Hong Kong

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A couple of days ago, we took an overnight train from Guilin to Shenzhen. Sadly this time we were right at the end of the carriage, and the other passengers in our compartment were very loud, so we didn't get a lot of sleep. Overall though, the sleeper trains have been a good way to travel, covering a lot of distance in relative comfort.



At Shenzhen station, we walked across the border into Hong Kong - quite a few pieces of paper are used in the process of crossing! From there, we got the MTR to our hotel, near Austin station, in Kowloon.



Yesterday afternoon, we walked to the harbour and sailed across on the star ferry. Whilst food here is quite close to prices at home, transport is still far cheaper, and you get a great view from the boat. We walked to the peak tram, via the mid-levels escalator (a series of escalators that take people up a hill. There was a massive queue, and by the time we got to the top it was dark, but the view of the city all lit up was impressive.



Today we needed out to Lantau island, and - after another long queue - took the gondola up to Ngong Ping in the sunshine. We walked up to see the giant Buddha and Po Lin Monastery. We had (vegetarian) noodles in the Monastery for lunch, where it was nice to sit and eat on a cold stone bench out of the sun! In the afternoon we got a bus (after another, thankfully shorter, queue) to Tai O. It's a fishing village, where many of the local people live in small ramshackle houses built on stilts in the harbour. Despite the bus queue, there weren't all that many tourists, and it was an interesting place to spend a few hours, although we weren't tempted to try any of the many varieties of dried fish available, which smelt horrible!

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