Hong Kong and Vietnam - get ready, this will be a long read ....

This blog post will be a long one, so put on some comfortable pants and don't forget to get up and stretch every 30 minutes ...

Hong Kong

It was a 12 hour flight from London to HK - a direct flight with BA. Sadly, BA only allows 1 bag per person (max 23 kg) which is 1/2 the allowance that I usually get with Air Canada or any of the US airlines. It wasn't so much of an issue going there, but coming back, we had picked up lots of cheezy souvenirs and gifts so it was a challenge to keep everything under the weight limit. The seats on the airplane had the built in TVs in the headrests, so that was welcome distraction from dull buzz of inter-continential travel. I had an aisle seat, as usual, so that was



The weather in HK was just fantastic during our visit and stayed near 25 degrees with clear blue skies for most of the visit, with the only really annoying weather showing up at the very end of the trip when the temperature went down to 10 degrees - which is quite cold considering that it's 25 degrees in November usually. We hadn't really brought too much in the way of warm clothing, so the few long sleeve tops and jackets that we did bring got plenty of use!

We stayed with SL's family in HK and managed to visit with most of our extended family during the short time that we were in HK. As we had both been to HK many times before, this visit was a little more relaxed and we toured around more like locals, avoiding all the major tourist traps and instead, exploring small communities, their specialty shops and their local haunts. Some of the best eats can be had in the local mom-and-pop shops which will typically specialize in one thing only, whether it be steamed buns, Chinese dumplings, or soya bean drink. These shops are a family affair, with each generation each taking care of a specific element of the business's operations. Of course, there was a mandatory visit to some of the larger markets (eg. Ladies Market, Causeway Bay, Time Square etc...) for some shopping, haggling and site seeing.


Vietnam

As a side trip, SL and I had originally planned for an excursion to Vietnam and Cambodia - the plan was to spend a few days in HCM City, and a few days in Siem Reap to tour around Angkor Wat and then back to HK. We had spent weeks looking at flights, hotels, activities and were just about to book when news of a border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand surfaced in the media (!). While we were so looking forward to Angkor Wat, we decided not to risk it and decided to focus on Vietnam this time around, and earmarked Cambodia for our next visit to SE Asia.

Having spoken to a few friends who have travelled to Vietnam, many of them recommended Hanoi (in the north) to HCM City (in the south) as a more interesting place to travel to. After some investigation, we settled on a trip which included 3 days in Hanoi and 2 days in adjacent Halong Bay where the scenery was supposed to absolutely amazing.

On our first day in Hanoi, I ate something that didn't agree with me, and had bad stomach cramps and didn't venture too far from a toilet for the next few days. We think it was the omelet that I ate during breakfast and suspect that the eggs weren't cooked thoroughly enough. This was a little bit of a surprise as we had booked into one of the better hotels in Hanoi. I guess it just goes to show you that you still need to be careful when travelling to developing countries, even in the upscale hotels! Luckily, the first few days and night were spent relaxing aboard a Chinese junk in Halong Bay. Halong Bay was spectacular, depsite the fact that there was alot of haze, which in my view, added to the mystique of the area and made for some amazing photo opportunities. I was surpised by how many boats there were sailing the Bay. While we knew of some of the boats from our pre-trip homework, there were alot of smaller boats that were not advertised, or better still, some of the larger boats had sister ships with the same name!!

The rest of our time in Vietnam was spent in Hanoi, touring the narrow and crowded streets by foot, dodging the motoscooters and touring the souvenir shops for local handicrafts and bargains.
Because I hadn't been felling well, I found it harder to cope with the polution and the smell of the city. SL did really well to bargain for some good deals on silk scarves and clothing.

We found it quite hard to find a good restaurant in Hanoi - the restaurants were set-up for the tourist crowd, or for the local crowd, and nothing really in between. Near the end of our stay, we finally found a decent sit down restaurant that served authentic local fare at reasonable prices.

After some admittedly rough touring around Hanoi, we were both ready for the comforts of Hong Kong and some familiar faces.

China

After returning to HK, I still had one more side trip to take. This time, to mainland China to visit with my relatives there - my grandma, uncles, aunties and countless cousins on both sides of the family. This time around, it would only be a 2 night-3 days visit.