The trip from Yangzhou to the border town of Shenzhen was by overnight sleeper bus. The bus had all its seats replaced with 3 rows of double decked beds. To maximise capacity the beds where slightly inclined so that the persons feet were under the head of the person in front. My sweaty socks and feet ended up under the head of Emma, but Emma’s feet were odorising the head of some poor Chinese fellow! The beds also came with a seatbelt to strap you in, an essential piece of kit on Chinese roads and with the crazy driving. Whilst still getting my bus legs, a nice Chinese lady helped to push me back into bed as the driver tipped the bus round a rather sharp bend at breakneck speed. Clearly my seatbelt needed to be much tighter!
We arrived tired and 10 hours later in Shenzhen and for the first time properly crossed a border. No mans land was traversed via an enclosed pedestrian walkway over a river with armed guards, razor wire and a checkpoint Charlie just like in the films. Once on the other side you are trapped in a train station with the only way out by train into Hong Kong. The border crossing took around an hour with all the passport checks and visa entry forms and of course, departing one boarder control and then instantly entering a new one, but the process was fairly painless considering the boarder we were trying to cross.
From the first minute we got off the train, it felt like we were home. I know its still Asia and the majority of the population are not Western but they follow basic rules and the place seems a whole lot calmer than we had been used to over the past 4 weeks. Within 5 minutes of getting off the train someone said hello to us. I thought they were trying to sell us something, but no, they just wanted to say hello. So as usual we dropped the bags at the hotel and started doing our jobs, laundry, hair cuts and purchasing a laptop. We had intended to use the Iphone wherever possible and then PC’s at hostels but for a number of reasons this had become impracticable and so like everyone else travelling these days we decided to get our own.
Because Hong Kong is so much more western than the rest of Asia we also had the opportunity to eat some western food and have our first curry in 6 weeks (and before you say, I know curry is not western but to me it was like a taste of home!) The guide book recommended a place although the name was a little off putting. So off we went to find Gaylord curry house……the food was great, however was quite expensive which blew our daily budget somewhat but it was worth it.
The accommodation we picked in HK was planned months ago and we got a great deal on a 5 star hotel with a pool, with the intention to spend at least 1 day doing nothing. After spending many hours one night setting up the new laptop at the desk in our room, I noticed a small itch on my leg - thinking nothing of it I went to bed. I awoke to find (at the last count) 50 red lumps/bites all over my lower part of my legs. The culprit we believed to be carpet flees. So much for the upper market accommodation!
Hong Kong is not big on sight seeing but it’s a great city to shop, eat and just wander the streets seeing the city. One of the main visitor attractions is Victoria Peak, which boasts great views of the city. We picked a sunny clear day to do the trip and it was definitely worth the wait. The views of the city are incredible and its amazing to see so many sky scrapers so close together in such a small space.
Hong Kong is a very expensive place even by western standards but definitely worth a visit. The people are calmer than China and we never felt unsafe even at night in some of the back streets (no Gaylord jokes please!) HK has a great vibe to it and we both said how great it would be to come back and work for a while here. Not sure that will ever happen but a nice idea anyway.
Next Vietnam.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment