Manchester on a bus - 2nd

It's almost a year since my trip to Manchester. A year is enough to produce several dull academic writing and to create a human being. A year is enough to creat several new plan and miss anothers. My friend Cuong is no longer in Manchester, he have move to University of Exeter.

It's so good to have a close friend when you are abroad especially if his mother is "Viet kieu Angola". Cuong have saved my ass a couple of time when my bank account was frozen. In return, I have smugled load of Vinataba across England custom check for him.

So here is the rest of my trip to Manchester

***

The next morning we have a "my tom" for breakfast and then went to explore the city. Inner Manchester is not so big, most of important place can be reach in 30' walking, the city also have a tram network which remind me of "tau dien" in Hanoi except the "leng keng" lovely sound.

Despite its reputation of serious party life and home of the country richest football club, the city look somehow dirty, unorganized and devastated. Old warehouse, abandon hotel, and empty building can be found all over the city centre; just next to luxury shopping mall and classy bar. It seems Manchester's people think that: if we spend all of our money on football and serious party, who care about such stupid empty warehouse. Or may be because they don't have enough money to rebuild the city, they just spend the rest of time and resources to build another legend - Manchester as home of crazies night life in the country.

Around 1870s Karl Marx have visited Manchester where his closed friend and collaborator F. Engles's family have some cotton spinning business. The city became case study for his famous book Capital. At the time Manchester was considered as the centre of textile industry, where worker work for 14 -16 hours a day for a minimum wage. Some of the first train station has been build in Manchester to distribute textile product to the rest of the world. From this small city, the industrial revolution was virtually changing the world. After its peak in 18 centry, the economic in Manchester falling down. At the end of Second world war II, Manchester is no longer knows as city of textile industry. As a result, bunch of empty warehouses, workshops were left abondon. Until today it seem that no one have or want to spend money to knock them down.

If you want to know more about the history of the city and industry age, the Museam of Science and Industry is highly recommended. We spend almost a day in their 3 building which feature an amazing collection of 18 century car, train, and steam engine.

I left the city centre at 4:00 pm to catch my bus at 5:00. It took me almost an hour to find the bus station. My old Lonely Planet guide have an out-dated map which show the bus station at a wrong place and people here seem to have no idea of place and direction. I asked 3 polices and 5 peoples, each of them show me a different way. Luckily I was able to catch my bus at the last moment.

Only recently I find out a fact that English people have no idea for direction, but thay have very good memory of bar and pub as reference for common places. So next time if you get lost somewhere in UK just ask for a pub near buy. Have tested it many time, proven to work on 90% of time.

Last conclusion: when you travelling don’t be penny wise on reference material. Get yourself a good map and an updated guide book. You can alway keep the book as good memory of place you have been visited.

Unless you poor enough to meet whith Barcelona's thief