Jan 6-17

Driving around Phuket

We didn’t fancy the minibus back to Bangkok but wanted to see a bit of the country so decided to hire a car. We spent the first day pottering around Phuket getting used to the car but mainly getting used to the nutty Thai way of driving – its quite scary the first (and second…) time you are overtaken by one car and undertaken by another on the bend of a single lane road but you get used to it. Had a quick stop at Phuket museum. Quick because there were only a couple of exhibition halls open and only one covered the history of Phuket – two sisters scared off a Burmese invasion in the 18th century. Apart from that the museum was dedicated to the history of Thailand and the geology of Phuket. After our fill of history for the day we went deserted beach hunting. We stopped at three beautiful beaches. The first was stunning – completely deserted; the second didn’t have any tourists but some Thais were enjoying their Sunday afternoon and when we walked along the beach children ran out of the sea shouting hello and grabbed our arms with their wet hands – they probably hardly ever see tourists unlike the children selling orchid garlands in Karon and Kata; the third was perfect for a rest. For sunset we visited Promthep Cape in the far south of Phuket for a beautiful view – coachloads of people also thought it was good.

Driving through Thailand

We were sad to say goodbye to Phuket, mainly worried about when we’d next get to lounge on a beach, but we were excited about hitting the open road to drive 1000km through Thailand. We took a quick trip to a good viewpoint where we could see Karon and Kata beaches where we had spent the last 5 ½ weeks and then we left Phuket for good. Our map wasn’t great and we had a bit of a hiccup early on. It wasn’t that we didn’t know where we were, just that we took the hilly road rather than the easier and quicker ring road. But it meant we got to see the fantastic scenery through the mountains. Stayed the night in Chumphon. There’s nothing really to say about Chumphon. It was difficult to find somewhere to eat and drink with a menu in english and it was really just a place to rest our heads. The Paradorn Inn was an ok place to stay apart from the breakfast – Richard had stone cold fried eggs and I asked for poached eggs and got…. a raw egg!! Gross.

Next stop Hua Hin. A nice beach on the east coast with lots of life – joggers, pony treks, families, kite flying surfers! (even though there was a sign saying no water sports out of respect for the King) but with a rough and very, very cold sea – it didn’t get past our knees. Our hotel, Jed Pee Nong, had a swimming pool which was as cold as the sea – brrrr.

Top 10 sights you see when driving through Thailand:

1. Shrine shops – shrines are everywhere in Thailand and I guess you have to get them from somewhere. Usually there are small offerings of food and drink on them but in Phi Phi we saw a full continental breakfast.
2. Ten wooden shacks in a row all selling the same thing – either just pomelos, pineapples, bananas or watermelon but not some of each – how do you decide which one to buy from?
3. Wild cattle, buffalo, stray dogs sleeping in the middle of the road and monkeys hanging off the back of cococnut trucks
4. Too many school kids in a small van
5. Working elephants – not just pretending to work for the tourists
6. Monks waiting at bus stops
7. Three petrol attendents standing by the car and wai’ing after you’ve bought petrol
8. Massive Buddhas – golden, standing, reclining, painted…
9. A massive golden duck – yes really – look at the picture if you don’t believe us
10. And, of course, beautiful scenery

10 January…Bangkok again

We wanted to get the train back to Bangkok but that meant leaving Hua Hin at 6am or getting to Bangkok at 8.40pm so in the end we got took the 4 ½ hour bus. Found a nice new place to stay – Sawasdee Khaosan Inn (500Baht a night). It was being built when we were here 6 weeks ago so hasn’t had time to get too run down yet.

Things to do in Bangkok:

Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi
This was a really good day trip from Bangkok but if we did it again we’d stay at the River Kwai for a couple of days as it is a really peaceful place. Our trip took us to an Allied War Cemetery (picture) where English, Dutch and Australian POWs who died during the building of the bridge to Myanmar were buried. Some 16,000 western POWs died along with an estimated 100,000 Asians. When the bridge was bombed in November 1945, the Japanese forced the POWs to stand on the bridge to deter the allies from bombing it. It didn’t work. We visited the Jeath War Museum and then took a trip on the death railway. A 2 hour journey took us over parts of the original track near where the bridge was and then over the new Bridge over the River Kwai.

That day we also visited Sai Yok Noi Waterfall where Thai kids were hanging out and had an unplanned ride on an elephant. Our elephant plodded along reassuringly steadily stopping occassionally to nibble some bushes (obviously calmed by our ‘driver’ who whistled or sang to her for most of the ride).

Vimanmek Mansion, Bangkok
The largest golden teak building in the world would be a lovely place to live. It was built by King Rama V in 1900 but it was unoccupied for many years after his death in 1910. The guided tour around the house was done barefoot and when we reached the impressive throne room we were told to sit on the floor where the guide told us the history of the place. It was like being at school, sitting on the carpet in the snug listening to the afternoon story. There was a display of traditional Thai dancing and fighting in the grounds.

Get away from Khao San Road
Near Khao San there are lots of other little roads which are less manic, more friendly and cheaper than Khao San. We liked the outdoor bars along Thanon Rambutri and the funky VW camper van cocktail bar.

Try the local moonshine made from barley oats – don’t know what it was called but it was lethal. We also ventured to the cinema at Siam Square to watch Harry Potter which we’d been wanting to do since leaving home. It was cheaper to wait until we got here – £1.70 each. In Thailand you have to stand up before the film to show your respect for the King while the national anthem plays. Oh and eat on the streets because it’s so cheap and good – omelette and rice is only 17 pence and is now one of Richard’s favourite meals! For those interested in Richard’s eating habits – no noodles yet I’m afraid.

Onwards…
Our next stop was Vietnam – we ended up spending longer in Bangkok than planned as all the flights to Vietnam were either booked up or left at ridiculous times in the morning. We met up with Sue and Jacqui in Bangkok before they flew out a day before us to Hanoi. But after a busy (and enjoyable) week in Bangkok it was time for us to head off to Vietnam as well.

Dec 18 – Jan 7

Kata Poolside Restaurant and Bungalows

This was our home for almost three weeks and where we spent Christmas and New Year. Our room was lovely and big so we could finally fully unpack our rucksacks and settle in. We spent most of our time either at the beach or by the pool. Kata has two beaches, one of them was only 200 metres from us and the other, Kata Noi, is quite a hike up and down hills until you come across the lovely beach first seen from the top of the hill through the trees. Both have reasonable snorkeling, the fish come within a couple of feet of the shore and whole shoals suddenly appear around you.

Phi Phi and Khai Island

We finally roused ourselves from our laziness enough to go on a couple of trips while we were here. The first was a day trip to Ko (meaning island) Phi Phi and Khai Island. We got there by speed boat and it was a really rough day so we were flying all over the place, it was like being on a roller coaster (the journey took 1hr 20mins instead of 40mins). Phi Phi is actually about six islands but we only went to the two biggest, Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh. There were some excellent places for snorkeling and then we went to the place where the film ‘The Beach’ was filmed, Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh. If there wasn’t so many tourists around it would be beautiful. It really was a stunning place but you could only imagine how wonderful it would be to have the place to yourself. There were lots of protests when the film was being made about the damage to the environment but Richard commented that what really ruined it was the way it had been commercialised since the film. As expected the opportunity to make money by taking tourists there wins out over the environment There could have been a thousand people in the bay when we were there (us amongst them of course!). Phi Phi Don is the bigger island where people can stay. We were just there for a few hours but it had a real charm about it. The bays were beautiful and there were lots more bars on the beach so you could dig your feet into the sand while you had a beer but there was also a much more relaxed feel about the place than there on Phuket. I would imagine that less people there are on two week holidays where there’s still a sense of urgency about getting the most out of your holiday. It is also a big diving place and as we’ve found the divers are pretty chilled. In the afternoon we went to Khai Island which is really just a beach with a bit of greenery in the centre, you could walk around it in 5 minutes. The fish around Khai Island are so used to being fed bananas (who would have thought fish liked bananas?) that they will pretty much eat out of your hand. They are so tame that they thought nothing of nipping my legs to check whether I was a banana – in the end I got out of the sea!

Phang Nga Bay

The best trip we (with Jacqui and Sue) did was with Singh Sea Canoe to Phang Nga Bay. Phang Nga Bay is National Park and is made up of literally thousands of islands, some of then very small and most of them uninhabitable. First we had a lovely cruise on a big boat through the bay from Phuket to James Bond Island (not the original name (Khao Ping Gan) but yet another example of cashing in – the “Man With The Golden Gun” shot some scenes here in 1974). We were transferred to James Bond Island by Longtail boat. The boat held about 20 people comfortably and we were wondering where the second boat was but in the end (God knows how) they got about 35 of us onto the boat (the Thais have that nack for finding spaces where they don’t seem to exist) and we felt we would sink but in the end we just got wet. James Bond Island was spectacular – just like thousands of other

islands in the area except that this one had hundreds of tourists on it and consequently lots of tacky stalls and lots of people eating dried squid (yes really). For some reason dried squid can be found everywhere in Phuket but it looks and smells foul so I haven’t been game enough to try it yet – What do you think my chances are of getting Richard to try it? The best bit of the trip was being canoed around the caves of two islands (Hong and Panak). Three to a canoe, us and our guide/driver who did a wonderful job of pointing interesting things out to us – the rock that looks like a fish, the rocks which look like they have diamonds in them, the mangrove trees, the BATS! He took us around some beautiful caves, through the darkness into the bright sunlight of wonderfully peaceful clearings where the cliffs rose above us (covered with green trees and flowers), the sun shone above us and the green water glistened beneath us. Our guide always tried to stay behind the pack of other canoes so often it was just us and it was so quiet and beautiful – it can’t really be explained well enough. In the afternoon we got some time to play about in the canoes ourselves at yet another beautiful island (Richard and Jo won the splashing contest – don’t believe Sue and Jacqui!). The guides from the boat had found a coconut on the beach and opened it up – so we looked longingly at it and were given some: fresh coconut, yum, yum! (mostly coconut here is served for the milk – very young and the flesh is soft). Only a little blood was spilt getting the flesh out – Jo took over and did it properly after that.

Christmas in Paradise

It didn’t seem like Christmas was approaching at all. If it wasn’t for a few decorations scattered about the place and a woman trying to sell Santa hats (with flashing lights on) in the bars every night then you wouldn’t suspect it was nearly Christmas at all. Certainly there was no atmosphere and no excitement and expectation (or the hassle of rushing down Oxford Street manically buying presents or getting the last turkey from Tesco on Christmas Eve – the relief). There were also no presents or cards….. boo hoo. Richard, Jacqui, Sue, Tony and I decided to spend Christmas Eve at Scruffy Murphys Pub where the excellent Mad Dog McCree helped us see in Christmas Day to the usual favourites (Fairytale of New York, Van Morrison, U2 etc). After a long lie in on Christmas Day we had our Christmas lunch, pizza for me and burger and chips for Richard, and then we did the only thing you can do on Christmas Day in Thailand, we went to the beach and at 4pm we phoned home to wish our families happy christmas. Richard and I exchanged the presents we had thoughtfully bought for each other – absolutely nothing!!!! and then we watched the sunset with Sue, Jacqui, a bottle of champagne and some chocolate – it doesn’t get more perfect than that.

The only thing that felt strange was not seeing our friends and families around Christmas time because usually that is the time that you catch up and that was what we missed. Then, best of all was that we did, after all, get a Christmas card. Mum said that she posted a card to us and when we went back to the hotel they said they had received a card and was it for us – a wonderful surprise – thanks Mum. It had actually arrived two days before Christmas but Mum had written my name on the card and the room was booked in Richard’s name so it took them a while to work out that it could be us.

New Year – Patong style

New Year wasn’t really that different from at home. We got drunk and had a hangover on New Years Day! After a few drinks (plus the name that tune drinking game!) and dinner in Karon with Sue and Jacqui we hopped in a Tuk-Tuk to Patong and, yes you’ve guessed it, we spent the night in Scruffy Murphys Pub dancing and drinking to Mad Dog McCree. Every so often we popped outside to watch the firecrackers and see what was going on on the Bang-La Road. It was heaving with people and there were so many firecrackers going off that the road was filled with smoke and the ground was covered with what looked like rose petals but were actually firecracker wrappers. It was an awesome sight but if you wanted to breathe you had to go back into the pub because it was so smokey outside. I somehow got Richard back home at about 3am. He had pretty much passed out a couple of hours earlier (the words ‘pace yourself’ not yet featuring in his vocabulary!!!) and was feeling rough for most of New Years Day. The girls had fared much better – arriving home at 6am – much respect!
[Libellous comments by Jo above – she obviously can’t remember that it was her who passed out and had to be carried home – I just had two halves of shandy all night! – Richard]

A quick note about last night (Friday 4^th) – we went to “Easy Riders” in central Kata – basically a biker style bar that has a live band on. On stage were a local Thai three piece covers band (name unknown) who were excellent: doing very good versions of everything from “Ace of Spades” to “La Bamba” via “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Wonderwall” – including a version of “House of the Rising Sun” where someone from the audience jumped on stage and started belting it out in French!

Thats all so far (5 Jan 02) – we have a car hired for three days on Sunday which we are going to use to explore the island a bit more and then spend two days driving back towards Bangkok: we’re getting the train the last couple of hundred km’s as we don’t fancy driving right into Bangkok. After that Vietnam is the plan (subject to flight availability!) so stay tuned for more updates…

Next its Back To Bangkok page to see how accurate the above turned out!

Dec 1-18

First Impressions

It was a relief to leave Bangkok and know that for the next 5 weeks we would be staying at least on the same island if not the same beach or bungalow. The flight from Bangkok to Phuket is just over an hour and the view of Phuket as we arrived was spectacular. The first thing we saw was the beautiful turquoise/blue sea and then the white sandy beaches around the coast followed by the surprisingly lush green interior, every inch of the hills covered with trees and vegetation. We couldn’t wait to get onto the beach…. but first we had to choose which beach. It was the first time since Newquay that we had arrived somewhere without a hotel booked and it was mid afternoon.

As soon as we left the airport there were taxi drivers offering to take us anywhere on the island and find us accommodation. We decided to play it safe and try to phone a couple of places ahead, choosing the areas of Karon and Kata beaches because they are quite big resorts and so would have lots of accommodation. The first place we tried was full causing a minor panic but the next two had rooms available. We climbed into a taxi and asked him to take us to Karon beach. It took about an hour and so we got a good look at the island on the way.

Karon Seaview Restaurant and Bungalows

Arriving late afternoon at the Karon Seaview it would have to have been pretty awful for us not to have stayed at least one night. At 1000 Baht a night or 700 Baht a night for 3 nights we decided to stay 3 nights. The Karon Seaview Restaurant and Bungalows are on the main road (but a quiet road) with the restaurant overlooking the beautiful beach. It was a pretty place with clean and basic bungalows and friendly, relaxed staff who hardly spoke a word of english. Click here to see the bungalows. The first night we went to the pub next door to have a drink and watch the sunset.

Richard remarked to the waitress how beautiful the sunset was but she said that she didn’t even notice it anymore because she sees it everyday! A shame really but I guess we become immune to the beauty around us at home so why not the same here. The only problem with the place was that it was right by a building site and we were kept awake by drilling at 12am (the coolest time to work). The whole of Karon undergoing massive development, at the moment there are huge empty fields along the beach road but I’m sure in a couple of years it will be full of high rise hotels. We thought we were blowing the budget staying here but it turned out that the Lonely Planet is way out on the accommodation prices for the area even bearing in mind it is high season. Lonely Planet’s Thailand Island and Beaches (2000 edition) reckons that the Karon Seaview should be 300-500 Baht a night and less in low season!! We spent the next couple of days trying to get accommodation for Christmas and New Year. It turned out that not everywhere was full but we had found a few places that were and so thought that we could only relax if we knew where we would be staying. Being the high season the prices for our accommodation rose and rose. Before we left my Godmother, Mary, sent us a nice card which said the well known phrase about taking half the amount of clothes you think you need and twice the money – it is, of course, absolutely true we are lugging around far too much stuff (eg. the jumper for the cold weather that we might get for a week in Vietnam) and we are spending much more than we thought. But it comes down to the fact that if you try to stick to a tight budget then you won’t do the things you want to do and so you won’t enjoy your trip and what’s the point of travelling this distance and for this long if you can’t afford to have a beer to drink while you watch the sunset? We ended up booking a couple of weeks in Karon and then three more just down the coast in Kata (for some variation – on the theme of sun, sea and sand).

Golden Sands Inn

The great thing about the Golden Sands Inn is the massive swimming pool and that there is always space to sit/lie around the pool – 2 weeks felt like a few days. The room wasn’t great: just old really but our air-conditioning kept leaking and the TV had such bad reception that we couldn’t watch it but it was cheap for a proper hotel (1200 Baht a night) and we had a fridge which had what must be the cheapest mini-bar on Earth (10 Baht for a coke, 35 Baht for a beer). A couple of days after we arrived we arrived at the pool in the morning and somebody said, ‘hello’ to us. It took me a minute to register (who do we know in Thailand?) but it was the two girls we had met on the Khao San Road. Sue and Jacqui were staying down the road but their Guesthouse got to use our Hotel’s pool. It was to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship and many drunken nights out…..

By this time we’d started to explore the nightlife in and around Karon.

After our stay at the Golden Sands we moved down to Kata.

Nov 26 – Dec 1

We didn’t really enjoy Bangkok much – frankly we spent most of our time hunting around for accommodation. Here’s some impressions:

We booked a couple of nights at a place called the ‘New Empire Hotel’. After the short flight from Hong Kong we got out of Bangkok airport into a hot and humid late afternoon – although not quite as hot as we’d expected. On trying to get the airport bus into town to our hotel we found the route we needed had been cancelled and I, foolishly, still bought tickets for another route that would take us fairly near our hotel – a much better idea would have been to have gone and got the train….

We got on our bus and the journey took ages as we hit rush hour and were stationary for 20 minutes or more at times. We finally got out at a place near where we thought our hotel was (it was dark by this time, and the bus was going so slowly that we thought it best to get off anyway, and the map we had was pretty useless: in fact all the maps we had/have of Bangkok are pretty useless). We found we were pretty much in the place we thought we were and so we loaded all our stuff onto our backs and started walking. Shortly we realised the big problem with Bangkok: crossing roads. A lot of the main roads in town are five lanes each way, and they have the system whereby drivers can turn left on a red light (they drive on the left in Thailand: haven’t figured out why – for some reason I was expecting it to be a drive on the right place) so crossing, even at traffic lights, is hard, never mind with full packs on.

After 20 minutes of this we were thoroughly fed up and hot – and still only half way to the hotel. So when a Taxi stopped and asked if we wanted a ride it was an easy decision. We’d been smart and read our guide book so we knew we had to get him to put the meter on rather than negotiate a fare – this we did, and he then proceeded to offer to be our guide for the next day and all the usual stuff which we politely declined. He wasn’t too happy with this and obviously decided that the journey we were doing was not going to get him a lot of cash on the meter so proceeded to take us a very roundabout route to the hotel. The only way we knew we were taking the long way was that we were already on the road that our hotel was on and even the worst one way system wouldn’t take the route we took. It’s rather worrying being stuck in a taxi going all round the back streets of a city you don’t know with all your worldly possessions in the boot of the car, especially with a driver who’s command of English has suddenly vanished. Eventually, after about 20 minutes of driving around, he dropped us at our hotel. The fare came to 48 Baht (about 80p) rather than the 35 Baht it ought to have been – not an amount of money to worry about and if he’d taken us straight there he would have got the extra in a tip – as it was he kept the 2 Baht change from the 50 I gave him anyway! This rather put us off cabs for the rest of our time in Bangkok – meaning we did a lot of walking!

Top tip no. 2: When in Bangkok, just agree a taxi fare in advance that is well over the odds (100 Baht (£1.66) ought to do it) and you’ll probably get taken straight to your destination with no hassle.

After the Hong Kong YMCA the New Empire Hotel was a bit of a dump – but it was eight times less expensive. We could see where the photo on the web site was taken, and it probably was a fair view of the room – but the photographer certainly earned his fee that day! One nice thing about the room was this view of a temple outside the window:

The next place we stayed (Rajdamnoen Hotel) was even more basic – no hot water, no kettle, no TV (no loss), broken furniture, no top sheet on the bed, walls that were once clean – but what do we expect for less than a fiver a night??

After settling in the New Empire on our first night we took the long (50 mins) walk from China Town where we were to the Khao San Road area – loads of street food vendors all over, loads of traffic, loads of travellers of all ages (6 months to 80 years) from all over the world in Khao San. Good things: beer at 30-60 Baht (up to £1), cheap food if you like rice and noodles, expensive food if you only eat steak (and bad steak at that!). We took a Tuk-Tuk back that night – exhilarating ride, back in 5 minutes – roads and other traffic a blur – the drivers find gaps that have some sort of quantum property where they don’t exist until observed. A good way to travel – just note top tip no. 2!

We spent the next 4 days organising our way out of Bangkok – including moving to the cheaper hotel, and using the best form of transport: the express river boat (Chao Phraya River Express) – fast, cheap (10p), with a great view of the Wats (temples) and Grand Palace along the river, and the wind in your face is very cooling.

By Thursday night we knew we were leaving on the Saturday for Phuket (pronounced Poo-get) so we had a night out in Gullivers on the Khao San Road, where we met an Australian surfer called David, who hadn’t been back to Australia for years and was currently involved in sueing the Japanese police over a road accident, one of many people we’ll meet for a night and never again. On the way back to our hovel (not a typo) we stopped off at an internet cafe for Jo to phone her Granny and wish her a happy birthday where we bumped into a couple of girls from North London and had a quick chat – it turned out they were off to Phuket soon as well. More people we’d never see again?? Maybe not….

Finally Saturday arrived and we were off away from Bangkok – we’ll be back, and hopefully will enjoy it more next time. This time we were just a bit disorganised, spent too long looking for accommodation and didn’t get to see any of the sights. No pictures on this page as we were too paranoid to carry the video around with us – although why we thought it safer left in the room I don’t know… As it was we had no trouble in Bangkok after that first taxi ride.

Onto Phuket…

20-26 Nov 2001

First Impressions

Arriving at the airport after a 12 hour flight, what could have been a difficult journey to our hotel was made very easy and simple by a well laid out airport, good information and great public transport. We got the public bus into town, and it included a nice commentary on the areas we were passing as well as letting us know exactly when to get off. A 100 meter stagger later and we were in a the very nice Kimberly Hotel reception, 5 minutes later we were in our room for the next 3 nights. Considering we booked the room on the basis of availability of online booking on the net, and price it was pretty good. We hadn’t really seen much of the area we were in (just off Nathan Road in Kowloon for those familiar with HK), apart from a general impression of bustling streets and plenty of neon signs about, but tonight wasn’t the time to go exploring – beyond a quick recce of the hotel bar of course…

Top tip no. 1: Don’t whatever you do, don’t have a couple of beers after having taken valium on a 12 hour flight a third of the way around the world. Firstly, it keeps you up all night unable to keep even water down, secondly missing that nights sleep prolongs the dreadfulness of jet lag by another day or so, thirdly it makes the next day much less fun that it ought to be, and last, but not least, it’s probably extremely bad for your health. My only excuse is that I was groggy from the valium and the flight and didn’t think about what I was doing (feeble, but the best I can come up with).

Second impressions

Shortly after midday on what was by now Wednesday, I’d recovered enough for us to make our planned rendevous with Becky. She took one look at the state I was in and decided that somewhere that was western orientated and close would be a better bet than authentic Hong Kong for lunch. Fortunately it was just across the road so we made it there, and Jo and Becky had lunch while I nursed a coffee and a coke. It turned out that the cafe had a couple of internet terminals which were free for customers, so we could check e-mail etc. Other internet cafes we went to had free drinks if you paid for net access. Both good customs! One thing I noticed was an advert for fast internet access for home use: 3mbps for £30 a month (thats 6 times as fast for 25% less than BT charge in the UK). I knew BT were ripping me off, but not by how much….bet that situation hasn’t changed when we get back either.

Anyway, it was great to see Becky and catch up on what she’d been up to for the last few years and get some more pointers as to what we should go and see whilst here. She pointed us the direction of an American Express office so we could get some travellers cheques (something we hadn’t got round to in the UK, mainly due to Trailfinders messing us around and Morden being a tiny little dump of a place where they look at you funny if you want to buy US dollar travellers cheques) and went off to work, having arranged to meet us the following night with some friends for a meal.

After a bit more rest in the hotel we ventured out in late afternoon and took a wander down Nathan Road to the harbour. Hong Kong harbour is amazing. Very impressive during the day, and magnificent at night when all the lights are on. There are some photos in our photo gallery but they don’t do it justice, as they can’t give an impression of the true scale of it all. Definitely a sight you should try and see with your own eyes.

After gawping at the harbour for a while we went around the space museum which is right on the harbour side – seems like Wednesday it’s free to go around, which was nice. It was interesting to see their exhibitions as they had a slightly different perspective to British museums which have a very British/European centred viewpoint. This one gave much more credit to other nations and cultures where astronomy and space technology was developed, particularly early Chinese astronomers and rocketry work (although given our location, thats about as surprising as the Western focus in British institutions).

More harbour staring as we came out as the sun had set and all the lights were on. One thing that we noticed whilst here was that a lot of the individual office lights are on as well as the large neon attachments on the outside. It adds to the overall effect, but we wondered whether it was organised, or just accidental. Another thought was that the electricity bill must be huge – we did notice later in the week that they don’t seem to leave the neon all night. Sometime after midnight the adverts start going out, so its not totally wasteful – but I’d still like to know if the tourism authority is contributing to the cost, if they aren’t then they should!

We went for a quick meal that evening in an Irish pub on the way back to the hotel. The jet lag was kicking in, so we had an early night – then woke at 4am all ready to get up and go. For the next few days that was the case – really tired in the early evening, very alert at 4am: a real pain, but it passed in the end.

The rest of the week

Thursday and Friday we spent getting our visa for Thailand (which involved going over to the consulate on Hong Kong island via the famed Star Ferry – a trip we were to take many times over the next few days) and wandering around the imposing skyscrapers of the financial district. After missing out on our trip to New York it was the first time I’d really seen proper skyscrapers – London just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to tall buildings. On the Friday we picked up our visas and took a trip to Stanley on the south of HK Island and sat down on the beach for a bit. Our first beach of the trip – only 25°C, but compared to what we left in the UK it was heaven.

We had a slight panic on the Thursday when we tried to book into our hotel for the next three nights, as they told me it was full and we’d have to check out the next day, and then we tried three more hotels on our road which were also full. After much frantic searching and phoning we got a room at the YMCA overlooking the harbour – which Jon and Sally had recommended, but was slightly(!) out of our planned price range, but (in a scenario that will become wearily familiar to those who read all of this site) we decided to go for it and booked in for three nights. The view was definitely worth it:

On Saturday we went up Victoria Peak on the Peak Tram, which is very steep, and gives the impression of being the start of a roller coaster – we just kept waiting for it to let go and the ride to start, but fortunately it didn’t and we made it to the top. A great viewing platform, but surrounded by a building of the worst tourist tat you ever saw. We skipped all of that and just admired the view, although it was a bit hazy before sunset, it was great afterwards:

When we came down from the peak we met up with Keith, a friend of Becky’s, who took us to a lovely park in the midst of the skyscrapers, on then onto the Foreign Correspondents Club where we were meeting Becky after she finished work. On the way we passed several landmarks:old British garrisons, government buildings and the old governors mansion house amongst others. The FCC club was a sight to see in itself. Once we met with Becky the four of us went to eat in a place fondly (I think) known to Becky and Keith as “Rat Alley” in Lan Kwai Fong. After food (and I assume, and hope, that the Rat in Rat Alley refers to the fact that it’s outdoors and the Rats come and eat up all the food that is dropped, rather than being the food…) we headed to a bar, and then another….and before we know it it is 6am and Becky is trying to drag us to another bar, and Jo and I are not playing – although she gave up pretty fast when we told her it was 6am, muttering something about thinking it was “only” 4am. We staggered down to the harbour to watch the sun come up and get the first Star Ferry back over to Kowloon and our hotel, having truly had a night out in Hong Kong. Thanks Becky, Keith and the nameless covers band who kept us all going in the last bar till so late(early?).

As you might imagine Sunday was a bit of a write off, but we managed to get to the very posh Peninsular hotel next door for afternoon tea, and Becky came over in the evening to say goodbye. A picture here of the 3 of us, and the view from our room (again – I think we were becoming a bit obsessed by the view by the end):

Monday came and it was time to pack our bags and head for the airport to catch our flight to Bangkok, and start phase 2 (or is that 3?) of the trip.

Last Impressions

We didn’t find Hong Kong as busy as we’d expected. It is busy, but no more so than London or probably any other major city. It’s an expensive place to be, but definitely worth a short visit. The whole issue of integration with mainland China will probably change it over the next decade or so, but I expect it will keep it’s distinct flavour of the mix of Asia and the West. I’ve no idea where they are going to fit any more people tho’ – the place looks full. I guess they’ll just knock down the old buildings and build them back again but higher, or reclaim more land from the sea.

Last thought: Becky sure knows how to show visitors a great Saturday night out. Thanks Becks! 😉