Last day

Hong Kong

Last full day in Hong Kong so after a surprisingly nice coffee near our hotel we did some shopping. In the area where we were staying everywhere you look it's shops shops and more shops and as it was raining steadily we joined everyone else. The service in the shops was noticeably good, very different from home, and we both ended up buying some clothes.

Back to the hotel to rest for a while after all that shopping, and later that afternoon we headed back to Lan Kwai Fong for a happy hour drink and then a nice meal at an Italian restaurant.

After that we revisited the Temple St Market, this time it was open but as it turned out the merchandise wasn't much different to what we'd seen at the Ladies Market, so we came away with nothing. 

After a night's rest it was up early to check out, then take an Uber to the airport, followed by a 9 hour flight back to Melbourne and the ridiculously cold temperatures we'd managed to avoid for the last 10 weeks! We thought that the cold might be a welcome relief after experiencing some incredibly hot and humid weather, but after standing outside Melbourne Airport in the cold for about 30 seconds we realised we were 100% wrong about that!    

Too early

Hong Kong

In the morning we went over to Hong Kong Island again to visit an artist share space with lots of little studios called PMQ. There wasn't much of interest, although M picked up a cheap Mr. Men coffee mug.

Back on Kowloon we went to the Temple St. market to find everything was closed (we were way too early), so we then went to the Ladies market. It was open, but it was also a little disappointing as it was mostly just Hong Kong souvenirs and assorted junk that we could get back home at a $2 shop.

We ended the day at a small, tasty Indian restaurant, which for some reason thought that loud live music in such a tiny venue would improve the atmosphere, thankfully we only had to endure a couple of songs.

Too busy!

Hong Kong (and Macau)

Online information said the fast boat to Macau left every 15 minutes but we arrived at the ferry terminal to discover it's only every hour. Unfortunately it was very overcast so that even though we had window seats for the hour trip across the bay visibility was poor.

On arrival we took the free shuttle bus to the Grand Lisboa casino and walked to Senado Square.

From there we headed to the famous façade of St Paul's church. It was incredible how many people were there, we think most of them would have been Chinese mainlanders. The streets were cobblestone like Portugal, there were a lot of shops, many of them selling beef jerky which seemed to be incredibly popular. 

The crowds were overwhelming so we headed back to the Grand Lisboa to get another shuttle, our goal being to visit one of the larger casinos on Taipa Island, about 30 minutes away. It wasn't clear where we should catch the shuttle from, after asking for assistance we discovered that to get a free shuttle ticket back to the port you had to enter the casino part of the complex, take the escalators down to the basement, go to the opposite back corner and collect your ticket, after which you need to fight your way back through the crowds, go around to the side of the building,  join the queue and wait for a bus. Talk about making it difficult!

Once back at the port we took another free shuttle to the Venetian. The casinos are heavily modelled on the Las Vegas ones, including a replica of the Eiffel Tower at the Parisian, and a copy of Big Ben and the houses of Parliament at The Londoner. The Venetian was also like what we'd seen in Las Vegas with a fake blue sky painted on the ceiling, and an indoor river with gondoliers. 

We had ended up in what was pretty much a massive shopping mall full of designer shops. Quickly we decided we'd had enough of the crowds and the commercialism and found our way back out to head for the ferry terminal. We had hoped to make the 6pm boat but the earliest tickets available were for 7pm.    

We finally made it back to our hotel, we practically made it all the way from the ferry terminal on HK Island to our hotel in Kowloon travelling by train and walking underground without needing to go outside, exposed only for the last 20 metres or so when we had to cross a road to get to our hotel! 

Taking a peak

Hong Kong

We caught the train under the harbour to Central Station on Hong Kong Island, so we could join a free walking tour at 11am. Unfortunately it was sunny and very hot which wasn't ideal.

The walking tour was interesting, we picked up a bit of information on history, notable buildings, architecture, religion and food, and also took a trip on part of the longest outdoor escalator in the world.

Back to the hotel by train for a short break from the heat, then we ventured out again to Victoria Peak. Hong Kong has a huge problem with smog due to coal fired industries so we needed to take advantage of the reasonably cloudless day while we could.

This time instead of the train to HK Island we took the Star Ferry, and from the other side jumped onto a double decker bus that would take us up to the peak.

It was very busy but seeing the amount of unused infrastructure for queue management it must have been a "quiet" day. Although still a little smoggy the views were good and gave us a good idea how large and picturesque the harbour is. 

We caught the tram back down, which was a lot quicker than the bus, but the views we'd seen from the bus were superior to the tram. From the tram stop we walked to the Lan Kwai Fong area. we'd been told that this was a famous street with lots of bars, though it was quiet when we arrived. After a (still expensive) happy hour drink we had dinner at nearby restaurant then took the train back to Tim Sha Tsui and our hotel. 

Inching homewards

Bangkok (Thailand) to Hong Kong (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China) 

K hadn't been to Hong Kong since 1981 and M has never been so it seemed a good option for a final stopover on the way home, especially as it's was only a two and a half hour flight from Bangkok.

The hotel were very nice when we checked out early and gave us coffees and some take away breakfast while we waited for our Grab to arrive, then it was off to the airport and another couple of hours in the lounge.

At the Hong Kong end we exited the airport into more heat and humidity. The red taxis waiting outside all looked pretty old, nevertheless we jumped into one after grabbing a bit of paper with the estimated fare to Tim Sha Tsui in Kowloon (as it turned out that the estimate was very close).

It was early evening by the time we checked in to our hotel, so after settling in we briefly explored the immediate area, around the harbour and Star Ferry terminal, before having dinner at a (believe it or not) Irish pub!

    

Have you seen Mary Jane?

Bangkok 

(Sunday) We've been to Bangkok many times as it's our preferred stop over for longer trips so we know it's best to have accommodation near the Sky Train.

As it was Sunday we took a trip to the Chatuchak Weekend Market. K went looking for some ceramics but couldn't really find much of interest after making our way through the mass of stalls selling clothes, snacks and cheap knick-knacks.    

Then it was back to the massive Siam shopping area for lunch. While K returned to the hotel, M ventured to the Panthip area to see if the Panthip Plaza we used to visit in the early 2000's to buy software and movies was still there, but as the area seemed to have been replaced by food stalls, he walked back to the hotel.

We ventured out again in the evening for dinner. We were heading for a restaurant/bar in the Nana area, but the weekend was a Buddhist holiday where the sale of alcohol was forbidden, so finding it closed we had a decent meal at a nearby restaurant.      

(Monday) A fairly quiet day, a sleep in then a nice coffee at a bakery/café not far from the hotel. 

That afternoon we went to Jack's bar right on the edge of the river near Saphin Taskin, then we caught a ferry to the crowded Asiatique, a reasonably new and modern shopping and bar complex on the river where we ended up having dinner. From there we took a Grab back to the hotel and called it a night. 

(Tuesday) We had read about the Erawan Museum so we decided to check it out, but we discovered that the word "museum" was used very loosely. It's more of a mini theme park with some elephant focused religion on the side. The massive three headed elephant statue was worth a look, and the place was quite well kept and nice enough, but we didn't think it was worth the entry fee.

In the evening we headed to the Patpong area for dinner and the market before heading home to pack. One of the big differences we've noticed is the proliferation of of shops selling cannabis and related products, they are everywhere in Bangkok and always open, which doesn't quite gel with not us being able to have alcohol with our meals back on the previous weekend!

    

It's better if we leave now

Alifushi (Maldives) to Bangkok (Thailand)

We're quite sad to be leaving as our stay in the Maldives exceeded our expectations, and as the exceptional food was a major factor in this, it's probably best we leave for our health, though one thing we won't miss about our stay is the lousy internet.

We were booked on the 9.15am boat to Male airport, and during breakfast we received a message saying that our flight was delayed by an hour. This was probably related to the "blue screen" outage that had occurred the previous day, so we were lucky we hadn't planned to fly out a day earlier.

The flight to Bangkok was pretty easy and we picked up a Grab (their version of Uber) which had us at our accommodation fairly quickly. Because of the flight duration and the time difference it was evening by the time we settled in, and we walked to a cheap restaurant nearby for a basic meal.

 

Overeating hazard

Alifushi

(Wednesday) We woke to a view of the ocean and the sound of waves, and now that it was daylight we could take in the view, although the ocean looked rougher than we expected, a legacy of last night's storm. 

We walked down to breakfast to find the largest array of breakfast cuisines that we had ever seen - Indian, Maldivian, Asian and Western. Best of all the food was actually hot, very appreciated after the lukewarm food of Sri Lanka. M was pleased to see some nice Indian curries and breads, while K availed herself of the more traditional breakfast options. 

Walking back to our villa it was very humid, and as the sun was beating down it was quite uncomfortable. We ventured for a swim from the steps of our villa, and alternated between laying on our veranda until we overheated, and moving indoors to air conditioning. Our biggest decisions of the day were when to have lunch, when to head to the bar for a pre dinner drink, and when to have dinner. 

(Thursday) We followed the same template as yesterday, though we did learn that it's best to have dinner at least an hour into the session to avoid the peak time with families and children.

(Friday) We decided to spend some time by the nice beach and pool area, as the swimming area by our villa was quite rocky and K found that it was better to swim with shoes. Our food lesson of the day is that where you have three buffet meals a day with decent quality food, then even though you know you should be careful it's way too easy to eat too much. 

Rough seas

Galle (Sri Lanka) to Alifushi (Maldives) 

Overnight there had been a ferocious storm, water had even washed under the external door into our room. Fortunately though it had cleared by daybreak, and we collected by Sam one last time for the two hour drive to Colombo. 

We arrived at Colombo airport with plenty of time (as usual), checked in, then headed to the Lotus Lounge. It wasn't long before we were notified that our flight had been delayed by three hours, we think this may have been related to the storm.  As boring as the delay was, at least we had comfortable lounge access. Our flight finally left for the one hour trip to Male at 4.15pm, we were meant to be checked in and swimming by now!

We finally arrived at Male three hours late at 5.15pm and were met by a rep from our resort who tagged our bags, then gave us the bad news that we had to wait for others to arrive from other flights before we could take the boat to the resort, with an expected wait time of up to 90 minutes. The airport is right on the edge of an island, you just walk out of the airport and cross the road to get onto a boat. While we were waiting we could very dark clouds in the distance, and shortly afterwards day turned to night and there was a massive storm with torrential rain.

Just before 7pm we were told we could take the 15 minute speed boat ride to our resort. The seas were quite  rough and the boat had trouble docking so we had to walk to another spot.  We made it onto the boat with our luggage as the waves constantly slammed the sides. In the dark safety jackets were put over our heads with no explanation on how to fasten them, no safety check, in fact no words at all, just a paper sick bag pushed into our hands while we gripped the rails. 

We took off in the dark with massive waves and the boat crashing continually up and down, one poor lady was almost hysterical, it was a frightening trip that that lasted for 30 minutes, at one point they stopped the boat and told us to move to the back, we can see it would have been quite terrifying for someone who couldn't swim or wasn't used to speed boats. K had some ceramics in her cases so she was also worried about how they'd fared on the trip.

We finally pulled up to a jetty and were greeted by smiling helpful staff who informed us that this wasn't our island, as we couldn't dock there because of the weather. We were bundled into a jeep and we thought we were heading for another boat, but after about 10 minutes crossing a few bridges we reached our resort.

Arriving at night can be quite disorienting, we really had no idea where we were, but after a short orientation from the staff we were taken to our nice water villa. Once our luggage arrived we headed to the resort restaurant for the first (of many) nice buffet meals.

One last visit to the beach

Yala to Galle

An 11am start today for the drive to Galle, with a stop at the beachside town of Mirissa for lunch. Mirissa in December is idyllic with calm blue seas but in July it's rough surf with high tides that leave little available sand. However we had a lovely stop right on the edge of the beach before resuming our trip to Galle for our final night in Sri Lanka. The coastal drive between Mirissa and Galle passed lots of beachside hotels and resorts, and it looked like it would be a nice area to visit, especially in better weather.

We stayed in a hotel just outside, and within easy walking distance, of the old Dutch fort. The fort area was interesting but also quite touristy, with lots of shops selling gems and spices, as well as tea houses and ice cream shops. We walked along the fort walls then found a nice place for dinner before heading back to sort out or luggage for the flight to the Maldives the next day.