Hong Kong. .......WOW!!

Here we are in Bangkok and not one word of Hong Kong on the blog! We hit the streets of Hong Kong running.  The arrivals hall was something else, huge, clean and tidy. With the formalities done it was off to the Airport express train, this was efficiency we do not know, free shuttle service to the hotel, check in and off to explore, first stop was to find umbrellas, the rain was coming down in buckets not only did we find brollies but good affordable wine 2 one litre bottles for HK$96 (get it later).
Nathan Road here we come, Brand name shops, Jewellery shops you name it can be found here. After walking the full length of the road back to the hotel, round the corner to get the wine, bags up to the room, catch our breath, a bit of rest,  no sleep the night before on the flight, then off to the 'ladies market', a light meal at the market and dragged our weary bodies to bed at close to midnight!
Sunday dawned with rain, tough we are going on the Big Bus tour, a 48 hour ticket gives us 4 tours, the Peak tram and the Star Ferry. Kowloon (blue route) to start the day's travel,there are 2.7 million people living in 47 square kilometers!!! With an average age of 82 years!!!
That afternoon we went to Stanley market (green route). The Dragon boat races were being held there with teams from all over, did not see any SA teams!

Bags Packed!

Bags packed, passports sorted, money accounted for, batteries charged.........all the lists are completed, even the check-in for the flight!

I went onto the Cathay Pacific web site to check-in online, checked-in fine, but because we are flying to Jo'burg on a BA/Comair flight we have to check-in in person at CIA, not possible to check-in on-line for the first leg. We will get our boarding passes for both legs in Cape Town and the luggage will be check through to Hong Kong.

Looked at the weather forecast for HK, not good! They are forecasting thunderstorms and rain from Friday right through to Thursday next week, but the temperature will be more to my liking, min 26 & max 31. 

Flight Schedules change

I went to the travel agent to find out if there have been any Travel Warnings issued, nothing at this stage for Thailand! What I did find out was that our flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok had changed, we are leaving earlier, that gives us a bit more time to explore the city.  I then had an email informing me of updates to the flight out of Chiang Mai to Bangkok, the changes would have had desasterous consequences as we would not have enough time for an international check in. I emailed the Airline to find out if I could change to an earlier flight, they have changed us to fly out at 14:00, this will give us plenty of time to check in. Everthing is 'On Track' for the holiday!

The beginning of another adventure

It all started one evening way back in 2012. I was surfing the web, as Caretha had gone to bed, when I came across a "Daddy's Deals" email that had an offer I could not refuse: 7 nights in Phuket, Thailand for 2 people for only R2999, normal cost was R16000 odd. I signed up! The next morning I told Caretha, she was not that enthusiastic so I left the whole thing for nearly a year. Then the travel bug bit Caretha, I revived the Phuket story and the discussions started. How much was an air fare? How long should we go for? Should we include other places? How will we pay for everything?

Well it turned out that between us we had enough to go and some spending money! Now the planning started in earnest, I went out and bought a Thailand travel guide, lots of reading. I went to Flight Centre in Tyger Valley to get some ideas about what flight options we had. There were 3 options, i) Emirates with stop over in Dubai. ii) Singapore Airlines with a stop over in Singapore. iii)Cathy Pacific with a stop over in Hong Kong. For us to make the best of a stop over we decided we needed at least 2 to 3 days. Dubai was out as we would have to get a visa at +/- R1600 each, ouch! that is a lot extra to pay. Then we asked some friends who had been to both HK and Singapore, they all said HK is better unless you are into shopping!

Hong Kong won, off to buy another Travel Guide. Back to Flight Centre, we had ideas, I had some dates to work with. A basic itinerary was worked out with some costs. More discussions between Caretha and myself. We eventually decided on 3 weeks, now we realize we should have gone for 4 or 5 weeks as there is so much to do and see in both HK and Thailand.

Then in February this year we took the plunge, booked and paid for the flight tickets added the hotel in Hong Kong, confirmed the hotel in Phuket. Now all I had to do was sort out a hotel in Bangkok and Chiang Mai plus transport between. The original idea had been to fly back to Bangkok then take the overnight train up to Chiang Mai, this turned out to be more of a schlep so I then managed to get flights from Phuket to Chiang Mai and return to Bangkok, so the itinerary now is:

Care Town to Jo'burg to Hong Kong.
4 days and nights in HK.
Hong Kong to Bangkok
3 days and nights in Bangkok.
Bangkok to Phuket.
7 days and nights in Phuket
Phuket to Chiang Mai
4 days and nights in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai to Bangkok to HK to Jo'burg to Cape Town (the real LONG HAUL flight)

Our departure from Cape Town is Friday 20th June and return to Cape Town on Thursday 10th July