Advertisement
Published: January 25th 2008
Just Plane Mad!
As promised at the end of our last blog we have a few airplane stories. The first happened on our flight from Hanoi to Saigon. Now we don't know if the passengers on the other side of the isle were scared due to hearing about the BA flight crash landing at Heathrow, or were just mad, but as soon as the Captain mentioned over the tanoy that we were about to start our descent and could everyone fasten their seatbelts, however 2 people took this to extremes and took out their motorcycle helmets and put them on. Now, I know we were flying the Vietnamese version of Ryan Air, but it was an English pilot and a good flight so were surprised to say the least. Now even if they were scared of the landing we would assume they would remove them as soon as they left the plane, but when they collected their bags they were still wearing them.
Just Plane Bad
We transferred terminals from domestic to international, which entailed giving up our trolleys to have them replaced with 'better' models. We were half an hour early to check in so we were talking to a couple of Americans. We got to the front of the queue to be told that our names were not on the system. Stephen has been told this before, but this time knew he had not missed his flight by a day as we had the altered paper tickets showing the date and time. It transpired that upon changing our bookings in Melbourne, the lady at Qantas, not only forgot to charge us but also to put our tickets properly in the system. After several paltitations she managed to get us on the flight, but said all of the rest of our flights had been deleted from the system and she could not get us on our originally planned flight to Jakata as it was full - we were unhappy to say the least and realised there was nothing to do except wait until HK which was the Cathay Pacific hub.
Whilst we waited for our flight we had our first decent cup of coffee since we arrived in Vietnam - their stuff is undrinkable even by Stephen's standards and having a decent cup took the edge off our aggravation at possibly being stuck in Jakarta missing our connecting flight.
As soon as we arrived in HK we went to the Cathay desk, and were relieved to be told that they could get us on to our planned flight, and they thought the lady in Saigon was just being lazy! Relieved we got on the airport bus to our hostel.
Not a Good Start...
From the Cathay desk we called our hostel as advised by the hostelbookers website and told them we were en route and they said they would pick us up from the bus stop. 5 minutes after our arrival at the bus stop, they had not picked us up, but as we had a map we walked to them. Let’s just say we thought that was the worst it could get that they were busy and could not collect us, how wrong we were. We found the building in the middle of the market area of Kowloon (as we wished) but the man who saw us at the lift purported to be from the hostel and said it was full and was going to take us to his friends hostel. We have heard of these scams in the past so barged past him and into the lift, where unfortunately he followed. Boy, were we wrong about the scam, it turned out he did work there and he insisted that despite our booking via the internet they had given our room away and that we
would have to stay at his 'friends' place. So down the lift we went across the road and into another building and up into a closet with a double bed. By this time it was 1am and we had no fight in us, resolving to deal with the matter in the morning we tried to sleep in a bed that was so short Stephens ankles were dangling over the edge.
We Never Thought We would Say These Words
The next morning was not much of an initial improvement as when we wet back to the hostel we were met by someone who had no grasp of English, but at least managed to convey we would have a room in that place that night, but they had not yet been cleaned. So we went out for breakfast and a day in HK. Now for breakfast we were being fussy and did not want an Asian breakfast, but something approaching western fare. We never thought we would say the words to each other, but we went looking for either a (I cant even type it now) Starbu**s or Mc Cafe - a vast improvement on Mc D's as the food is not fried and we settled for a coffee and muffin in the Mc Cafe.
Finally Geting Going
After breakfast we headed to the tourist information close to the Star Ferry Terminal and decided that as we were on Kowloon to do a coach tour of Hong Kong Island. Whilst we were waiting we headed into the nearest shopping centre to get immediately lost as once centre heads into the next and into a hotel and into an office building. We found the high end goods, and then the electronics and then finally lunch. We headed to the meeting place which was a hotel, and eventually found the lobby after having to go through a department store. Unfortunately our trip did not start well as they herded us onto a bus and then took us to ... another bus, where we were left with no explanation for the best part of an hour!
At Last, Things Start Looking Up
We did finally get going with a jovial guide, and our fist destination was a Buddhist Temple. he explained that with Chinese New Year on the 7th Feb, everyone was going to the temple to make offerings and wishes for the forthcoming year. After the temple we were taken by cable to the top of Victoria Terrace, a magnificent spot overlooking the whole of HK. Unfortunately they have started charging extra to access the top floors of the building at the cable car terminal, which made front page news on the paper I was given heading into HK, so we walked around the traditional route which still gave great views, although the best were from the cable car despite it traveling at about a 75 degree angle up the hill.
From there we got back in the bus to head to a fishing village that will be relocated within ht next couple of years. The best was to see this was by a Saipan boat, which we did. Finally we drove past Jackie Chans house en-route to the first of many markets. Unfortunately they were beginning to close as we got there late due to our abortive start.
Sound and Vision
That was the end of our tour and we asked to be dropped off at the Star Ferry terminal so we could see the Guinness Book Of Records Sound and Light Show. Every night the HK Tourist Office organise a spectacular light show from several of the larger buildings on either side of the harbour, which was quite breathtaking.
Change a V to a T
After a full day we headed back to the hostel to see the quality of our room - we were greeted by an elderly woman who had the unfortunate habit at shouting to everyone making her sound really aggressive and as if she was fighting with everyone. Unfortunately this room although being slightly larger that our shoebox did not have a working toilet, so we argued for a larger room and eventually were moved. We demanded to speak to the owner (who spoke decent English) and finally agreed to a reduction in rate due to our problems. At the same time at Janice’s suggestion Stephen checked the web for a hotel web site as opposed to a hostel one. We found what looked like a decent place around the corner. As the hostel also looked decent on the web we decided to check it out after dinner before booking on the web. Lets just saw we liked what we saw and the web was at a far cheaper rate than they could offer us - we booked it and could not wait to get there the next morning and even splurged on their excellent buffet breakfast that kept us going until dinner. So by a few clicks of a mouse we managed to go from a total hovel to a great hotel.
That night to celebrate we headed down the Ladies Market for Jan to find the first few bargains of the trip.
From one Market to the Next
After changing hotels and wallowing in our splurge we headed to the flower market, and then to the adjacent Bird Market. here not only do they sell them, but some owners are know to take their own birds for a walk! After that was the goldfish market - and no we did not see any Nemos with leashes on!
After all this walking around markets we decided to treat ourselves. Throughout South East Asia there is a tradition of foot massages to relax the whole body as they believe parts of the feet are related to other parts of the body. Taking advantage of the daytime special we left with more energy than when we went in, enough to carry on throughout the shops! We decided that we wanted to buy a new digital camera so went researching a few models in the centre by the Star Ferry.
We wanted to take the ferry to cross the harbour but unfortunately the haze had come in and the visibility was terrible.
That night we walked not only to the night market but also to where the electronics were centered. Unfortunately here the camera we wanted was out of stock throughout, and where we could find it, it was at a similar price to the UK. Unfortunately despite our best efforts we found it harder to spend money in HK than we thought, but had a good time in too short a period.
More Plane Problems
We arrived early the next morning at HK airport to fly to Jakarta. Unfortunately when we booked the tickets we thought we should fly into Jakarta, and go overland to Bali. We realised our mistake so organised an Indonesian Ryan Air flight instead.
Somewhere along the line our new bag (to cope with all of the recent shopping) had been damaged, and taking it to Cathay they said that they would repair it upon arriving in Bali. Now that part was easier said than done, as trying to get into the domestic terminal at Jakarta was not easy and delayed by x-ray machines at the entrance. Finally getting in we went to our airline and as we were early sought to get ourselves on an earlier plane. In fact we needed to settle on getting ourselves on ANY plane. Apparently they had cancelled our flight without telling us, and as were the only westerners in sight the airline employee moved us into the business class lounge where we decided to help ourselves to drinks and snacks whilst he got us on one of his competitors planes. Although delayed they did get us to Bali earlier than we had planned.
After sorting out the bag (we were given a temporary replacement) we headed into town, to a hotel reserved for us at the airport. Although not bad we resolved to once again move to better accommodation and indeed have settled into a lovely place with a great pool that Jan wants to take home with her.
Doing Absolutely Nothing
For our first two days, we decided to do nothing more strenuous than walk to the beach and meandered through the shops. It was bliss.
An Absolute Wreck
Today we went diving. We were picked up early and taken to the Eastern Side of the Island to place called Tulamben, where for the first time we would not only dive from off the beach, but to a Wreck - The USS Liberty. Although aware of 2 new types of dives we were not anticipating a strong current. Stephen did not like this to say the least, and became the second wreck off the coast! So to ensure he would dive again, after lunch he and Jan went separately with our guide so as not to ruin her second dive as he did the first. Not only did he start diving again but did manage to enjoy himself seeing some great fish along the wreck as well as a massive Barracuda.
We are off for a tour of a large part of the island tomorrow and will be staying in the centre for a few days. We hope to send another blog before getting back to the UK on 1 Feb.
So long for now
J&S
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0459s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
uri
non-member comment
Spurs 5 , Arsenal 1
just wanted to say to any arsenal fans reading this: hahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah ! hahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ! Arsenal are sh*T !!!!! SPURS ARE ON THEIR WAY TO WEMBLEY !!!!!! BRING ON THE CHELSEA SCUM !!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA