Bangkok #2  15.4. – 17.4. and Hong Kong  17.4. – 21.4.

Bangkok

When we started planning our world trip Hong Kong was not a destination of our choice. However on our One World Round-The-World ticket it was the only way to get to Kathmandu from South East Asia. No problem, another city to tick off the list even if we did spend as much there in 4 days as in a month elsewhere.

Unfortunately our flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong was during the time that the red shirts were demonstrating in Bangkok. This was already going on whilst we were there for a week in January but since then several people had been killed and things were heating up. At this point however it was still deemed relatively safe. Just after we left the situation escalated enormously.
This time we took a hotel near the tourist area of Khao Sarn Road, which we later realised was a Muslim hotel so no nightcap. It had all the charm of a youth hostel in the Seventies and as we went to put our valuables in the safe we saw that it wasn’t actually attached to anything. Good excuse to take silly pictures:

We happened to arrive during the Song Kran festival which celebrates the Thai New Year. The traditional way to celebrate is basically to throw water at anyone and everyone and blather them in clay. Cue water pistols, buckets, bottles and anything else you can use to get people wet, add a few bands playing loud music along every street and you have one big wet party! We had only gone a few metres down the road when we realised we were in the middle of it all and by the time we sat down in the bar we were wet through and caked in mud/clay stuff. I doubt this would catch on in Europe but in Thailand it was still 30 degrees hot at midnight.

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong we were greeted by grey, damp weather which obscured our view of the skyscrapers and skyline so we set off to explore the Old Town and modern malls. As soon as I spotted a Toni&Guy salon I made an appointment for the same day and enjoyed a much needed haircut with lots of free wine.

We only had 3 full days to explore the city so it was pointless waiting for good weather. We took a ride with the funicular to the view point above the harbour but the only view we had was of the low-hanging clouds. But we were in luck and later on the sun came out and cleared most of the clouds so that we could at least see something of the bay, the city and Kowloon at the other side.

Right:The beautiful Cafe Deco at the viewing platform

And a few more pics:

Our hotel was in Kowloon from where you can see the skyline by night. Again we were lucky and on the last night the clouds cleared so that we could watch the laser show and skyscrapers lighting up.

It was a somewhat sad day when we left Hong Kong for Kathmandu as our amazing time in South East Asia ended here. But the Himalayas awaited us in Nepal and our most physical challenge lay ahead of us....