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Published: March 22nd 2011
...and so it's time for our last travel blog...
This one is so 'hot off the press', that we're atually experiencing it as I write it. Unfortunately the experience involves 7 hours of waiting at Hong Kong Airport for a flight to Doha, before catching our final flight home. It's 10pm here and we don't fly until 12.45am...thank god for books and free wi-fi. We've done so much travelling over the past 48 hours that we're beginning to get a bit delirious.
Since the last blog, we had our final 4 days holed up in Chiang Mai, with a small amount of money and seemingly endless amounts of time to fill. I know it seems like this travelling malarky is the easy life...and it definitely has it's perks, but when you're in a city with no money it can really drag! There's only so much sitting in coffee shops, sipping at water (the cheapest thing on the menu) you can do before you snap. I don't want it to seem like I'm moaning, but basically we were ready to come home.
In between all the hanging around we also attended a cooking course that we had booked months
ago. I was very excited about whipping up my own Pad Thai and green curries and the recipes we were taught were pretty straight forward. We learnt about all the different ingredients they use before hitting the kitchen, and the rest of the time was spent eating. We had about 5 courses and felt pretty sick afterwards. The instructors were good fun and they kept asking if we wanted the dishes 'Thai Hot' or 'Foriegner Hot'!
After 9 days in Chaing Mai, we started the long journey home. This began with a sleeper train back to Bangkok (yep, the 4th time in the capital!), which took about 14 hours. We opted for a bit more luxury than the train in Vietnam, which means we have the coach to ourselves. We pull into Bangkok station at about 7am and have a 9 hour wait before the flight to Hong Kong.
It's a shame we couldn't spend more time in Hong Kong as it's a very cool city. The views that you're treated to as you drive through the city are spectacular. Even though it's man made it still looks stunningly picturesque. Our hostel is on Hong Kong island, in
one of the massive, though slightly grottier high rise buildings. We've booked a double room, which isn't the best quality and even stranger is the fact we have bunkbeds. I ask the receptionist about this and he explains that this is actually a family room and the 2 beds are double beds! They're obviously not made for westeners as we struggle to fit in one.
We check out of our hostel the next day (which was actually this morning...I'm confusing myself now) and try to fill the 12 hours that we have left. Hong Kong is a very expensive city and with a measly amount of money left in our pocket, I'm afraid to say that we used the reliable (and most importantly cheap) fast food restaurants of the city to get us through the day. Bad for Cholesterol, good for bank balance.
We also take a ferry trip to the other side of the bay to explore more of the city and get some snaps in front of the skyline. Unfortunately we've only got a couple of pictures from our time here, but that's all we had time for!
So that's all folks! In 17 hours time we'll be touching down in Heathrow, where it all began 9 months ago and are both very excited. We're going to have a few glasses of vino on the plane to celebrate (and to hopefully help us sleep!!)
I'm might do another blog but to be honest this is the last tale from the road. See you all once we've had some proper sleep!!
See you all shortly
Ali and Clio xx
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Tracey
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...and thus the final chapter closes! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone! Have a safe journey home! x