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Published: October 3rd 2009
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Hallo friends, Sam here again after Laura's brief foray into the blogging world. I write this in a little cafe in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon for those with a more traditional outlook. We have been here for 24 hours, but I will be writing about Hong Kong for the most part.
Right then, Hong Kong...
Well the journey there should have been easy: a night bus from Yangshuo to Shenzhen, whereby you pass through customs, then get a bus or train to Hong Kong itself... Hmmmmmm
We arrived four hours later than planned, the 'beds' were too small for Gerry the Gerbil, and most interestingly of all, the driver didn't know the way (which somewhat explains the first complaint). I counted four occasions upon which, on 'awakening', we were doing a U-turn in the middle of a 4-lane motorway/road thing. Nevertheless, with a little help from a Frenchman, some arrogant Israelies, and some not very pleasant locals, we made it across the border, and two buses, two trains, and a whole lot of neon lights later, we arrived in Kowloon at the notorious Chungking Mansions. One search of Wikipedia will tell you all you need to
know; when blockbuster films about people trafficking and robbery are made about the very place in which you intend to spend 4 nights, the heart starts to race.
Anyway, we survived, the room was clean, and the bed was big enough for Gerry the Giraffe.
Kowloon, a mersey-esque distance from Hong Kong Island, is a buzzing hub of skyscrapers, shopping malls, shopping malls, and slightly bigger shopping malls. Utterly ridiculous. Pointless nonsense. There were 2 Tiffany's within 100 yards from each other, in the same building! One shopping centre doubled up as a harbour, some were suspended in mid-air above the roads, and some went 4 floors down down down into the ground. These aren't HnnnMs and Zaras either, these are the big boys; the big kahunas - brands so posh the signs are written in diamonds, probably.
This it seems would be the case for HK (Czech out the abrev.) and Kowloon. The 'skyways' (indoor paths snaking their way between the skyscrapers to stop the workers from getting their Primarni suits wet) were ludicrous in scale. They facilitate lunch-time shopping for those working on the 50th floor, and as a very lovely, if slightly eccentric, Hong
Kong local explained to us in the several hours in which she decided to hang out with us (we did invite her), the entire city is designed for shopping. Hong Kong could not exist by itself in the world. It is a playground for the rich, and for the poor, a place that makes people think they have to be rich, or at the very least, look rich. Get real Sam, everywhere is like that... but seriously, it's pure insanity, and has to be seen to be believed. Hong Kong is of course a major shipping port, and has a major role to play in the importing and exporting of goods, but my oh my, if Hong Kong was a dish of sausage and mash, shopping would be the sausage. I'm tired and don't really know what I'm writing. Analogies will be avoided at all costs for the remainder of this entry.
The skyline is impressive, in the evening, but through the barrage of rain (we caught some of the typhoon that proved so destructive in the Philippines), I was more bothered about keeping the camera dry. In the daytime, when not invisible due to rain, the skyline of
Hong Kong Island is dull, grey, and somewhat monstrous. As a place it does live for night time - the markets full of tat and the so-called Electronics and Sports Streets simply come alive.
We ate as cheaply as we could, which was not as cheap as Xingping unfortunately. Most of our Hong Kong money was squeezed out of us by some friends whom, between Xingping and Lake Baikal, we had agreed to meet. Mal and Belinda particularly encouraged the drinking of wine and gin. We saw the fireworks celebrating 60 years of Communist rule in China with them, and ended up in a bar playing electronic darts and SHAKE! (a ludicrous dice based game that involved lots of shouting, mainly from one sharp-fringed enthusiastic local, who was also incredibly pleasant, because she has the blog address ). Our Hong Kong local friend, mentioned previously, advised us that China's rule and influence was neither welcomed nor significant to the people of Hong Kong. Regardless, there were lots of people on that famous waterfront. The fireworks were good, but I was disappointed that the odd one was NOT red in colour.
I realise that I
have made no effort to really tell you what we did in Hong Kong, but I can confirm that we did everything with enthusiasm. Oh, we did go to the Hong Kong Museum of History and the major art gallery on the waterfront. The history museum was rather good, and it also gave us chance to have another random encounter with an enthusiastic individual. This time an older man who was incredibly knowledgable on South East Asia. He had been to Laos 14 times!
I cannot remember what else we did in Hong Kong. Ah, we did go up the peak, but it was so crowded, so full of rich tourists, and so full of yet more shopping malls, that the infamous lookout over the city was a bitter disappointment.
The airport was fairly snazzy, and the Vietnamese flight attendant ladies were rather marvellous, but that's all I'm permitted to say on that.
Right, we will say more on Vietnam in due course. Hong Kong - it's fine, but you need some dosh to really enjoy it.
'Nuff said
Cheerio
Much love
Sam and The Gillett
(Beard is coming on well -
can be accurately described as bushy. Sweaty laura - after a brief break in HK, she's back!)
...usual apologies for spelling - keyboard is worse than a clingfilm hat
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Jason
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typhoon
What are your plans for Vietnam looking like? We are in Sapa, and would like to head down to Hue, Hoi An, Danang, etc., but we are still unsure about the extent of the flood damage. We have heard a few exciting stories about leaving hotels in boats, but nothing more recent.