Macau

Today we decided to go to Macau so we got up early...at least we tried...and we went to the harbour. Unfortunately to the wrong one but that didn t matter so much because the good one was noot too far away. The trip to macau was ok, at the beginning I was feeling a little sick due to the waves.

Macau is a sad place, sad because they have plenty of opportunities to make it a cutlurally interesting and amawing place, there are old pagodas and there are the old castles and houses of the portugese....but they prefer to build casinos and hotels. The casinos try to imitate Las Vegas without success.

Pictures

You can see all my pictures on Picasa

second day Hong Kong

Our second day in Hong Kong was less intensive. Yesterday we walked a lot and were really exhausted. Stanley, Mei Foo and Hong Kong was a bigger program than we thought. The second day was a bit more relaxing eventhough we saw quite a lot of things.

The morning we went to Aberdeen which used to be a little fisher village. Now grey and boring buildings make this place rather unalluring. The river or sea there is full of fisher boats and there are some floating restaurants. Some ships were offering their service to bring us to these restaurants but we refused. Another restaurant in Aberdeen had already catched our attention. there was indeed a place where people were queuing and we thought "that must be an excellent place".

When we started queuing we realized that no one around us was speaking english. After a couple of minutes we understood that we needed to go into the restaurant and take a "waiting number". 33 was our number and the first thing we did was to ask the people around us how to pronounce that. The waiter was coming out and screaming a number from time to time and we wanted to be sure not to miss our turn.

33 finally came and they assigned us two seats in the restaurant. The menue was, of course, in chinese, but we did as usual...we looked at our neighbours table and ordered the same. This time: chicken legs and some rice...for me the first time and probably the last...

After this quite surprising experience we went to the Victoria Peak. Hong Kong island has a peak of some 554 meters and a cable car leads to the peak from downtown HK. The view from the peak was amazing eventhough we had some dust...but still, the city and the landscape looked fantastic.

The hot weather made the program for the afternoon less intensive. We decided to take the subway to Tsuen Wan. A "new city"...our guide seemed to be fascinated by that place...we could not discover why. Once again we saw a grey, polluted, crowdy place. Nothing exciting here but as we were already there we decided to take a walk in this city. From mall to mall, from park to park...we finally reached the river and decided to leave this place as quick as possible.

First day Hong Kong and Stanley

For the pictures it won t be possible right now because this computer is too slow. I have tried fro 50 minutes now...

The first day was great. We started with a little sight seeing at downtown HK...very impressive because very modern, clean and dynamic. The malls are new, the streets are clean, traffic is ok and public transport excellent. I have thought that this would be Singapore only but HK is clearly close.

After this little visit we went to Stanley, a former village for pirates and fishers. Now it is mainly a tourist place but the bus which took us to Stanley passed by very nice bays. We enjoyed that trip very much, although the driving style of the bus was kind of interesting. But whatever. Stanley has two nice pagodas, one known by the tourist guides which is very boring and not very impressive because very small and the other one we discovered by chance which is much nicer and not mentioned by any word in the guide.

After we tried to visit a village that was supposed to be quite old and the pp were supposed to be dressed in an ancient way. You reallized all the supposings? Yep, we couldn t find it and no one there could help us to find it...seems that the guide has some strange ideas of HK...but we found a nice park just next to that place so our trip to the neighbourhood wasn t a total failure.

At night we walked to the sea which was quite exhausting because we had already spend all day walking...but it was great to see all the skyscrapers in different coulors. quite impressive.
We then returned to Hong Kong station to have a little drink before returning to the hostel.

Arrival

We arrived well in Hong Kong, the flight was calm and the service on board quite good! What we have seen so far impresses us a lot, the city looks very dynamic and young.

It was difficult to find the hostel because it is really well hidden. But the people there seem very nice...the room is however pretty small...but guess that it is ok for a couple of days.

Departure

That's it, I just checked in, I have my boarding pass and guess that all should be fine now. The flight to Zurich is scheduled to leave at 6:45pm and the flight at Zurich is scheduled for 10:45pm. Weather should be good on Friday when we arrive in HK. We'll arrive in Hong-Kong Friday 4:40pm and have a time difference of 6 hours compared to France.

We'll stay in HK till September 1st. At 8:30am, September 1st we'll take the plane to Beijing.

Last days

Today was a decisive day for this trip. I bought so many things and the list of things to buy narrowed significantly today. From the mosquito net to a tiny sleeping bag, from sandals to the malaria pills… tomorrow I'll try to put all to the backpack in order to see how much it weights and to see whether I have a margin to take some souvenirs and buy stuff there.

I have marked the different steps of the second part of the trip on this map. The map on the previous article shows the first part of the trip. We may change some of these depending on hints from people there.

Found also some facts about Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Singapore. And some pictures of course...

Travel preparation

Everyone has kind of the same troubles when preparing such a long trip. The preparation phase is sometimes rather exhausting. I have seen the doctor twice for a medipack and vaccinations and I have waited two long hours at Air France Vaccination center to get vaccinations that the doctor couldn’t do. So far I have also taken care of the China and Vietnam visa. Next steps are to see what kind of clothes and material I’ll take with me. Probably not so much because I can buy things there and it would be great if I could leave with a bag that gives some space for souvenirs and stuff like that.

Started contacting everyone I know there in order to get some people to show us around and help us to orientate. Also have kind of an interview with a headhunter in Vietnam. Maybe if everything goes well I’ll stay there directly ; - ) I am still studying Vietnamese and bought a book for Chinese in order to have at least some little basics. Guess that it won’t help so much to learn the language three weeks before the departure but it also helps to understand the culture a bit.
Nothing new apart from that. Keep you updated.

(picture taken by Philippe "Nudel" in New Zealand)