Point of no return

Day 7 - Accra

We'd been put in touch with a driver by the hotel who could take us around to see a few sights in Accra, so we set that up with him via WhatsApp while we had breakfast.

We then walked down the street to the local MTN office to buy sim cards, which ended up being a lengthy procedure as it was a multi stage process. Fortunately we weren't in the queue for tech support as by the time we left the office that line extended out the door and into the car park. The lady that set up our sims was very nice, and she told us that her sister in law worked for the Ghanaian embassy in Australia and was arriving in Accra on Saturday.

The driver took us by Makola market where we were stuck in a traffic jam for a while, but it was quite interesting as we were able to observe the locals going about their purchases in a hectic environment while we were isolated in an air conditioned car with heavily tinted windows that no-one could see inside. The traffic did not improve so we weren't able to visit the market view point as planned, we think the normal chaos was compounded by the road closures for the swearing in of the president the next day, the Constitution Day public holiday. 

Next we were taken to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, the mausoleum of Ghana's first president where Nkrumah made the declaration of Ghana's independence. This was a popular site, with what appeared to be mostly locals visiting, Nkrumah appears to be very highly regarded by the people of Ghana. 

We then went to visit Osu Castle which has a a very chequered history. We almost didn't get there, as the roads on the way were in the process of being closed for Constitution Day, and the castle was swarmed by gun toting soldiers. The castle was originally a fort built by the Danish, but most significantly it was the place of no return for more than 100,000 slaves who were locked up here before being sent away, primarily for the Caribbean. Over the years the castle has been owned by Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Britain and finally Ghana. Over the years the place has also been used as a presidential residence, so we were able to visit the (quite bare) room where Queen Elizabeth had stayed in 1961.  

It was terribly hot and humid, so by that time we'd had enough and were happy to get back to the hotel. We arranged with the driver to take us to the Lomé border in a couple of days, finishing with yet another early night (we must be getting old!).

It's going to be a hot couple of weeks!

Day 6 - Doha (Qatar) to Accra (Ghana)

Another very early start for an 8:15am flight to Ghana, arriving early afternoon Ghana time. We were met at the airport by our hotel, and taken to what seemed like a little oasis in a sea of humanity, as the streets in Accra are chaotic with cars, people and roadside stalls.

We were staying in Osu which is known as a place for shopping, restaurants and night life, so after checking in we headed out to the Oxford Street. There was a lot of traffic and no footpath, with drains and potholes along the way, so at times it was a little tricky, and the heat and humidity didn't help. We managed to find a supermarket where we bought some water, sweating all the way back to our peaceful hotel where we had a pleasant dinner by the pool.

In a few days we need to be in Lomé in Togo but hadn't arranged any transportation, so we spent some time researching our options before another early night as we'd lost another three hours on today's flight.

How much to buy your falcon?

Day 5 - Doha

Another attempt to visit the Falcon hospital, this time it was open as well as very busy. There were many men lined up with their falcons to get them seen to. The hospital had an informative section where you could learn more about falcons, their features, countries of origin and skeletons. The directory of departments, diagnostics and procedures on the wall was remarkably like a human hospital. 

The area near the hospital was falcon related shops, selling the birds as well as accessories like hoods, gloves and perches, and they were quite happy for us to visit and ask questions.

After spending the morning at the souk, M spent the afternoon walking along the Corniche to the high rise buildings in central Doha, past the dhows and the touts looking for people to take a boat ride, and the families taking advantage of the very pleasant weather. 

Quiet .... for now

Day 4 - Doha

Friday is the holy day so not much was open until after lunch. We took advantage of the lack of crowds to wander through the souk. It seems very safe, merchandise has only a rug thrown over it for security, I guess the extreme punishments for theft must act as some sort of deterrent. 

We had hoped to visit the falcon hospital but it was closed, but close by was a number of hooded falcons tethered to poles. We also walked through the stables of Arab horses used by the police and the yard with tethered camels which are paraded twice a day at the Parliament house opposite.

In the early afternoon we caught the train and tram to Lusail Boulevard, expecting some places to be open but apart from a couple of restaurants it was like a ghost town, and a very clean one at that, Doha seems to be the cleanest city in the world! Every piece of glass, chrome doors, walls and floors glisten without a mark anywhere. 

After lunch and a walk to the water we hopped back on the tram, looping back past the World Cup soccer stadium, and lots of construction everywhere. Alighting at Lusail marina we walked along the promenade, admiring the architecture of the extraordinary buildings before catching the train back to the souk. By this time the quiet from early in the day had completely dissipated, Souk Waqif was now busy and bustling with family groups and tourists.

Animal activists close your eyes

 Day 3 - Doha

Up early and out into a clear day we managed to find a surprisingly good coffee nearby. We then walked down to the Corniche, the long promenade along the Doha waterfront, and on to the Museum of Islamic Art, located in an impressive building on the water. We enjoyed the visit as we wandered through floor after floor of beautiful art history from all over the world.

Through the parkland and further along the waterfront we found a small kiosk near the waters edge where we had lunch. We have had opportunities for Doha stopovers at other times but the extreme temperatures have always put us off, this time we'd picked the best time of year as the daytime temperature is in the low 20s, making for very pleasant site seeing weather. 

Everything in Doha is immaculately kept and incredibly clean, including the Souk, there were always people cleaning and sweeping, we even saw someone cleaning the back of the traffic lights! 

Souk Waqif has the old world charm of alleyways and nooks and crannies, with exotic shops selling weird and wonderful products, but everything is clean and there is no hard sell, in fact almost no selling at all. We found ourselves in the pet section with hundreds of birds crammed in cages, tiny tortoises and scared little bunnies, you wonder how many will end up surviving, let alone flourishing.

This time of year the sun sets around 4.30pm and by 6pm the air is cool enough to need a jacket. We headed out for an early dinner at one of the restaurants in the souk, by this time everyone is out and about, so the souk was very busy, quite different to out first impressions from the previous day.

How do you spell "fowl"?

Day 2 - Bangkok (Thailand) to Doha (Qatar)

Breakfast was included with our room and fortunately at the airport hotel in Bangkok it starts at 3am, so we were able to caffeinate properly before taking the shuttle to the airport for a 5:30am check in (this is nowhere as bad as it sounds as our bodies were still operating on Aussie time).

We landed in Doha late morning local time, seeing a sea of white from the plane's windows. White ground, white buildings, a city of white. Our hotel was right next to the Souk Waqif so while we waited for our room to be prepared we watched the Arab ladies returning from their shopping, delivery men following behind pushing old wheelbarrows filled with their purchases into the glamorous looking reception area.

Our room was ready after waiting in the lobby for a couple of hours, which wasn't too bad given that the place was full. We had a spacious apartment with a kitchen, so after getting organised we ventured out to explore the local area and do some shopping. The souk didn't seem very busy, we thought it may have been because it was New Year's Day, though later we found out that the souk closes for a few hours in the early afternoon.

By the time we returned from our shopping we were pretty tired, we hadn't quite synced with the local time zone so had a basic dinner in our room before having an early night.

Spelling is important kids!

Sleepy New Year

Day 1  - Melbourne (Australia) to Bangkok (Thailand)

We had a civilised afternoon flight so after finishing packing and a visit to our local café for a last Australian quality flat white we found ourselves twiddling our thumbs until it was time to head to the airport.

The flight was uneventful (which is exactly what you want) and we landed in Bangkok around 8pm local time on New Year's Eve. It would have been great to head to the river to see the celebrations and fireworks but by the time we checked in to the airport hotel it was after midnight Australian time. We were very tired and had a very early start the next day, so it was off to bed instead of seeing in the New Year.

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!