Here's the final part of my chronicle of our round-the-world adventure.
Singapore
Singapore:
Arriving in Singapore and stepping out of the air-conditioned airport building to the taxi stand, we were hit by a wave of heat and humidity which took us aback. We had dealt with some fairly high temperatures in Australia but the instant sweating which the conditions brought on, and this at 8 o' clock in the evening, was a shock to the system.
After settling into our hostel, we decided to take a little walk around the local area, Little India, and find something to eat. On the short walk, we heard a very familar sound and following it, discovered a local practicing his bagpipes! Welcome to Singapore guys!
The next day, we took the mercifully cool metro to the spectacularly tacky vicinity of Clarke Quay where we hunted down the Highlander Bar in order to determine if they might be showing the Scotland game the next night. Unsurprisingly, given the fact that it was quite an up-market venue and that the staff had trouble understanding what we were actually asking, we came away disappointed. The original plan had been to watch it in Kuala Lumpur and so that was the eventuality that what we returned to.
After an energy sapping walk along the Singapore River where we took in the view to the bizarre but pretty cool Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino buildings (they look like a ship that has been balanced on top of three skyscrapers) and the City Flyer (similar to the London Eye), we decided that walking was not the best method of transport given the temperature. So we hopped aboard one of the City Tour buses and the next couple of hours were taken up seeing the city from the top deck (eventually retreating under the shade of the canopy when the heat became too much) and hopping off at the Chinatown stop to see some impressive Hindu temples and lantern-decorated streets.
Our whistle-stop stay in Singapore ended suddenly that night, as a much overdue email reply from Malaysian Railways indicated that we had a booking on the sleeper train that night to Kuala Lumpur (we had enquired about ticket prices several days before). So after cancelling the reservation for that night in the hostel, we headed for the train station.
Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur:
Our first experience of train travel in Asia was a reasonably pleasant one. Our upper bunks allowed for a decent amount of sleep and so, by the time we rolled into Kuala Lumpur Central at 6 am we felt well rested. A slick metro ride later we arrived at our hostel, a little place run by a very friendly family who had moved there from Sri Lanka.
Our main objective for the first day was to check out a series of pubs that we had determined were possible candidates for watching the Lithuania v Scotland game in, very much later that night (in fact at 1 in the morning of the next day). After a delicious lunch in the food court of the Central Market we set out to try and locate some of the pubs. As we had addresses but could not find any of them on our city maps we decided to try and seek help from the nearest tourist information office. This became our first lesson in how massively spread out the city was, as we walked for a good hour or so in the sweltering heat before eventually finding the office behind the National Museum. Our second lesson quickly followed, as the locations of most of the pubs turned out out to be between half an hour or an hour away from our hostel by taxi. Only one potential location remained, which the girl in the office told us was within walking distance of a metro station. It wasn't. Another hour's walk drew a blank. Eventually, after a half hour taxi ride in rush hour traffic, we at least managed to step inside one of the pubs on our list...only to be told that they closed at midnight! An unbelievably frustrating and unproductive day ended with us following asleep vowing to get up and watching the game on an online stream. And then sleeping right through it.
The following day was equally as frustrating, as we endeavoured to book our tickets out of Malaysia and into Thailand. Helpfully, the main central bus station in Kuala Lumpur is closed for renovation and they have moved the operation to a nightmarishly busy, small plot of land well out of the centre of town. A three quarters of an hour bus ride was required to get there in order to check the bus times to Butterworth, where the overnight sleeper to Bangkok departed from. Then another three quarters of an hour metro ride back to the central train station to buy our sleeper train ticket, before returning to the bus station to actually buy our bus ticket. Finally, we could get down to some tourist business but this really only consisted of seeing the amazing Petronas Towers and the Menara KL Tower up close. And then it was time to leave KL, with a definite sense of not having made the most of our time there!
Thailand
Bangkok:
After a full day's travelling on firstly one of the most spacious and comfortable buses I've ever been on (from KL to Butterworth) and then a mammoth overnight train journey from Butterworth, we arrived in Bangkok. During the train journey we realised that the Malaysian money we were carrying would not be accepted by the caterers on the train. Luckily the kind Thai woman sleeping in the bunk below Ally offered to lend us some Thai Baht to buy ourselves dinner (we had seen her with her significantly older white 'boyfriend' at Butterworth station before she boarded the train alone). When we reached Bangkok we had to pay her back. It was only later we thought about how dodgy the sight of two Westerners, having just got off the train, handing a roll of cash to a young Thai woman in the middle of Bangkok station would have looked! Still, our consciences were clear!
After a short taxi ride (where the taxi driver did his best to rip us off by claiming the meter wasn't correct), we arrived at our hostel, which was called Phiman Water View, so called because it was situated on the bank of the Chao Praya River. As we'd soon find out, you actually get a much closer view of the water than you'd like, as it floods the surrounding alleys and houses at high tide, forcing you to wade through sometimes knee-high water (and goodness knows what else!) to get back to the hostel.
Our first encounters with the 'flamboyant' staff made us wonder why the hotel wasn't more extravagantly decorated. As one member of staff introduced the other - "This is the maid - his name is Boy" we wondered if they'd got the wrong idea about us but thankfully our room was a twin as we had asked for. After settling in we received an email from Steven Johnstone, a friend of ours from back in Glasgow, who is travelling the world (in the opposite direction from us!) with his girlfriend. They had just arrived in Bangkok so we set off to meet them at their hostel on the famous (or infamous) Khaosan Road.
The first experience of Khaosan Road is pretty overwhelming - street vendors selling insect snacks (we all tried one of the locusts - crunchy and really only tasted of soy sauce!), tuk-tuk drivers (tuk-tuks are motorbikes which pull a carriage behind them which can seat 4 people) trying to get you to take a ride with them, tailor salesmen trying to get you to buy a suit that you don't need and, perhaps most annoying, the ladies who pester you when you're sitting having a beer trying to get you to buy a wallet, lighter or wooden frog complete with croaking sound effects. When you have walked up and down the road a few times every day for four or five days, as we would do, it soom becomes a little corner of hell.
On this occasion, after meeting Steven and Lisa we retreated to a nearby bar for what was supposed to be a few beers and a catch up on our respective travel stories. 10 hours later and having thoroughly caught up, we were all hanging out the back of a tuk-tuk on our first of many experiences of the the most popular mode of transport for tourists in Bangkok. This heavy session would result in me being completely useless due to a killer hangover the next day, which in turn resulted in me taking my anti-malarials incorrectly and damaging my stomach, causing me to have to take medication for the next week which would prevent me from drinking alcohol for that period, which scuppered our plans of going to Laos and going tubing - quite a lot of consequences from one drunken night!
When I finally did recover, we spent a lot of our time in Bangkok travelling on the slow boats on the river, taking it to Chinatown and the Wat Arun temple. We also managed to track down a pub which allowed us to channel hop and successfully find the Scotland v Lichtenstein game, at two in the morning. For the first ninety-six minutes this was looking like a wasted effort, but Stephen McManus's last minute winner made it all worthwhile, and earned us some baffled stares from the bar staff as we celebrated like we'd actually won the World Cup.
After fours day in Bangkok, we'd had enough and booked a bus to Cambodia for the next day. While packing that night I had the horrific revelation that I had misplaced my passport (so many amazing stamps - gone). The result was that the trip to Cambodia was off and, due to the British Embassy closing for a half day on a Friday, we were stuckin Bangkok for at least another three days. To take the edge of this disappointment, we changed hostels and found that our new 'hostel' which was the same price as the fruity one by the river, was pretty much a luxury hotel.
The weekend passed quickly and on the Monday I was able to obtain an emergency passport from the British Embassy and a new visa from Thai immigration. Equipped with this we set off early the next day and took a local bus to the Cambodia border. After greasing the palms of two Cambodia border policemen (this was standard practice if you didn't go to one of the over-priced visa 'agencies' for your visa), we had our Cambodian visa and along with an Israeli fellow we met at the border, took a taxi to Siem Reap.
Cambodia
Siem Reap:
After arriving in Siem Reap, we were taken to our hotel (which was pretty luxurious considering the price we were paying) and were greeted by Asean, a young guy with really good English who gave us some good advice for the next days, giving us possible itineraries for our temple visits. The advice was obviously biased as he wanted to be our driver for the temple visits, driving us in his tuk-tuk the sometimes not insignificant distances between each temple, but we decided we'd heed his advice and take a three-day pass for the temples and have him as our driver.
Our first night in Siem Reap was a bit of a shock to the system as we encountered for the first time young children (some as young as 5) aggressively selling postcards, books and t-shirts. This was a sadly common sight not in only Siem Reap but at pretty much every Angkor site. The advice from Lonely Planet is not to buy souvenirs from them - any profits from the sale are not kept by the kids but passed onto the adult that they're selling for. Also, any sale is seized upon by others and before you know it you are swamped by them. Still, it was very difficult to refuse, especially when they pleaded and pleaded and claimed "I don't have any money to go to school". Some accepted early on that you weren't going to buy anything and tried to engage in chat instead. "Where are you from?", "Ah, Scotland, Edinburgh is the capital" was the surprisingly knowledgable opening gambit from most of the children. One girl in particular sticks out for her humourous chat - "ah Scotland, do you speak Gaelic" she asked. When we said that we did indeed, her response took us aback. "Do you know pog mo thon?" (Gaelic for kiss my arse) she asked cheekily! After we had stopped laughing we decided to reward her with a small sale - a large bottle of water.
The Khmer empire, or Cambodia as its now known, built several hundred temples between the years of 900 BC and 1200 BC in the area known as Angkor, near to Siem Reap. The ruins of these temples, collectively known as the Angkor temples, are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They vary in size, shape, look and architecture, with the jewel in the crown being Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest religious monument. For 3 days straight we visited 4 or 5 ruins each day including taking in sunrise at Angkor Wat and sunset at another ruin. The fact that we didn't get bored is testament to how impressive each one was. The only problem was the fact that there were so many flaming people at each and every temple we went to!
Phnom Penh:
After a reasonably straightforward 7 hour bus journey we arrived in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It was immediately obvious that it was less "in-your-face touristy" than Siem Reap, as there were nowhere near as many tuk-tuk drivers or children selling postcards on the street. After having settled into our hostel we took the 10 minute walk to the riverside where most of the tourist-friendly pubs and restaurants were located. We had a nice meal and a few beers and tried to ready ourselves for the undoubtedly unpleasant experience which awaited us the next day when we were to learn about the suffering of the Cambodian people at the hands of the tyrannical Khmer Rouge regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) which ruled Cambodia (or Kampuchea as it was known then) from 1975 to 1979.
Our first visit was to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Musuem, site of a former high school which was used by the Khmer Rouge as the "Security Prison 21", or S-21 as it become known. The classrooms were converted into prison cells and torture chambers, and the rooms remain today as they were when the Khmer Rouge abandoned them in 1975, including the building where the last inmates were killed and left before the Khmer Rouge fled. Although these rooms only contain the rusted metal beds, the photo on the wall of that specific bed with a corpse lying on top of it has a shocking effect. Thousands of photos of some of the roughly seventeen thousand inmates who passed through the prison, including some of them in death, are shown on the wall. Of those seventeen thousand only twelve (twelve rather than twelve thousand) are known to have survived. All were horrifically tortured in the prison and most were marched to Choeung Ek, fifteen kilometres away, to be murdered.
After leaving Tuol Sleng we were then taken by our tuk-tuk driver to Choeung Ek, or the Killing Fields as its better known. Choeung Ek is now a memorial park for the dead, with a commemorative Buddhist stupa, filled with the skulls of some of the victims, at it's centre. The information centre is the first place to stop in the park, and it gives details of the Khmer Rouge regime, headed by the happily now deceased Pol Pot. Four other senior members of the regime are currently being indicted by the UN led Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal. Of the four, only one, known as Duch, admits his crimes and has apologised for them. Having read of the horrors that took place there, we then viewed some of the mass grave sites. Some of things described that took place there are too awful for me to even write about.
We didn't do much for the rest of the day, in fact, we tried to view the Killing Fields movie as we were interested to see how it portrayed what had happened. We didn't succeed that day but managed to see it the following night, and I can recommend it as a very good watch.
Thankfully there are other, cheerier sights in Phnom Penh and the next day we visited them, including the Central Market, the National Stadium, the Wat Phnom pagoda and the Independence Monument. After a contrasting week of culture, history and commemoration in Cambodia, it was time to ship out to 'Nam, where we would spend most of the remaining 4 weeks of our trip.
Vietnam
Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City:
Travelling into Vietnam you immediately get an idea of the number of motorcycles and mopeds there are on the roads compared to cars. When you actually get to Saigon, you wonder whether there's anybody that lives in the city that doesn't own a motorbike! It's fascinating to stand at a junction and watch the traffic, and be amazed that there are no collisions as some of the driving on show is appalling. The honking of horns is constant, and crossing the road can take an awfully long time until you actually see how the locals do it. Basically the trick is to just walk and let the riders avoid you. Easy to say, not so easy to get your legs to do when there's hundreds of bikes bearing down on you! The fact that its pretty much impossible to walk on the pavement doesn't help, as the pavements are almost totally covered by parked motorbikes or street stalls, and so walking on the road and trusting the riders racing past you is par for the course in Saigon (and also in Hanoi).
The main tourist attraction in Saigon is the War Remnants Museum. When you find out that it was renamed from the Museum of American War Crimes you get a good idea what the main theme of the place is! I'm sure when most people hear about Vietnam, they automatically think of Platoon, Apocalypse Now or any of the multitude of Vietnam War films and we were no different so the museum was an extremely interesting source of information. As well as having some impressive military equipment on display outside (including an M48 Patton tank), it gives a damning account of the American military's activities during the Vietnam War, including the use of napalm on civilians and the use of "Agent Orange" a chemical defoliant spray used to remove the Vietcong's forest cover, but which was extremely toxic and is even today causing birth deficiencies in the affected areas. It is obviously an extremely biased account, but reading about the various atrocities and the massive political opposition that the military operation faced from countries around the world, you are left wondering why on earth they went ahead with it and continued when it became clear they were fighting a losing battle.
After getting kicked out of the war museum due to it closing for lunch, we had our first taste of the popular Vietnam dish Pho, or noodle soup. We plumped for the Pho Bo, with beef, but seafood, chicken and pork varieties are also available. Like a lot of the food we tasted in Vietnam, it was tasty, not too spicey and not too different to the tastes that we are used to in the West. That said, eating Pho for breakfast, as many do in Vietnam, was not something that appealled to us!
After lunch, we headed to the Reunification Palace, the scene of the end of the Vietnam War when a North Vietnamese tank crashed through its gates. It was formerly home to the President of South Vietnam and is maintained as a museum where you can see the elegant conference rooms and dining rooms as well as the war room and the US UH-1 "Huey" helicopter on the roof.
The next day we were picked up bright and early for our trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. After an obligatory stop at a tourist-trap pottery and craft site, we arrived at the tunnels and were shown around. The frightening array of man-traps was the most memorable part, with different mechanisms designed to maim and kill anyone unfortunate enough to tread on one. We were allowed into a small section of the tunnels and had to make our way to an exit about 20 or 30 yards away. Crouched over, sometimes crawling on hands, we got to appreciate just how cramped and uncomfortable travel in these tunnels would have been for the locals (although to be fair, they were probably a lot shorter than I am!). The tour ended with us a viewing a Vietnamese propaganda film, telling us about the lives of the locals and how they clubbed together against adversity, to kill as many American soldiers as possible! Those who managed to kill the most were awarded the "American Killer Hero" badge - it was uncomfortable viewing for me, I can't imagine what I would have been like for any unfortunate Americans sitting through it!
Mekong Delta:
The next day we set off for our two day trip in the Mekong Delta, an area in south Vietnam, where the Mekong River empties into the sea. A packed morning on the first day included a trip to a coconut candy making factory, a tasting of Vietnamese fruits (accompanied by traditional music), a relaxing trip on a rowing boat along a narrow channel, a tour of a rice noodle factory and finally lunch at a traditional restaurant. As the one day trippers boarded a bus back to Saigon, we took a 2 hour bus trip to Can Tho, the commercial centre of the Mekong Delta, where we checked into our surprisingly decent hostel.
An early start was required next day as we were going to the Cai Rang floating market, the largest floating market on the Mekong Delta. The market is busiest between the hours of 7 and 9 and so it was during these times that we took a small tourist boat to the market, and then transferred in two groups into even smaller rowing boats for a leisurely tour of the market and the multiple boats selling their vegatables and plants. Each boat has a long pole on which the owner hangs a sample of the type of merchandise for sale but the items are sold in kilos and so juice and water were the only purchases made. After a quick visit to a rice factory, we boarded the bus for the 5 hour drive back to Saigon.
Da Lat:
Our next destination was Da Lat, a little town in the Central Highlands, where the climate was markedly different from most of Vietnam, the altitude reducing the temperature to an average of 17 degrees. Our first walk into town was a refreshing change from Saigon, wide open pavements, MUCH less traffic and a lot less pestering by motortaxi riders.
The next day we set off early for a day tour of the surrounding countryside on the back of the motorbikes of our guides from the hotel. Our first stop was at a cricket farm where we enjoyed a mid-morning snack consisting of the a bowl of the local residents. They are a delicacy in Vietnam but I can't see them catching on back home. The rest of the busy morning was spent wandering round a local market (where Westerners were rarely seen so we were afforded celebrity status!), touring a silk factory and visiting a nearby picturesque waterfall.
Lunch was to be at the family home of our guides, an impressively large house apparently funded by the nearby coffee farm owned by our guides' parents. While one of the sisters (a Buddhist nun) was preparing our lunch, we took a walk around the surrounding village and were taken into the house (actually the shed) of one of the poorer families in the village. An interesting conversation took place via the translation of our guide and we learned of some of the local customs. This included the fact that in order for a marriage to take place, the family of the prospective bride must pay the family of the prospective groom for their son. The currency is cattle and the price decided by the son's family. Unfortunately for the groom, this effectively makes him the property of his new extended family and his workload is adjusted accordingly (I don't want to use the word slave but it seemed to be approaching that level). We also learned about a family in the village that were feared and alienated by the rest of the village as they believed them to be 'ghosts' with power of life and death over others. When our guide spotted the mother of this 'ghost family' passing and invited her in, the atmosphere became decidedly tense! I've since checked my photos of that day and I can confirm that she shows up!
After our delicious vegatarian lunch, we learned of some Vietnamese customs and played some entertaining drinking games (without the drinking element!) before setting off back to Da Lat. To round off an excellent day, the group had dinner together at a local restaurant and we were taken to an interesting club where live music was on offer (some sung in Vietnamese, some in English).
We spent our last day in Da Lat seeing some of the tourist attractions in the town, including the Crazy House, a bizarrely designed guest-house which looks like a cross between a tree and a fairytale castle and taking the impressively long cable-car ride over the pine forest to the hill-top pagoda on the other side.
Nha Trang:
Our next stop was Nha Trang, a beachside town, where sunbathing, snorkelling and boozing seemed to be high on the list of things to do. Unfortunately the weather was not kind to us in the couple of days we had in Nha Trang, the rain was pretty much constant and excursions to the beach were brief. We did finally got to meet up again with the Mancunian couple we had met in New Zealand and so, having heard in our hostel about a new Mexican restaurant that was opening that night (and more importantly was offering a free buffet!) we headed there along with our Mancunian friends (who were joined by 3 friend of theirs from back home who were travelling separately). A night of excellent free food, lots of free shots (vodka and jagermeister) and sombrero wearing was the undoubted highlight of our time in Nha Trang.
Having seen our plans for relaxing days on the beach washed out, our only other wish for Nha Trang was to ride on the world's longest cable car across sea, going from the mainland 5km outside of Nha Trang to Hon Tre Island. After an hour's walk from central Nha Trang we were horrified to find out that there were no ticketing options available for simply riding the cable car to the island and back. Instead a day pass for Vinpearl Land, a classy resort with spa, amusement park and shopping mall and which was vastly over our budget, had to be purchased. After silently cursing the owners of the resort, we returned to central Nha Trang in a taxi for a day of sitting about before boarding the sleeper bus to Hoi An.
Hoi An:
After an extremely uncomfortable night on the sleeper bus, which consisted of being kept awake till 4 am by Vietnamese power ballads playing over the speakers before finally getting a few hours kip in the cramped, uncomfortable bunks, we reached Hoi An.
Hoi An has a major reputation for clothing production and almost as soon as we had stepped off the bus we were targetted by sales people trying to attract tourist to the family tailor or dress shop. The prices were extremely reasonable, but the hassle of carrying the extra load around until going home resulted in us passing on the hundreds of offers we received while in the town.
Hoi An old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is probably the most beautiful town that we visited in Vietnam. The narrow streets were normally free from motorbikes and the walk by the river was gloriously peaceful. A ticket was required to visit some of the tourist attractions, including the 16th century built Japanese Covered Bridge, built to link the Japanese and Chinese quarters at the time and the hilariously named
As well as exploring the town we managed to pack in a trip to the nearby My Son ruins (which, to be honest after seeing the Angkor ruins, were a little disappointing) and a 2 hour boat trip along the Thu Bon river, which included a laughable attempt by both of us to cast a fisherman's net (it was considerably harder than he made it look). We rounded off our time in Hoi An with probably the nicest meal that we had in Vietnam, as we visited a little restaurant on the river that we had been recommended by our Mancunian friends. Red snapper on banana leaves - delicious!
Hue:
Our next stop was Hue, a really interesting city split in two by the Perfume River. The main tourist attractions in Hue sit inside the Citadel, a large walled area on the North while the more modern area on the south bank is where all of the hotels and restaurants are situated.
On ourt first day we spent our time in the Citadel, looking around the Imperial City and Palace enclosure, the massive flag tower and the war museum. Despite being unsuccessful in finding a pub that was showing the Czech Republic v Scotland game we unfortunately managed to see it online on a hotel reception PC. We were also amazed to find an actual bona fide supermarket in the city, and visited there a few times!
On our final day in Hue we took a boat trip along the Perfume River, stopping at the Thien Mu pagoda. As well as being an impressive structure in its own right, the views of the distant mountains made the trip worthwhile.
Hanoi (part one):
After another uncomfortable night on a sleeper bus, we arrived in Hanoi. We had been warned about how hectic and busy the city was and, after we had been dropped off in the taxi and walked along the narrow lane to our hotel, we definitely agreed with that assessment. The lane was a makeshift market with mostly women selling all sorts of produce, including frogs, fish and vegetables, and the little space between the traders on either side was taken up by beeping mopeds and and motorbikes. From 5 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night, the noise outside the hotel was one of sheer bedlam!
One of the sights in Hanoi we were most eager to visit was the mausoleum of former President Ho Chi Minh. Unfortunately we had timed our visit badly, as he was off on his annual maintenance trip to Russia having his body embalmed again! The actual mausoleum itself wasn't much to look at so we made our way to the nearby Ho Chi Minh museum, which seemed to contain a lot of bizarre artwork in no way related to Ho Chi Minh!
Halong Bay:
After just a couple of days in Hanoi we were ready for a slower pace of life and we got just that on our 2 day tour of Halong Bay, a stunningly picturesque stretch of water dotted with little islands. We toured the bay on a Chinese Junk style boat, eating and spending the night on the boat. The photo opportunities were endless as the boat weaved its way through the variously sized islands in gloriously hot weather. It was our last organised tour of the trip and it really didn't disappoint.
Hong Kong:
After spending our last day in Hanoi doing last minute souvenier shopping, and sampling the incredibly cheap local Bia Hoi (freshly made beer) we left Vietnam and boarded a flight for Hong Kong. Our original plan had been to travel overland from Vietnam, through southern China to Hong Kong but due to some ridiculous visa rules (you could only get a Chinese visa in Hanoi if you'd had one in the past) we were forced to shell out for a flight and miss out on another country for our list.
On the bus from the airport we had to readjust to sensible driving practices including the use of lanes for overtaking and liberal use of the horn. After a refreshingly straightforward bus journey from the airport we arrived at our guesthouse in the presumably ironically named "Chunking Mansions" building in the Kowloon area. From the look of the building from the outside and the stairwell, "Deathtrap Mansions" would probably have been a better name.
The next day, after a delicious breakfast at McDonalds, we took a walk to the harbour front and got our first glimpse of the amazing view across the water to the skyscrapers of the business district. We walked along the harbour front, taking in the Avenue of the Stars, a section of the promenade dedicated to film industry professionals from Hong Kong. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li were among the hundreds who were had there names etched in stars on the concrete. Finally that day we took the ferry across the harbour to Hong Kong island where the business district is located. We realised there wasn't much to see over there but we sat outside the CIty Hall and wondered why there were so many women sitting around doing nothing. It was the weekend but there were an abnormal number of them having picnics and playing cards. We never did find out what the story was with that!
The next day we decided to go to the Peak, a shopping and restaurant complex but, more importantly, an amazing viewpoint over the harbour. Even the bus there offered spectacular views as we wound our way up one of the many hills that surround the harbour. However, the panoramic views from the Peak were even more amazing and, as was the case with many places we had visited, the photos taken didn't really do it justice. That evening we got into our smartest clothes and heading to the Aqua Spirit bar, an incredibly swanky and rather expensive cocktail bar, 90 floors up and overlooking the harbour. One of my friends had given me some money on my birthday and specified that I had to spend it there (thanks Ali!). We took in the light show (basically a display of lights and lasers placed on the skyscrapers across the harbour) and sipped some delicious cocktails, including a caipirinha, which we had discovered when in Rio. To round off the night we decided to get a beer each to take back to the hotel with us and, while filming a clip a video clip in the 7/11 shop for our friend to show how a classy night was ending, were threatened by a member of staff with a phonecall to the police unless we stopped taking photos! Despite vigorous questioning she refused to reveal what exactly we were doing wrong by filming in there!
And then, after a few hours of killing time on the last day, it was time to head to the airport and head for home. It has been an amazing six months. We'd been to places that we had always dreamt of visiting, seen sights that we would never forget and met people that we would stay in touch with. And yet strangely we were looking forward to going home and seeing friends and family. And sleeping in a proper bed and having more than 4 t-shirts to wear!
Graham
Singapore - http://picasaweb.google.com/
Kuala Lumpur: http://picasaweb.google.com/
Phnom Penh: http://picasaweb.google.com/
Mekong Delta: http://picasaweb.google.com/
Halong Bay: http://picasaweb.google.com/
