Hong Kong

Neither myself or a Richard have been to Hong Kong before, although I did fly into its famous city airport many years ago — before they moved it out of the city after its closure over 25 years ago.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A0bxgcJZrro

The landing strip has now been turned into a garden walk-way and port for cruise ships, if you watch the link you can see from the photo below an example of how much Hong Kong has been growing.

One of the conditions of entry to Hong Kong is to have onward travel arranged, not sure why this has become a common condition of entry to a lot of places, but as usual we didn’t and had our excuses ready for immigration, but this wasn’t an issue, in fact the woman processing me didn’t even speak to me!

So we were in. First task was organising how to get into the city. We managed to find a bus (£4 each, bargain) with the help of a very efficient woman at a help desk, and the journey in provided a preview of how developed the city was going to be.

As soon as we got off the bus, we knew this was going to be a good stay, there were loads of food stalls and the hustle and bustle gave an instant good vibe.

Yes that is my mobile, ever tried multi tasking with a backpack!

There were a couple of things that we’d seen that looked interesting to visit.

The Big Buddha

To get to this site there is a cable car ride that takes in some of the islands and goes over one of the bays. As usual we wandered across the city with no planning on the train for an hour, and, on arrival, discovered it was closed for the day. However, there was a bus that took you to the village where the statue was.

Lamma Island

Lamma had been recommended by a friend to visit, it’s billed as a bohemian island, oh, and has a nuclear power station on it. We took the ferry from the central pier in the city and it was about a 45 min ride out across the bay. With a great view of the city as you left.

You could also see the constant stream of ships bringing goods into the city.

The island has 2 main villages, and we did the 90 min walk between them along a trail that took you around the coast and up over a couple of hills. The island is fairly rural and a nice alternative to the hustle of the city.

Peak Railway

https://www.google.com/search?q=peak+railway+hong+kong&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

From the north of Hong Kong island you can catch a cable train up the steep hillside to a viewing centre that gives you amazing views of the city.

We struck it lucky and there wasn’t a queue and managed to get straight on the train, which was about a 20 min journey, at a very steep 45 degree angle.

At the top you can stand outside on a viewing platform and really see the vastness of the main city, although this intensity of skyscrapers just continues all over most areas of wider Hong Kong

We’d only planned on 2-3 nights here but ended up staying a week as although there are not any major ‘sights’ to see the city has so many cafes, bars, and little neighbourhoods we spent most the week just wandering around looking at it.