unknown in China less than a generation ago.

China, in my mind, was always a land trapped in time, frozen first by the decision of the Ming Dynasty to turn her back on the world, and then by the Communists who attempted to construct a post-modern utopia. Thus China's cities seemed to me to be monolithic soviet-style communal blocks, and China's countryside to be 18th century houses wreathed in mist amidst terraced hillsides growing rice and wheat, furrowed by bullocks driven by boys sitting crossed legged and playing Chinese flutes. Even when I visited Beijing and Shanghai in the 90s, the two cities were still a mixture of the very old and very new, and in any case could be easily dismissed as exceptions, the political capital and the business capital of China. No more. Money is flowing about everywhere in China, and the noveau rich were out in force. It's only a matter of time before it reaches the innermost regions of China.

I don't mourn for the loss of any cultural heritage or feel nostalgic for a past I never really knew. What we perceive as our traditional culture and past is the product of centuries of slow evolution, with traditions discarded and adapted as time went by. Ultimately, people are very pragmatic, and do what it takes to survive. Tradition and culture are our own adaptations to the world around us that give it meaning and allow us to survive- a short hand that keeps us doing the things we need to do, and gives our own lives richness and meaning. Each and every one of these traditions we cling to, started out for a reason. Social advancement, health, cosmological significance- it all has a reason, and we must understand and respect and remember our past, but it should never hold us back from fulfilling our lives here in the present. So when I see China advancing at its current massive rate of progress, trying everything like a child let loose in a toy shop, I don't fear a loss of distinctiveness or heritage. I'm excited about the possibilities and the exciting future that the people of China are going to have. It's the beauty of tomorrow: anything is possible.

Until today. We returned to Yongchun to find that, like all other villages, prosperity had transformed the village into a fast growing, prosperous town. Yongchun has an unusual number of residents who emigrated abroad, due to local bandits and government soldiers (it was the corrupt Guomindang running around), and as a result, the descendants of those emigrants who prospered abroad have returned to invest in the land of their forefathers. These descendants are spread all over Southeast Asia, and vastly outnumber the current residents of Yongchun, Despite not being a major town, Yongchun has her own skyscraper, full-fledged orchestra and massive public infrastructure- stadia, concert halls, and conference centres.

We picked up a local official who we had managed to contact via the Singapore-Yongchun association, and she acted as our guide, and helped us find the street where, she said, a very large house still existed where an Ong family (my mother's maiden name is Ong) still lived. True enough, it was there, and my great-grandmother was right: it was, for a peasant house in the 1900s, massive, with several internal courtyards and multiple wings. Thinking back to the tiny, rickety apartment that my great-grandmother lived in, it was no wonder she eloquently waxed nostalgia about the family home in China. We were welcomed in as long-lost relatives, and while my grandfather engaged in a long discussion with the residents so as to establish our exact relationship (very important), we looked around. It was very impressive. As with all China, modernity coexisted with tradition: charcoal burners next to digital washing machines in the kitchen, satellite television resting on an ancient cupboard. One of the family was so prosperous he had built a modern multistory apartment block for the family next to the house, and was so proud of it he wanted to give us a tour (we didn't have the time). I was amused by how the pigs lived in the same shed as the toilet, split by just a wall. It made sense to have all your waste and smells at the same location. It being a working day, only the very young and very old were home, so I didn't get to meet anyone my age. Still, it was exciting experiencing such a tangible and living connection with my past. We didn't stay long, but it was undeniably life-affecting to come face to face with the past one only knew in legend. My grandfather was the happiest, beaming broadly the rest of the trip.

A brief digression- prosperity has transformed rural China so quickly that these building projects have sprouted up in the middle of the villages or towns, leading to a mixture of modern buildings side-by-side or, more often, in front of tiny traditional houses and alleys. Driving down the main thoroughfare, it looks like you are in a city; make a turn off and suddenly you are back in the country, with farms and homesteads around you. It's a curious juxtaposition that exists everywhere. Even in Xiamen or Quanzhou, both of which traditionally were major cities, you can see still see small houses if you peek down an alley way, engulfed by major city blocks. In Yongchun, we stopped at a stall along the main road to buy some fruit. We asked for some mandarin oranges, which the seller didn't have. "Wait a moment!" she cried, and mounted her bicycle and dashed off. Our local guide explained that her farm was just a black away and she's go pick some from her trees and be right back. True enough, a few minutes later she was back, her bicycle basket laden with hastily picked oranges. After such effort, we were inclined to just buy some, but our guide pronounced them not as good as another stall a black away, and ushered us away to buy them there. Aiyah, jin pai seh (very embarrassed), but our guide was right. The other stall did have better oranges.

Final note: the patriarch of the house and my grandfather had the same great-great-grandfather, and their great-grandfathers were brothers. Thus I shared the same great-great-great-great-grandfather as some of the people in that house.

YES!!!!

The greatest comeback in baseball history- against the Yankees, to boot!

World Series, here we come!!!

I seriously detest building your entire holiday around a package tour, for they offer you little freedom. They are a great way to cover a lot of ground quickly, but you never get to truly experience the local culture, and instead are herded from place to place with inevitable stops at tourist traps selling 'unique local specialities' along the way (which inevitably turn out to be cheap trinkets and pointless crap). Your guide's priority is to keep life as smooth and uneventful as possible, thus negating the possibility that you will experience all the wonderful misadventures that make travelling so much fun.

I softening from this position somewhat, however, when we arrived in Wuyishan and cast my eyes upon our young, fair skinned, doe-eyed guide, Ms. Liao. Suddenly the tour became a lot more interesting. Eye candy seldom hurts.

To be fair, she was very professional and took us on an excellent tour of one of the mountains and sent us off on an enjoyable trip down Nine-Bend river (where I even tried my hand at punting- ha! Who'd've thought I'd get a chance to use those skills in China?), along with the obligatory stop at a tourist trap selling the usual local speciality (in this case, tea). The mountain was spectacular, although I had other things on my mind. The moment I reached the top I pulled out my mobile and rang one of my friends in the USA and asked her for the baseball score!

Nine-Bend River was fantastic as well. We started upstream and went downstream, thus tackling the nine bends in reverse order. The rocks, cliffs and mountains have all been given names by the locals over the years, each with their own extremely eloquent description- Inkstone and Brush, Eagle's Beak, Jade Princess, The Three Sisters (the Youngest Pregnant), Clothes-drying Mountain, Monk carrying a Nun and so on. The names are sometimes updated- our boatman pointed out one sharp cliff that looked like the prow of a ship and said it was the Titanic (a big box office hit in China). Oh, Jack!

Sadly, Ms. Liao resisted all my attempts to flirt with her in my broken Chinese. To be fair, she probably didn't understand half of what I was trying to say. However, she did take my cousin and I to her aunt's house, where I met two of her cousins. One is Fujian Province's only female certified tea expert, and she was only too happy to give us a long lecture on tea whilst we sampled some of the best tea from the Wuyishan area. They are a family of farmers, but lived in the town because the government had moved all the farmers out of the mountains and given them homes in the town when the mountains became a protected area. The farmers commuted daily to their farms up in the countryside, and were happy in their clean, multi-storied houses with all mod cons. They also showed us sacks of wild mushrooms which they picked in the mountains at 3 am in order not to tip off other farmers about where the best locations for finding them are. These mushrooms they sold exclusively and directly to their customers, bypassing the shops, as they only had limited quantities. We bought some; they are very incredible.

Wuyishan really had only two industries, farming and tourism. Everyone I met there worked in some way for one or the other, but they all seemed relatively prosperous and increasingly so. As I would discover, this is true for everywhere I visited in China: unprecedented prosperity was arriving everywhere and transforming the lives of the Chinese people dramatically.

I traded email addresses with Ms. Liao and her cousins and promised to return one day. As we didn't have time to climb the highest peak of Wuyishan, but instead tackled one of the easier and more touristy peaks, I think I have unfinished business there. No, I'm not talking about Ms. Liao!

We spent the morning looking around at the immense campus that Tan built, contained a number of schools and universities- it may be perhaps described as a mega-campus. It also contains a beautiful park he built, where his mausoleum is located. It's filled with carvings that depicts scenes of education, hard work, Chinese history, and the Chinese revolution that Tan worked so hard to see fulfilled. The carvings are not just decorative, but are meant to be educational, especially for the villagers who lived in the area. Around his mausoleum are intricately carved scenes depicting his life, and I was very happy to see the Singapore River shown in one scene- he spend a lot of time in Singapore and his legacy lives on in many schools and buildings.

Apart from that, the tour through Xiamen was basically highlights of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone. We drove by factories, light industry, assembly plants, the port, and so on. Xiamen, unlike the other Chinese cities I've visited, really has little else to offer but a very modern and prosperous city, with little to distinguish it from the cities in Taiwan just across the Taiwanese Strait. In fact, if the signs had not been in Simplified Chinese, it could very well have been Taiwan. I've never been in a Chinese city that didn't have the weight of history hanging over it, but Xiamen for the most part feels like it's only been here a very short while.

If you do decide to come to Cuba, prepare yourself: tobacco smoke is everywhere. People smoke incessantly here, and no matter what shortages they may have, one thing they will never lack is tobacco. It's not so bad outdoors, but in air-conditioned buildings, the smoke takes over the whole room and there's no escape. It affects you- by the end of my trip, I had become so accustomed to tobacco smoke constantly wafting in front of my face that I actually found myself craving some unconsciously, days later. It's was a scary realisation. In Havana, stepping outside does not give much of a respite from pollution, because cars will pass by belching smoke at you, or the pungent smell of rot will invariably reach your nostrils.

Also: Cuba is the furthest thing from a culinary paradise. The national dish is fried pork, rice and beans, and this has stood despite the best attempts of the government to introduce a healthier diet: When they tried to sell lots of fish, for example, all that happened was that the cats got fat. You won't find fresh fruit or vegetables, and often you will order something and hear "no hoy" because there just isn't any. Also, they don't devein shrimp and prawns, which I found out the hard way. Yuck.

But the music here is fantastic, and what's more the music culture here is fantastic. You go to a disco, and instead of seeing teenagers throwing themselves about spasmodically, there are actually dancing: young children doing brilliant salsa, spinning their partners around, performng complicated maneuvers you'd think weren't possible without ending up in an emrgency room, and playing around with the beat and flirting with the rhythm. It's wonderful to behold. Trinidad, in particular, is a great place to learn and practice.

All in all, I'm going to miss Cuba. In my ten days here I've seen many things and made many friends, but there's still much I haven't seen and haven't experienced. It's been so different from anything else that I've ever experienced, and so different from anything I had ever heard about it, and I've had a fantastic time. I will return one day.

My final word on Cuba:

Cuba is a paradise on earth. Why? Because there are no Americans here!!

It's fun to be an independent traveller, but with my time limited I opted to join a tour group in order to quickly see Cuba's interior towns of Santa Clara, Santi Spiritus, Trinidad and Cienfuegos. As with my previous day trip to Vinales and Pinar del Rio, the best part of the trip was the extremely interesting fellow travellers I met on this trip. Basically, half were Spanish speakers and half were English speakers, and every single person was unfailingly interesting.

Maria, for example, from Mexico, couldn't have been a day under 65 but led the way in climbing up every single tower and building we encountered, ranging far afield while the rest of the group was hiding in the shade and cool of a local bar. She was accompanied by her daughter Rosa, and they were in Cuba for some medical tourism: Cuba has the best health industry in Latin America, at extremely reasonable prices. So they came for two weeks: one for Maria's check-up; the other for tourism.

Raquel and Luis were an affectionate couple who seemed so familiar with each other and so content I assumed they had been married, had been together a long time, and were of a similar age, with Luis being the older one. Of course, I was rather far off the mark: Raquel was thirty-six... and Luis twenty. They had been together three years, but weren't married yet. Needless to say, the revelation of the age difference caused a sensation among the group- not because of the difference, but because no one could believe Raquel was that old. I had them both in their mid to late twenties!

"Well," I quipped, "You know what they say: If you can't find a good man, raise one!"

Raquel laughed hysterically and Rosa ordered me to the back of the bus.

Another couple with a big age gap was Chris and Amanda, from Belfast. He was a very experienced traveller, a ruggedly handsome Indiana Jones type with great charisma and a full head of hair (By the way Chris, make the cheque out to "PJ Thum" and you can post it to me in Singapore... thanks). Amanda was ten years younger at 22 and what struck me most about her was the dreamy look in her eyes. I'm not sure if it was due to the haze caused by her endless chain smoking, but probably it was because she and Chris were very happy together.

Another Irishman was Frank, who looked like central casting for an Irish hooligan. In fact, I was highly amused when Chris and I found out we both had independently concluded that Frank looked like a very thin Vinnie Jones. Not only that, but he had a temper to match that, too. He was a very curious creature- 49, unemployed, but had travelled to 56 different countries and was very keenly aware of social inequities and kept up a constant commentary about what we saw in Cuba vs. other countries, particularly the UK and especially Manchester, where he lived.

Finally, Brenda was a larger than life Aussie who grew up in a small town on the West coast of Australia, had spent ten years in the mining industry, had worked for the past few years in London, and has at various times had her life threatened- including once by a local gangster in Australia, whom she had insulted while drunk and was waiting for her when she woke up the next morning, sitting calmly opposite her bed; and once when she was a hostage in a bank robbery, when she was used as a human shield. The robber holding her hostage was nervous and shouted to his partner what to do; his partner replied empatically several times, "Shoot the c--t." Brenda's continued existence is a marvel to her and she values every day of her life every much.

The tour itself paled beside this collection of characters. Che's mausoleum was very interesting, although instead of being a solemn tomb the interior decor in parts reminded be of a 1950s "Hawai'ian Tiki lounge" with lots of wood and tropical plants. Trinidad was a marvel due to its preservation as an 18th century Spanish colonial town, with barely a hair changed since its local sugar industry died around that time. While I was there I got to sit behind the wheel of a 1914 Ford Model-T that still runs and is in excellent condition. Santi Spiritus didn't have anything special; neither did Cienfuegos, although both had their own charm and appeal. Overall I probably had too little time in any of the places to experience them fully. As I've always observed, however, my true enjoyment of any place is determined not by the place but by the people there, and in this case I had those people travelling with me.

Salvador has painted large bright Afro-Cuban murals on the walls of Calle Hamel, combining a mixture of abstract and surrealist design with phrases giving advice and warnings about danger, death and life. This project is affectionately called Callejon de Hamel. It's is recognised as the first open-air mural in Cuba dedicated to Santeria (the traditional African religion brought by African slaves to Cuba) and reflecting Afro-Cuban scenes. Salvador himself describes Callejon de Hamel as a community-based project, "from el barrio, to el barrio and with el barrio."

Every Sunday 1200-1500 a free Pena Cultural Alto Cubana, known as la Rumba de Cayo Hueso, is held to honour the different Orishas (basically, Gods of the Santeria reglion). This is basically an outdoor concert, and is extremely popular, attracting large enthusiastic crowds. It's not only locals but many tourists who turn up, hearing about the event. It's a wild, riotous, extremely fun time. It gets very hot and there's little shade. Everyone's dancing and sweating and compressed into a narrow alley, so if you ever go, bring lots of water.

There is, however, one other option: El Negron bar, set in the side of the alley, sells a potent mojito which they make with honey instead of sugar. Before the concert started, I went to the bar to try their famous drink (so famous that they've already taken advantage and jacked up the price to $3!). Waiting at the bar for my drink, I glanced around and saw, behind me, an incredibly beautiful Japanese girl.

I turned back to the bar and blinked. Surely not. Surely I was hallucinating. I turned around again. No, she was still there, with her hair dyed a light red and holding a large and expensive Japanese SLR camera, snapping photos of our surroundings, in a light brown outfit, waiting in line behind me for the bar.

Several swigs of honey mojito later, I plucked up the courage to talk to her. She was indeed Japanese, travelling alone, didn't speak a word of Spanish, spoke passable English, was doing a further degree in sociology, was interested in human culture, and had decided to come visit Cuba because of her interest in the people and the art.

For those of you unfamilar with the Japanese, let me give you some background: Japanese society is extremely insular, very pragmatic, and extremely group oriented. The Japanese are not very concerned with the world at large, nor do they have a strong tradition of study in the humanities. Finally, it is rare to meet a Japanese alone: they are almost always in groups or at least in pairs. In fact, Japanese society is in many ways like Singaporean society.

So here I am in Cuba and I meet a beautiful Japanese girl who appears to fit in with her society about the same that I fit in with mine (i.e. very little)- well, let's just say I felt I found a kindred spirit.

Unfortunately, with the concert underway, we could barely hear each other. After some time of fruitless shouting at each other
(e.g. Me: "How do you like the music?"
Her: "What?"
Me: "I SAID, "HOW DO YOU LIKE THE MUSIC??"
Her: "It's very good!!!"
Me: "What?"
Her: "IT'S VERY GOOD!!!"
Me: [despairing] "Oh, okay.")
I asked her to have lunch with me after the concert. She said yes. I was very excited.

Then I lost her in the crowd. Couldn't find her after the concert. Never saw her again.

As Blackadder said, "I think the phrase rhymes with 'clucking bell'.

Tobacco farmers are now allowed to keep a small amount of tobacco for themselves for their own use. As such, many of them roll the tobacco themselves and sell them to passing tourist groups. The prices are ridiculously cheap- 20 Cohibas can be bought for US$25. The drawbacks are that the cigars come unlabelled, uncertified, and bundled in paper instead of nice boxes, but those are minor drawbacks- especially when you consider that 20 Cohibas normally cost ten times as much.

On the other hand, never buy cigars from the street unless you are an expert at judging cigars. There are legitimate sellers, but the vast majority of them are fakes, made of inferior leaves or even banana leaves, dried and rolled in the same manner.

Cigars are, of course, one of Cuba's biggest exports. I've toured two cigar factories here and have enjoyed the tours very much. The Partagas Cigar Factory in Havana is a must-see, if only to see the actual huge room where hundreds of torcedor are skilfully putting their cigars together with deft, expert movements, wielding their special knives (chaveta). They make an average of 120 cigars a day- more for the smaller cigars, less for the big cigars- while listening to somebody read the daily news, or from great novels. That, in itself, is a very important tradition and has never changed- no radio, music, or audiobooks. Someone will sit in the front of the room and physically read into a microphone. Culture is a very important part of being able to roll a cigar properly, and it infects the way you handle the cigar.

I mention all this because today I visited the province of Pinar del Rio, where much of the tobacco for Cuba's cigars is grown. The miles of rolling countryside, dotted with palm trees, fields of tobacco, corn, sugar cane and other crops, and animals such as cattle, also have a distinctive feature in Western Cuba called mogotes. The rocks around Vinales are pure limestone formed in the Jurassic period around 160 million years ago. Unlike other rocks, limestone can be dissolved by water. Where a valley is formed in tropical limestone, often by downwards faulting of the rock, it may be filled with fertile red soil. Rotting vegetation increases the acidity of the groundwater on the valley floor. This highly acidic water eats into valley sides, undercutting the rocks and producing steep cliff-like features. These steep-sided hills are known in both English and Spanish by their Cuban name, mogotes.

The soil also determines the quality of the tobacco grown, and as we all know, the soil in Cuba is the best in the world for tobacco, hence the quality of the cigars that come from this country. Tobacco is never wasted- lower quality tobacco, and tobacco scraps from cigar production, are made into cigarettes. Tobacco is very labour intensive, and grown between October and December, harvested in January-March, and stored and aged for many months, or even years, before they reach the hands of the rollers.

When the tobacco fields are not in use for tobacco, corn is planted because it helps the tobacco fields recover. Thus, if you visit a tobacco farm in September, all you will see are fields of corn.

And that's all I saw in Vinales: corn.

For one thing, only a very small group of those people who hail you are out to swindle you. My paranoia got the better of me in my first few days here. Many others were simply curious about where I was from and what I thought of their country, and were eager to help if I was lost. Some people even offered to share with me their food and drink, which I thought was very generous in a country where no one has enough to eat.

The vast majority of people, however, fall in between. They are friendly and curious, and enjoy chatting with you, but they also would like to make a buck by selling you something or providing some service in some way. As I wrote in my previous email, everyone here is searching for an angle in the fight to survive. This can take different forms. For example, one common way seems to be sketching you or drawing a caricature of you as you walk by, then offering to sell it to you. The sketches are usually terrible, but at least they try and they leave you alone if you give them a firm 'no'. Other people dress up in traditional Cuban costumes and offer to let you take photos of, or with, them, for a tip. Still others will offer to act as your guide, and direct you to whatever you are looking for- but they will take a commission as their fee. Sometimes this can be quite excessive. And of course, they will only take you to places which do give a commission.

Either way, a pleasant chat usually reveals a person who is quite proud of their country and will leave you alone if you politely decline whatever they are selling. It seems to me that Cubans have a very ambivalent relationship with the USA. They see themselves as David to the USA's Goliath, and are quite defiant in their struggle against the US, but they also acknowledge the US as a land of opportunity, where many of them have relatives sending back money to help them out.

Havana itself is actually a very pleasant city to stroll about in, or to relax at a bar and sip a mojito while watching the world go by. Life definitely moves a lot slower here, and can be very idyllic. In the evenings, in particular, when it's not so hot, everyone's favourite preoccupation appears to be to sit out on their balconies and chat while watching the world go by. The lack of modernity also extends to the lifestyle- you don't see many of the distractions, the rush and the pressure of modern life. It's very relaxing to be here.

Old Havana, on the other hand, has been restored. Walking around in the streets of the old city is also like stepping back in time: every single building is exactly as it was in the 17th and 18th centuries, albeit with modern trimmings. But the difference between the tourist heart of the old city and the residential new city (central Havana) is immense.

The people here have universal education and healthcare, and look well and speak well, but their lives seem mired in desperate poverty otherwise, and it all seems so pointless. The one intelligent conversation I've had with a local was with two students from the University of Havana, who both were learning languages and aspiring to leave Cuba and experience different cultures. Other than them, everyone else seems to be in it for the money: from those in the tourist trade, the guides and drivers, who speak politely and smile and are working for the tips, to the jineteros who hassle you in the street, looking to make a quick buck and swindle you. However, if you move away from the tourist areas and walk through the depths of Havana, through the stinking, badly cracked streets and past the houses that are crammed with inhabitants, people generally leave you alone, although they eye you up and down, being the obvious foreigner.

Every day here is a new adventure, a new learning experience, and brings new excitement. I'm glad I came- I have been disabused of any remaining romanticism/idealism about socialism.