Ello!

Well, I shall start with our super duper long train journey. 28 hours down to Guilin! It was actually sooo nice. We had the cabin almost to ourselves (an old lady slept on bed above us for few hours!) and we caught up on some desperately needed resting and lazing about. Literally, we were awake for about 5 hours out of 28! It was amazing lol. We stopped at Guilin for a night as the train got in quite late, and after wandering around trying to find the guesthouse we had booked we ended up staying somewhere else. Didn't want to walk around in the dark after midnight. They turn all the traffic lights and streetlights off at that time which was quite eery. The next day we headed off to Yangshuo again. We wont go into details as have been there before but we basically had lovely walks and bike rides throught the stunning countryside. Very nice! Anways, after a few days there we got on a sleeper bus and then a train over to Hong Kong!!!!!

OMG! HK was amazing. We stayed in Chunking Mansions, which was a massive tower block with hundreds of hostels and flats in it. It has a bit of a reputation of being a bit scary and dingy and dirty but we were incredibly lucky and happened to book with a hostel which was immaculately clean and really friendly staff. We were staying on the 10th floor which was odd. The lifts were a total nightmare. There are 2 lifts for each block serving 17 floors! You had to queue for ages to get in it and it was painfully slow. But it did the job! The room itself was really quite small, but to be expected in a city where almost all of its 7 million people live in tower blocks. I (Ben) could literally touch all four walls if I stretched myself out, but it was actually really nice and snug. The atmosphere in the building took some getting used to. There was a mix of almost every culture and race possible. And so many little restaurants and diners, you could buy, literally, anything in the block! lol. It was brilliant though.

On our first day, we had an explore of Kowloon (where we were staying in HK). We didn't get very far with our exploring however, as once we reached the harbour, we must have spent about an hour looking at the views... it was amazing. Basically Hong Kong is made up of several islands, and all are covered by residential apartment blocks and office skyscrapers. By the time we had made our way down to the harbour, which looks over to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon side, it was night time meaning that all of the towers were lit up... it was absolutly stunning. The scale of it all is incredible, and all of the buildings look like they are floating on the water of the harbour. It was an amazing experience for both of us... for me (Ben) it was sublime as I could remember it from living there as a kid, and never in my wildest dreams thought I would be back there. For Neen, having lived in the countryside all her life, it was incredible as she had never seen such a big city and so many huge towers!

The next day we caught the ferry across the harbour to Hong Kong island, the main business and shopping district in Hong Kong. It was amazing, everything is sooo tall and as you're walking down the street, all you can see is towers and posh shops. Everyone was dressed so well and one of our first thoughts was 'omg, people smell so nice, they're wearing perfume!' lol and 'wow, everyone looks so clean' haha. Quite a change from everywhere else. We had a wander around, quite hard work what with the pollution, it gives you a funny headache and the whole place is set on steep hills. We walked up to the park and had a stroll. It was quite hard to get your bearings so we mostly just farmiliarised ourselves with the city. We got a tram (Nina's first ever tram!) to Soho and walked through the Graham Street market. The market wasn't really anything that we hadn't seen before, but still interesting to see all of the stalls perched on a rather steep hill! Afterwards, we caught the mid-levels escalator (travelator as they call it in HK) which is the worlds longest covering 800m up-hill through SoHo which was pretty cool. It took you up past loads of amazing restaurants, and shops... but most of them didn't cater to the average travellers budget, never mind 'shoe-stringers' like us! After getting to the top, we walked back down along the route we had just been taken up, and it was really cool to just see proper bars and a more civilised culture... especially after spending a month in Mainland China. We didn't get stared at by everyone, and there wasn't people spitting everywhere, it was just really normal and felt right to be there amongst it all. Also kind of gutting at the same time, as there were so many 'moneyed' people everywhere, and everything was super-super pricey... we just really wanted to spend spend spend, and sit in a posh restaurant eating egyptian food and sipping cocktails. It's nice to dream =)

The day after, again we mostly just wandered through town, in total awe of the place. We went through the zoological gardens, watching monkeys and orangutans and racoons and lemur's and turtles. Was nice but quite sad too, all in little cages on their own :(. The saddest was the Orangutans (Orangutan is malay for 'Man of the forest') and they really are like people. You could tell that he knew exactly what was going on, just didn't seem right to see him cooped up in a cage, when he should have had a whole jungle to roam through. After sitting for a while, talking about how we'd love to do some conservation work over the next few years, we carried on exploring. Next we walked up to the top of the mid-levels, and then back down through SoHo again, it was getting on by this stage so had a wander down the antique shop road, grabbed a pizza and then crashed!

The next day was much of the same. We had discovered there was a Marks & Sparks so had some salad and pastries for brekkie and did some more exploring, window shopping and such. We were planning on going up to the peak, which looks over the whole of HK and grabbed a cooked chicken, salad, bread and other western delights and joined the queue for the tram. However, being a bank holiday it was packed and we figured it would be late by the time we got there so instead had our picnic in our room lol. We did go up a tower, that has a revolving restaurant at the top though. The restaurant is on the 62nd floor and it takes 1 hour to complete a 360 degree spin, but it was a bit posh and Nina didn't think she would cope to well with eating whilst spinning, so we got in the observation lift, which is a glass elevator, starting on the 57th floor and travels down the side of the tower! We got in from the top, and it was amazing, you dropped past a barrier which blocked the view, and all of a sudden a view over the whole of Hong Kong Island and the harbour opened up! We went up and down a few times, which was really quite bizzare, and the security guard kept looking at us like we were mad! Afterwards, we headed back to our room and got an early night.

The next and final full day in Hong Kong, we started out by having another M&S salad, which was great... had been so long since we had had salad before we got to HK, mmmm vitaminy goodness! We then crossed the harbour, on the star ferry (as we did everyday) and went down some little lanes, all specialising in one trade. The first was medicine street where they sold every type of Chinese medicine ingredient from seahorse and starfish to tortoise shells and whole lizards!!!! It was really very interesting, but you did wonder what sort of stuff you could buy under the counter if you were determined enough... you could imagine them selling a bit of Rhino horn, or long lost dodo remains. It really was the sort of place that made you think nothing was out of the question! Next we walked down a street specialising in bird-nest and Ginseng, you could get any kind of bird nest you wanted, and massive ginseng roots growing in an array of odd shapes were displayed in countless jars. For good measure, boxes of sharks fin were also thrown in!

After walking the bizarre streets of the Chinese wholesale district, we went and bought another picnic (YUM!) and headed up to the peak. Again the queue were madness, but after a while we got through and got on the Peak Tram! To throw some facts in there, the tram takes you up a 400m climb, and the track has a maximum steepness at one point of 48%... when your on it though it feels like its a hell of a lot steeper, Neen thought we were almost vertical at one point, which was even more fun on the way back down =) When we got up there we went to the roof-top of the mall and had a look at the view from there. Unfortunately it was quite a hazy day so you couldn't see that far. We then went on a walk around the peak, through the park, stopped for our picnic and got lost. Eventually we found our way and made it back onto the right path. It was like memory lane for Ben as he used to walk it alot when he was a kid. As we rounded a corner we were suddenly greeted with the most amazing view of HK, all lit up and pretty. It was incredible. You could see over the whole of the island, the harbour and the rest. All the haze had cleared away and it was a stunningly beautiful view. Never seen anything like it. The electric bill must be huge haha. The pics will do it more justice but was definately one of the highlights of the trip. We then had to rush back down to meet Edgar (Ben's long lost friend) and of course, seeing the queue decided we could walk down quicker. Turns out we couldnt and had to walk back up, queue for the tram and it was about 11pm by the time we finally met him! Poor bloke lol. Neen went up to wait for a call from Josh, while Ben went out for a couple of pints at the Irish bar down the road, and it was great to catch up... had been 6 years!! Was a brilliant day all in all. Unfortunately the next day we had our flight back to Bangkok! We milled around for a few hours then got a train to the airport and took off with the lights of HK shining below!

Rightey-ho, will do more pics now and speak soon.

Lotsa love n hugz xxxxxxxxxxx