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Published: December 10th 2006
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Yet another early start for us this morning, as we had to rush back to Sydney to catch the plane to Hong Kong. The hotel had made us a packed breakfast, which was huge - everything from freshly made tea and bacon rolls to fruit salad and pastries. You could have found a grassy hill and fed 5000 with it.
The traffic getting into Sydney was terrible, as there was a jack-knifed truck that had closed the motorway. So we ended up crawling our way through Botany, glancing nervously at the clock.
We made it with little time to spare and hopped on the flight. The eight hour flight flew by thanks to the excellent entertainment system that Qantas have. You can watch any film or programme on demand.
The only bad part of the flight came as we were approaching Hong Kong, when the captain announced that the Aussies had wiped the floor with us in the second test.
We were both tired when we stepped off the plane and wanted nothing more than a quick and easy transfer to the hotel. However, this was not to be!
We went to get a taxi and
told the guy at the taxi rank VERY CLEARLY that we wanted to go to the Langham Place Hotel. He in turn told the taxi driver this in Cantonese and we set off fine.
The journey was pretty scary, our octogenarian driver seemed to be feeling what lane he was in, rather than looking. We’d drift to the right and roll over the cats eyes with a “DUM, DUM, DUM”, that would generally alert him we were heading into the path of a truck or other road user.
So then we’d drift to the left, until you felt the “DUM, DUM, DUM” of the cats eyes on the left-hand side of the road. This continued all the way into the city.
Now it’s probably because of the disturbing nature of his driving that I wasn’t paying much attention to where we were going (and the fact that I shut my eyes). So after 30 minutes of this he stopped in a back street and pointed up the hill to say there it is.
We then had a bit of an argument over money before he chucked our bags onto the pavement and disappeared into the night.
We dragged our bags up the hill and as we got close, we could see that this was not our hotel.
The bell boys at reception were very helpful when I asked where the hell we were. The got out a map and pointed to one of the back roads behind Central, so at least we were in Hong Kong. Only one problem, we were on Hong Kong Island and our hotel was across in Kowloon, on the other side of the harbour!
The bell boys kindly flagged down a taxi and we headed off in the right direction. Our second taxi driver did better than the first. Indeed he got us to Mong Kok where the hotel is but was then completely unable to find the 46 story, illuminated 5 star hotel. He contented himself with dropping us off at the Langham Place Mall instead.
We dragged our bags around the corner and more or less fell into the lobby of the hotel. We’d arrived, tired sweating and with a distrust of all HK taxi drivers.
At least the hotel was great. We were whisked up to the club floor for a very painless check in and then shown to our room on the 35th floor. The rooms were not huge, but what they lacked in size they made up for in comfort. It had a big plasma screen mounted on the wall and the bathroom walls were glass, so you could look out over Hong Kong as you had a bath.
We grabbed a quick shower and went off to the ladies market (where a lady can get anything she needs!). It was 10.30pm at night and the streets were crammed with people. The sounds, sights and smells were unlike anuthing we’d ever experienced before.
Illuminated and neon signs hung out alarmingly over the roads every couple of metres. Music blared out from ten different places at once and the smell of the street food was overpowering.
We had a good wander, Fi stopping to buy a bag and by about 11.30pm we retreated to the calm of the hotel and crashed out
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