Hong Kong Phooey

After an unexpected overnight stay in Singapore we finally arrived in Hong Kong at about 10pm. For most of our trip so far, the Lonley Planet South East Asia on a shoe-string book has been our bible, (except in Penang where it was useless). But it doesn't include China so we had to go freestyle to get our bearings and find cheap accomodation. That would have been fine if we'd arrived at 10am like we thought we were going to, but at night it was more of a problem. We'd copied down directions to an area we'd found on the net that seemed to have some budget guest houses, but we just got lost. In the end after lugging our backpacks arround for a while in the swealtering heat without seeing a single hotel or guest house (or tourist) we gave up and found a big expensive looking hotel, but they were full. They pointed us in the direction of another small, "chic" hotel that was hidden in an office block. Anyway we blew the budget and spent 60 quid on a very strange padded cell without a window with a very short bed. There wasn't even a door key the hotel staff let you in and out like prison guards.

We found a cheaper place the next day but still no window.

We found HK expensive but completely different to anywhere else we'd been. A strange mix of chaos and order. The harbour front is an amazing sight, we were there at dusk for the free light show they put on. The ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island was nice as there was a bit of a breeze and it felt like a bit of a Hong Kong institution as did the skinny double decker trams that run accross the Island. We went to some of the street markets, there's a pic of the baby turtles at the fish market, you could buy all sorts of strange creatures. And we managed to get Gav another pair of swimming trunk to replace the pair he lost in Penang.

I'll let Gav tell you about his love affair with Bruce Lee ...