Welcome to Hong Kong or HK as the locals call it - A huge sprawling Metropolis of sky scraper after sky scraper.
We arrived after the overnight train from Guilin to Shenzhen and then we had to walk across the border to the Hong Kong side. It was not as painless as you might of thought! because Hong Kong is a SAR and not technically part of mainland China the foreign passport queue was full of Westerners, Indians and thousands of Chinese trying to cross the border (some of them unsuccessfully). in the queue we where greeted with warning signs about avian flu and also that the was a potential outbreak of Scarlet fever - so welcome to Hong Kong!
Once on the other side we got onto a crammed train and headed to Kowloon and our accommodation within the Chunking Mansions. Do not let the name fool you the 'mansions' are a warren of dodgy dealings and fake outlets selling anything and everything- there are 5 towers located above the ground floors the house 'hotels' and lots of restaurants, especially Indian restaurants.
So we found the correct lift and waited in the huge queues and there are only 2 lifts for each tower - one serving even floors and the other odd floors. Leanne got in the lift first and I had to wait a further 10 minutes for it to come back down 17 floors so I could join her on the 9th floor.
When I got there we hit our first problem! the accommodation we had booked and paid for online had now fallen through! the lady was not willing to help so Leanne basically grilled the lady until she got her husband who eventually gave us our money back. So we had to walk down 9 floors with all of our bags and then start a search for new accommodation. unfortunately for us there was a massive conference on in HK so there was no accommodation. After walking around for 5 hours we found a room for $600 HKD (about 50 quid a night) which was really central but not in the 'mansions' which proved to be a good choice but the owners had little English and it was up to a Filipino lady to help us.
We needed to head to the Indian consulate to apply for our Indian Visa's so we had a shower and ran there before it closed at 5.30pm, but we hit another problem! Online it said it would take 5 days for the visa's but when we got there the guy said it could take 7 days which wasn't good for us as we had flights booked to the Philippines before then. So a little disheartened we took the decision to wait until we got to Manila before we got our visa's for India.
After our drama we headed into the city and decided to stick to the Kowloon side of the harbour it is definitely a hub of frenzied activity. people offering you everything from bags to watches and everything in between - we managed to refuse and headed to the water front where things where just as busy but luckily we could escape the constant hassle of the touts.
That night we headed back to the mansions and found an amazing Indian restaurant on the 5th floor- we also arrived at a good time as we got 20% discount and the meal was amazing.
Afterwards we walked around the neon lined streets before heading back for a well earned sleep.
the next day was just a slow day with more sight seeing and web searching as we had to alter our plans so we decided to move our flight to Manila closer so we would have more time to get the India visa's in case anything else went wrong.
On the third day we found cheaper accommodation in a hostel which was a little further back from Kowloon and in a more authentic part of HK - and we where not disappointed! we booked a 6 bed dorm but the guy kindly gave us a private double at no extra charge (lucky us). We found we where sharing with a Dutch guy called Helmert and a Brazilian Chinese guy (weird I know).The only down side was that it was on the 9th floor and there where no lifts, but we burnt 38 calories every time we walked up the stairs. So we dumped our bags and caught the MRT (metro) over to Hong Kong Island to visit the zoological and botanical gardens which where amazing and had free wild life exhibits such as a huge aviary, Orangutans, turtles, lakes and other wildlife which was totally free! the parks are awesome and there was no sign of damage or vandalism which puts the UK to shame!
After this we headed over to the 'tram' to Victoria Peak' which is just know locally as the 'peak' to get amazing 360 degree views of the Island and the skyline - unfortunately it was a little hazy on the pictures but we got some amazing views and enjoyed a nice lunch up at the top before heading back down. We decided to cruise back to Kowloon on a local ferry which reminded me a little bit of getting the Mersey ferry with my Dad when I was little and made me feel happy inside. That night after much deliberation we dined on some amazing Japanese food (Ramen I think?) and we had a window seat into the kitchen where we could watch the food being freshly made, truly an amazing sight.
The next day Helmert asked us if we wanted to join him for some lunch with some friends he met in Finland who where from HK - so Leanne and I said yes and off we went on a awesome day seeing parts of HK we would never have seen! visiting temples and using fortune sticks, to visiting a delicious Dim Sum restaurant.
That night we met back up with the guys and Nana and Ian (our new HK friends) treated us to an amazing seafood dinner on the street near Ladies Market and the night ended with us trying intestine kebabs! After the food we headed to a roof top bar for a night cap which resulted in me paying $160 HKD for 2 drinks for Leanne and myself!!!!
The next day was another relaxing day after a night of food and drink so the following day we headed to Macau. We took the high speed ferry which took 1 hour and when we arrived we where greeted with another cool mini nation. Macau seems to seamlessly blend it's old colonial past with a modern skyline and architecture, although this is not to every ones liking. The fact that Macau has opened itself up to gambling means that there is a lot of modern developments and huge casinos and resorts - it has sort of become the Asian version of Las Vegas. For those of you who don't know Macau is a collection of small islands which has now been connected with huge causeways which are similar to those in the Florida Keys and also by land reclamation (another hot topic in these parts). We spent the day visiting the colonial heritage with old Cathedrals, Fort's and Portuguese inspired cobbled streets before heading to the 'Grand Lisboa' the biggest casino and resort in Macau which was immense!
We took the fast ferry back to Kowloon and decided to change some currency into Filipino Peso and for some random reason we decided to check our emails - and it was a good job we did! Leanne had a message from a Filipino nurse friend from back home asking if we where still going to Manilla because of the Typhoon that had caused lots of damage and killed several people - we didn't know what to think! We checked the local news and sure enough there was a massive typhoon causing havoc in the Philippines. Which much sadness we decided it was not safe for us to visit when we wanted to so we had to come up with a new plan and fast!
We decided to use our double entry Visa back into China and head back to Hanoi overland - as last minute flights from Hong Kong are super expensive.
We went to change our Peso's back into HK dollars but news had hit the exchange rates and the Peso had dropped in value quite dramatically - we had no choice but to change it and unfortunately we lost about 60 quid in about 90 minutes of having the Peso's. Feeling quite sorry for ourselves we decided to have a curry that night and a few drinks to cheer us up.
The next morning we packed our bags and headed to Hong Kong island to get a same day Vietnam visa from the embassy and after about 90 minutes of waiting and people watching we got them. Next we rushed to HK train station to get a direct Guangzhou in China, which we made just in time. On the train we met a creepy American guy who kept telling us places to have 'massages' in Guangzhou even though we told him we where just passing through!
Once in Guangzhou the whole language barrier was back - so it took us 20 minutes to find out where to try and buy our next tickets to Nanning from, we turned up in a sweaty and sticky ticket hall with no English signs and had to randomly pick a queue and wait. Out of the corner of our eyes we saw 2 other Westerners waiting in another queue but we didn't know if they where going somewhere different so we just left them and waited. After about an hour we reached the window to be told that we had been waiting in the refund line! extremely frustrated we where told we needed to go to the other side of the hall and get in the end queue.
I waited in the line with the bags being constantly stared at by the Chinese while Leanne went over to the 2 white girls we had seen waiting in another line in case they where also in the wrong queue. We decided to all wait in separate lines in case one of us got served first - luckily Leanne had the mandarin phrase book handy and her and one of the girls got our tickets. Quite pleased with ourselves we all headed to KFC to cool down and have a drink. We found out the girls where called Rachel and Jess and they where from Canada.
On closer inspection of our tickets we realised that they where for 'Hard Seats' and we feared the worst after our Kunming to Chengdu nightmare - luckily when we got on the train we asked one of the conductors if there where any sleepers available and he sold us 4 for 100 yuan (10 pound) extra each so we where all happy - we ate some noodles and drank some beers with our two new best friends and chatted on our way to Nanning.
When we arrived in Nanning things did not go according to plan either! We tried to get the bus to Hanoi but Jess and Rachel's visa's did not start until the 30th of September and it was only the 29th and we did not want them to be turned away at the border (we had heard reports of this happening) so we needed yet another plan. We decided to get the night train and hopefully it would be late enough that we would all get through the visa checks without any problems. So we spent the day dragging our backpacks around Nanning waiting for the train.
Once on the train we had a 4 person cabin to ourselves which was nice and we passed the time with noodles, beers and recording chin videos on the cameras. We reached the Chinese border at 11.30pm and we where all relieved that we would get across without any hassles, we re-boarded the train and carried on for another hour until we reached the Vietnamese border checkpoint. Straight away we realised we where no longer in China as everything looked older and poorer compared to their Chinese neighbours. Luckily because we where westerners we had to wait until the end to get our passports back and we crossed into Vietnam without any drama's we went to sleep on the train with our Canadian friends excited that we would be back in Vietnam and one of our favourite cities, Hanoi.
Our next stop is back to Vietnam and Hanoi......
To see our pics of HK, Macau and our brief return to China please click on the link below;
https://picasaweb.google.com/112941139607408893724/HongKongAndMacau22ndTo28thSeptember2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrZpNDwoMySFA
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