Hong Kong

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Saturday the 11th of September

After our night flight from Sri Lanka and a touch down back in Bangkok we arrived into Hong Kong a couple of days ago. Its a real contrast to Sri Lanka and a welcome stop before our last country on the trip, India. The only probem is that I think now we are here we are going to get a bit of a culture shock going into India, where as if we went straight to India from Sri Lanka it would not be so apparent.

Yesterday we went on a really interesting walking tour of Hong Kong Island. Apart from the obvious huge towering banks and shopping centres we saw some strange shops selling birds nests from Thailand, raw ginseng, and another shop whose staff were preparing huge packs of sharks fins. Lots of the shops here sell Chinese herbs and many others specialise in dried fish! What a smell, I cannot imagine they taste good either.

We will be in Hong Kong for 6 nights only, which is probably enough time to take in most of the sights and perhaps do some shopping too. Yesterday we found M&S and bought some treats and tonight we plan to climb to the top of Victoria Peak as the view of the lights from the buildings below is meant to be really amazing.
Lou

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Tuesday the 14th of September

And now the end is near, it's time to face, the final curtain. Regrets, I've had a few but then again, too few to mention. Well our six days in Hong Kong are up and in about 10 hours we arrive in Delhi, then just a mere 2 months in India and then home, oh how time has flown!

I will be quite sad to leave Hong Kong for a few reasons, one being I like it here and two being that once we leave here we only have one country left on our trip. We have had quite a busy few days here as with only 6 days we had a lot to fit in. On Saturday we headed up to the peak to see the great views of Hong Kong and take a few pictures. Unfortunately all I got was a great view of the back of the peoples heads who had got up there before us. Well I say that but in reality I could see over the top of most people, as the average height here seems to be about 5 foot. Then on Sunday we went for a walk around the markets, which was great fun but incredibly crowded with people shouting and bartering over everything from roses to rhinoceroses horns to fake Rolex's. I have to say that I just can't understand the language here at all, everybody talks so fast and to my untrained ears it just sounds like noise with no discernable meaning. I wonder if English sounds the same to the Chinese?

Yesterday was our last full day in Hong Kong, so we decided to leave it and go to Macua, go figure! Macua is a former Portuguese colonial port which was also handed back to the Chinese (in 1999.) Compared to Hong Kong it was a lot less developed but it was still quite westenised, with McDonalds etc. It is only an hours ferry from Hong Kong but it is considered another country so you have to go through all the passport control and customs. All in all it was a nice day out, spoiled only slightly by aroma coming from the gentlemen who was sat behind us on the return journey. Some of the dried fish shops here really do smell quite terrible but in all honesty nothing compared to what this guy was eating. The smell of fish was amazingly rank, It smelt like he was eating Captain Birdeyes underpants. It made us wish we were back in New Zealand where there is no eating on public transport.

All in all Hong Kong has been a great place to visit but also quite a strange place. For me the Chinese culture feels a lot more different than any other culture I have experienced on this trip. So much so that I feel like the 6 days in Hong Kong have wetted my appetite so now I would like to go mainland China someday. Well thats all folks as some of us have a plane to catch!

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