Guangzhou, China. Super-far south.

I wake up at 4am and can’t sleep, so take sunrise photos from balcony like a right tourist. Order a BLT from room service and rearrange my clothes in the drawers to make room for all the stuff I’m planning on buying. Then take a morning swim and dripped on Willy so that he wakes up.

We catch a taxi to the cloth market tailor where we mime the sewing and wearing of business shirts – more difficult than it sounds – then realise we don’t have any cash. Catch a second taxi to the “nearest” Bank of China, which according to our driver is some 15 kilometres away, and wonder what the hell the annoying ding-dong tune is that seems to be playing everywhere – in the taxis, in the bank, at the market and in the tailor’s shop.

It’s some kind of socialist brainwashing technique, Wilken suggests. Then we discover it’s actually his new mobile phone ringtone on full-volume autoplay.

Next morning. I wake up at 4am again and can’t sleep again. I take another morning swim and drip on Willy. He gets up to call the man to fix the leaking roof, then we present at the breakfast buffet for eggs and bacon and waffles with maple syrup. Make serious plans over breakfast then proceed to waste the day, sleep right through the night and much of the next day. Wilken appears pleased at the quality of Chinese workmanship on the leaking roof.