8 Hour Layover in Hong Kong

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My legit plan to try and sleep on this overnight flight was work all day so I'd be tired enough to sleep on a plane. In fact, I worked for three days and then drove home, showered, grabbed my gear, popped my first anti-malaria med and headed back north to SFO with Chris. Our flight didn't leave til nearly midnight, and considering my usual bedtime after work is around 9:30pm, I was exhausted. By the time we boarded and took off, I'd started dozing from my Benadryl. I totally missed dinner, which was fine because we ate in the airport. You can never depend on what they're serving on planes these days. I don't think I missed much. After dozing eight or so hours, I woke up, hazy and hungry. God bless this airline for having a cup of noodles as a midnight snack option. I watched movies and snacked the few hours until we had breakfast and landed in Hong Kong.

Unfortunately, we now had an 8 hour layover. Fortunately, this is probably the most massive airport I've ever been in. So we hand plenty to explore in our foggy state. First up, was hunting down coffee. Thankfully not that difficult, it was one of the only places open at 6am when we landed. I missed Asian coffee. I don't know why- maybe it's the milk they use- but it's the one thing that surprised me when I was in Japan. The coffee is just better. After exploring several stores, buying kids chopsticks in the Disney store, eating Dim Sum and looking at a modern art exhibit on teapots, we eventually lied down in an empty section of seats. Or I did- Chris played with his camera. I tried to read but I was too tired. So I listened to music with my eyes closed and entered a vegetative state, with my backpack firmly entangled in my body so it wouldn't get snatched.

After another hour or two, we got up, bored and wandered around some more, looking in more stores, buying a waffle and ice cream and getting even more coffee. Soon enough, it was close enough to dinner time and I really wanted to try legit Chinese food. There was one expensive restaurant in the Terminal we thought might be good. It wasn't absolutely terrible but it wasn't good. Plus it cost an insane amount of money and we stupidly didn't do the currency conversions before ordering. Literally over a hundred dollars on crap food lol. Lesson learned. Thank goodness the rest of our food budget in Cambodia would be stupid cheap.

Finally it was time to board our plane the rest of the way to Cambodia. By the time we landed, it was close to 6pm. It was something of a 40hr journey between driving, two flights and the long layover. Next we had to get through customs. I'm not gonna lie- the airport was impressively nice compared to what I imagined in my head. And customs, while not a great experience, wasn't as bad as I had feared either. In the recent past (like a few years ago), the folks in the medical mission organization we'd joined would have to bribe customs officials to get through. =( I read as much as I could on the country of Cambodia from modern history, the sex slave trade and the genocide so I'd be as mentally and emotionally prepared as reasonably possible. Bribes is just how this country has run for decades. The Asian couple in front of us in line had stepped up to the customs desk together. Being in a foreign country, we thought it reasonable to imitate them. Mistake. The officer growled at Chris to step back, one at a time. The officer then spent five solid minutes ignoring me while he played with his phone before finally reviewing my paperwork and sending me through. Then he ignored Chris for three times as long as he stood there. And what can we do? This is not a country you make a scene in. So we were patient even though we were exhausted. I made use of the empty time by looking for our luggage and buying a large amount of filtered water in bottles. Eventually, Chris made it through when the officer decided to glance at his paperwork for all of a minute.

Outside the terminal was a mass of Cambodian men waiting to pick up travelers and drive them to their hotels. We found ours pretty quickly, and off we went to the Royal Angkor Resort. I was amazed at how beautiful this resort was- it's gotta be in my top five most amazing hotels I've been to- especially considering how little we paid for it. We were presented with ice cold tea while we waited for the front desk to arrange our paperwork. They checked us in and escorted us to our room. We had just enough energy to shower, walk back down to the restaurant and then go back upstairs to bed. We were crashing hard and fast. And we had a long few days of sight-seeing ahead of us!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Conversion
Yes, you've got to do those conversions before ordering. Enjoy exploring.