9th August 2010:

We boarded the flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong at 1am. It's only 5 hours but this meant that between meals and turbulence we got very little sleep. Arrive in Hong Kong at about 10am, took the airport express to Kowloon and headed for our hostel.

Chung King Mansions. Apparently there's some film about how crazy the place is and given it was very cheap I'd agreed to stay. It's basically a tower block of apartments that over the years have been turned into guesthouses and restaurants. We had to push our way through the crowds of touts trying to get us to stay in their hostels and headed for the 7th floor where a sign directed us to the 17th floor for the main reception (turns out the 10 flooors of various Lucky/Golden/New hostels are actually all one...).

It was 11:30 and apparently 1hr before we could check in- being exhausted with a little left over Delhi (or Mumbai i guess) Belly this made me very unhappy. Telling the guy at the desk this made him very unhappy and in the end we decided not to stay there 3 nights and found somewhere much nicer for the next 2 nights.

Hostel aside we had a good day in Hong Kong, wandering the overprice malls and laughing at the queues for Chanel. Took the ferry to Central. Tom thought the escalators uphill were hilarious. met Theresa for dinner- lovely Japanese Don dish, ummm Pork Cutlets. Back to the hostel just in time to see the roaches dance outside the lift- confirmed the new hotel would be better.

10th August

Woke up late. Headed to new hotel in central, on a road called Holly Wood haha- no problem checking in early and much nicer room- only 30% more than we'd planned to pay too! Alas this one does not come with free roaches ;) But there is a really cool bakery around the corner that makes really nice (and very cheap) buns with everything you could imagine. I recommend the Hot Dog one :)

Took the Ferry to Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha. And I can confirm that is is one big Buddha! The Island is beautiful. Big Mountains, Valleys and forrests. The bus ride is crazy with tight corners up steep hills it's an experience in it's self. It was soo hot walking upto the Buddha but well worth it. The Po Lin Monestry is also pretty cool although all the tourists killed any feeling of Zen.

Quick snack in MaccyD's and back on the ferry to Central. I had to head back to Kowloon to pick up some laundry while Tom wussed out and took a cab back to the room. We met Theresa again for dinner and she took us to her favorite Malay/Thai pace for dinner- we had enough food to feed and army and fresh coconuts to drink out of :)

A few drinks around the expat bars in Central then onto the Mandarin Oriental to look at the unbelievable cakes in their bakery. Was so funny getting there- we got lost and hopped in a cab, only to find that the hotel was on the other side of the building we were outside of! Back to the hotel for a well deserved sleep.

Hong kong is an amazing place. It's just a crazy as Mumbai but in a very different way. Consumer excess everywhere you look apart from the occasional corner of peace and calm. The enormous towers push skywards next to pretty little parks. Chung King Mansions sits no more than 500m from Prada.

It is beautiful in it's own way and at night the view of the sky line really is breath taking.