We flew into Copenhagen after a long but pleasant flight via Singapore, with Singapore airlines. We arrived early morning, so needed to store our luggage until our apartment was available in the afternoon. There is a luggage place at the Copenhagen Central station, found down below in the bowels of the building, where you can rent lockers (too small for our bags) or leave them with the attendant – very expensive. But it was our best option so that we could explore on our first day.

We wandered around Nuhavn, looking at the boats and stopped for lunch and a beer, sitting outside in the Kongens Nytorv square. We opted to buy a 72 hour Copenhagen online card, via their app which gives you access to all public transport and many museums and attractions, for 124 Euro per adult. Seems quite expensive but you can pack in a lot of activities and move around the city freely.

We checked into our apartment in the afternoon, located near to Enghave Plads, which had a metro station and lots of restaurants. The apartment was small, but very convenient and had all the necessities, including a kitchen and washer/dryer, an interesting selections of books and statues and a tiny bathroom with a heated floor.

The Copenhagen metro is an excellent way to get around the city, easy to navigate, very accessible and trains run every 4 minutes. They trains are driverless, so you can sit in the front of the train and watch as you go through the tunnels. Interestingly there are no ticket gates in the stations. Regular commuters have a card they swipe in and out. Our online card had a barcode which could be read by an inspector (I presume) though we were never asked. The system relies on honesty and compliance, and whilst I assume there are penalties for travelling without a ticket, we saw no signs of this. It felt like a society that trusted it’s people to do the right thing.

Here are some images from the Tivoli gardens, a must see in Copenhagen.

On our second day we visited Freetown Christiania – an alternative communal living ‘village’ which began in the 1970’s when students squatted on military land on the island. It has become known for its open use of cannabis which is illegal in Denmark. The inhabitants claim to live a self-sufficient lifestyle, though tourism brings in a lot of income. It was interesting, nonetheless, very peaceful with no cars only bicycles, loads of colourful murals, Buddhist prayer flags, arts and crafts and restaurants. We had a simple lunch in a homely place, then took the long path back through woodlands along the canal and back to the city.

As we were trying to make the most of our Copenhagen card, we visited a number of places. Firstly, though we had breakfast at Grod, a porridge specialty restaurant. I know!

I’m not really a lover of porridge but this concept intrigued me. You choose your porridge, which can be oats or other grains, then you choose your toppings. I had muesli and berries with mine, very nice, though despite being the small serve, it was a lot.

We took the train out to Holte, where we went on a boat cruise of the lakes and canals. We stopped at Lyngby for lunch, between rain showers, then took another boat back to a different town, then a train back to Copenhagen. The next day we took a regional train to Roskilde, where we visited the Viking ship museum. This was very interesting. These ships were not very big and were powered by both oars and sails, but covered extraordinary distances across the sea to England, Scotland & Ireland, Greenland, and even Canada and North America, as well as Italy and Spain in about 800 – 1000CE.

The museum had many boats and artefacts, lots of kids activities.

We watched some boat builders splitting a huge log in the traditional way, as they prepared timber for a new boat.

We had lunch in Roskilde town – Smorrbrod, which is a kind of open sandwich, very yummy. I had chicken salad with bacon and Neil had roast beef and herring.

Back in Copenhagen, we decided to take an afternoon river cruise, starting off in bright sunshine, then drenched in a heavy shower of rain.

The following day we went to the Torve hallerne indoor market, which had beautiful produce, so we decided to have some lunch there – Spanish pinchas (pintxos) with a glass of wine. Everywhere you go you can buy wine and beer, licencing laws seem much more relaxed than in Australia. After that we visited the Christiansborg Palace, which had some interesting architecture and sculptures and great views from the tower.

Final thoughts on Denmark as we leave for Norway.

This society blew me away. It really is a place of freedom. Public transport works amazingly well, with simple efficient connections between modes, and easily navigable. I was surprised by the lack of policing of tickets on transport, there were no gates or barriers, no inspectors (that we saw). Tickets can be bought online or from machines at the station, it’s easy with instructions in many languages. You never need cash here, even when paying for public toilets! This is virtually a cashless society. We did not even see what Danish Kroner looked like. There are bicycles everywhere, with good bike lanes, separate from the cars and pedestrians, and bike parking is available everywhere. There were very few cars in the city and even out in the countryside, the roads were quiet. Everyone rides bikes, from the smallest kids to the elderly, and disabled people with modified bikes or electric tricycles and bikes with carts for kids to sit in. The regional trains and busses are frequent and comfortable, so you can readily get around without a car. There were many electric cars and charging stations all over. The city seems calm and relaxed, not crazy busy. People are polite and helpful and most speak English and several other languages. It is very family friendly with places for kids to play on trains and activities for kids in most museums and places of interest. The one drawback here is that everything is very expensive. But you get what you pay for, and this society that has high taxes also provides great benefits to its citizens and the standard of living is very high. It feels like a country that treats its citizens as adults, responsible for themselves and expected to do the right thing without restrictive rules. It feels like a society built on trust. I was very impressed. People seemed happy, healthy and relaxed.

After leaving London with heavy hearts, we headed for Colombo, where we had planned to go earlier in the year, but cancelled after the devastating Easter Sunday terror attacks. Sondra had arranged for us to stay with her sister, Sonia while in Colombo, so we caught a car to her house in Dehiwala. On arrival we were greeted by two elderly people who were the gardener and the cook. There was another lady as well, and between them they insisted on carrying our heavy bags to our room.
Sonia then greeted us from her room, and was helped out into the sitting area by her carer. Sonia had polio as a child, and as a result has limited mobility, and now as she is getting older, she needs a device similar to a CPAP machine to help with her breathing 24/7.
The house she lives in with her sister in law and niece, along with the 3 servants and carer, is a lovely rambling tropics open style house with a beautiful garden full of flowers, butterflies and birds. It’s an oasis. You can sit on the verandah and look out into the garden, while Puppy, the dog flops on your feet.

It was a little strange staying in a house with servants, always looking after you and responding to your every need. They would appear with tea and cake, or water etc without you even asking. On our second day there we had lunch in the lovely dining room, decorated with many of Sondra’s paintings. Wow, such amazing food. The curries and all the accompaniments were wonderful, so fresh and beautifully prepared, it was the best food we have had all the time we have been away. Each day we were treated to a lovely breakfast, different things each day; stringhoppers, roti, sambols, curry, as well as fruit and toast. We are so grateful to have been able to spend a few days at Sonia’s house, it was lovely.

One of the evenings we went down to Galle Face Green and watched the families out flying kites, it’s always such an amazing sight, and a simple way to have fun with your family. We then headed into the famous Galle Face Hotel for a drink on the terrace, however it was Poya day (full moon holiday) and no alcohol allowed, so we had mocktails; almost as good as a G&T, but not quite .

While in Colombo, we also caught up with Neil’s auntie Dorothy, over lunch at the historic Mount Lavinia hotel. We enjoyed a Sri Lankan buffet with everything you could want and sitting out on the terrace overlooking the sea, it was lovely, and so good to catch up with Dorothy, always full of laughs, she is an amazing woman.

After Colombo, we decided to head south for some beach time. First we went to Bentota and stayed in a large resort on the beach, however, it was school holidays, and the place was full of families with kids, so the pool was always full, the restaurant was busy, the buffet breakfast was crazy, so it didn’t really suit us. The sea was really angry and rough and the beach was closed for swimming, but anyway, on day 2 the weather improved and we had a cooling dip in the ocean, somewhat battered by the waves, but it was fun, and not crowded.
We went for a boat trip along the lagoon to the mangroves, which was enjoyable.

Next we decided to go to Yala, and found a small ‘glamping’ resort just out of Tissa, by the lake.
On the way we stopped for lunch at a great little spot with lots of ladies cooking up all sorts of yummy food, roti, vadai, thosa, pittu, curry puffs etc. All freshly prepared and cooked before your eyes, and so cheap. LOVE these kind of places.
Then to our glamping resort. Wow! It couldn’t be more different from the previous hotel. The Yala Adventure, is set in lovely gardens with tented rooms spread out around the grounds, with an infinity pool overlooking the picturesque Tissa lake, and not a kid in sight. (I do like kids, just not hundreds of them in the pool with me)
The artificial lake is thought to have been constructed in the 3rd century bc for irrigation and water supply.
This place is a real gem, they cooked us lovely Sri Lankan food, most of the vegetables grown in their own garden, which is also a haven for birds and butterflies.

Day 2 here we set out on our full day safari, 6am start, ugh. Our jeep arrived and took us to the national park, where we drove around and around, seeing many amazing birds, buffalo, crocodiles, deer and monkeys. If you have ever been on a safari , you will know about the crazy circus that ensues when one jeep makes a sighting of something of interest – your driver gets a call, then suddenly turns into some kind of jeep racing lunatic, speeding down bumpy dirt tracks to arrive at the spot, where 20 other jeeps are already jostling for a good spot; it’s chaos. Rumours run through the group, then suddenly you’re off again. So it was with us when somebody thought they saw a bear, we all race to the spot, then drive between the other cars, already blocking the road, So you end up with a colossal jeep jam, and quite a bit of drivers yelling at each other – not really conducive to seeing wild animals. Needless to say, we didn’t see a bear.
We all stopped for lunch near the beach, the site of significant destruction from the Boxing Day tsunami. There is a 2hour break between the morning and afternoon session, so all the jeeps have to wait until 2pm before we can head out again, a good time for an afternoon nap in the back of the jeep.

In the afternoon we managed to see a few elephants, then along one stretch of track, when we were alone, we spotted the leopard sitting on the side of the road up ahead. We stopped and quietly took some photos before it walked into the jungle. So beautiful, and we felt so privileged to see it.

Then our driver took off in a big hurry and drove around to a nearby waterhole where he believed the leopard was headed. He then called other drivers and the mad race was on again. Now our driver was the hero, because he had seen the leopard, so he made sure he bragged to all the others. It was pretty funny to watch his transformation. There were two places about 500 metres apart where the leopard might go, so all the jeeps were jostling back and forward between the two. At one stage our driver was weaving at speed, in reverse gear between other jeeps, across a narrow causeway while talking on the phone and looking for the leopard; talk about multitasking! The leopard, of course, did not reappear with all that commotion going on.
It was a long and tiring day, but well worth it, and we returned to our resort with stories to tell.

We had a refreshing swim before enjoying a cold beer and another wonderful dinner and an early night.
The next day we relaxed at the resort, took a tuk tuk into town in the evening in search of somewhere different to eat, found a place but the food was disappointing, should have stayed and eaten at the resort.
The following day our driver arrived and drove us to Galle. Galle was settled by the Portuguese in the 16th century, then the Dutch came in the 17th century and built the fort, which was eventually taken over by the British, so it’s a kind of microcosm of Sri Lankan colonial history, and is now a UNESCO World heritage site. Our hotel is a heritage building initially built by the Dutch, then expanded by the British, and was once a printer’s shop, hence the name Fort Printers. It is a lovely building with a central courtyard, which now houses the pool.

We went for a wander around the fort in the evening, you can walk along the top of the wall for most of the way around this rocky peninsula, and with a storm approaching the sea was very rough, making a spectacular sight, with waves crashing on the rocks and the walls of the fort.
We sat in an upstairs bar with a beer and watched the storm roll in from the sea, then made a dash home between heavy showers.

Later we wandered around looking for somewhere to have dinner; there are many restaurants here but the place is a bit of a tourist trap, with high prices and strange menus that try to cater to all tastes. Many places served pizza, burgers and rice and curry. I can’t help feeling that restaurants here could be so much better, given the amazing availability of beautiful fresh ingredients and Sri Lankan flavours, but they seem to just try and copy the West.
We found a place in the old Dutch hospital which was quite good.
Next day we went for a walk outside the fort area into the main town of Galle, which is a bit less touristy. The humidity was extreme after the rain overnight, so we were quickly exhausted and caught a tuk tuk back to our hotel.
We had a lovely lunch of hoppers with chicken and prawn curry at Hoppa, just near our hotel. We also had prawn wadai which were excellent. In the evening we headed out for dinner to the Dutch hospital again, and sat upstairs overlooking the ocean, and enjoyed a meal of stringhopper pilau (Neil) and Penne pasta (me), both were good, surprisingly.

Off to bed amid another downpour of rain, which threatened to flood the courtyard outside our room, with torrents of water pouring from the spouting into overflowing drains. This happened twice throughout the night and we also had some dripping from our ceiling onto our heads on bed, so turned tail and put the pillows at the other end to sleep. Ah, the tropics, perfect one minute, torrential rain the next.

Today now is our last day in Sri Lanka, and feeling a little sad to be leaving, although also keen to get home. We went for a tuk tuk ride into town and wandered around the market, then noticed there was a big commotion going on near the cricket ground, and up in the sky there were hundreds of kites flying. We walked over to where it all seemed to be happening, and saw many hundreds of people gathered along the fort wall as well as down on a large lawn area, where people were out flying their amazing kites. There were huge elaborate kites and tiny little kids with basic kites and everything in between. It was great to see so many people of different ages and complexities of kites all playing together. Many of those flying kites were teenagers, which seemed like a lovely pass time for kids of that age group. There were also jumpy castles, fairy floss sellers, music and food and drink vendors as well. such a lovely carnival atmosphere around such a simple activity as kite flying. Lovely.

Sri Lanka has been kind to us once again and we have had a lovely time, if only a short trip this time. The country is really suffering after the terror attacks because tourist numbers have plummeted and many small operators of restaurants, hotels, tours, drivers etc, are doing it tough. Not only did those terrorists kill hundreds of innocent people and cause such incalculable harm to the people directly impacted, but they have crippled the economy for most Sri Lankans, because tourism is a major money earner here, and if those involved in tourism are doing it hard, so are the other industries they rely on, so the flow on effect is enormous. We found that whilst there is a noticeable police presence, and security in hotels is quite high, in general everything is operating as normal here. So I would encourage anyone reading this who is thinking of coming to Sri Lanka, just do it. Right now you can get good deals on hotels and tours and places are not as crowded as normal, and you will be helping restore normality to this beautiful island. If you want to book tours or accommodation, our friend Lisa (Sonia’s neice) would be pleased to help you. She works for Pan Lanka and can be contacted at lisa@panlanka.com. Check out their website http://www.panlanka.com If you book through a local company you are providing jobs for local people, rather than using aggregator sites like booking.com

Ayubowan .

Stuthi, Sri Lanka.

Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed,

Droops on little hands little gold head.

Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!

Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

A.A Milne

We came to the UK to visit Neil’s uncle Chris after learning he has terminal cancer. It was with some trepidation that we came, not knowing what to expect or if we could be of any help.
Some time back I read some of Clive James’ articles where he coined the phrase ‘life’s departure lounge’ which perfectly captures the poignant absurdity of finding out you have a terminal illness and waiting for the inevitable. This is where Chris is now, in life’s departure lounge, although for him the metaphor might be better described as the ‘final lap’, because Chris has been a motorcycle racer all of his adult life.

Background

Chris (Christopher) was born in what was then known as Ceylon, to Marjory and Wilfred Pereira; he was named after Christopher Robin, from his father’s favourite books by A.A Milne. He already had an older sister, Rosemary (Neil’s mother) and would also later have a younger sister, Jennifer. Motorcycle racing has been part of his life for over 60 years, racing in Ceylon, then the UK and across Europe at tracks including Hockenheim, Isle of Man, Donnington, Silverstone and many others.

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In his later years he competed in classic motorcycle events including hill climbs. After moving to the UK, he met and married the other love of his life, Sondra, his wife and friend, she has accompanied him to hundreds of races and now lovingly cares for him. His last race was at age 80, a hill climb in Austria which ended in tragedy, when he crashed and a spectator was killed. Chris was badly injured breaking several bones including both arms and life has been a struggle for him ever since, both physically and emotionally.

Motorcycle racing has provided him with many lifelong friends, some of whom are visiting him daily in these, his last weeks. It is sad to see someone who always lived life to the full, being unable to do anything for himself. Despite his physical weakness, his mind is as a keen as ever, as was evident as we all watched the MotoGP together last week, and he knew all the riders and details of their previous wins and times.

Devon, Cornwall and Wiltshire

Whilst in the UK we took a break and headed down the coast, driving our rental car and discovering that there are some extremely narrow roads in England.
First stop was for lunch at the Beckford Arms in Fonthill Gifford, which had a lovely outdoor terrace and excellent food.

Onward from there we spent our first night at Paignton. This town is obviously a seaside holiday town, with a pier, complete with amusement arcade. Fish and chip shops, video games, traditional arcade games and all sorts of games of chance and skill. It was quite mind boggling, to see so many of these machines lined up along the length of the pier. I couldn’t help but think that this is grooming kids for gambling. So many of these games had cash prizes. There were also multiple ‘casinos’ throughout the town, all geared at children. We stayed in a BnB in town and had dinner at the Inn on the Green along the main street, standard pub fare.

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On our way to our next destination, we diverted via the Lizard for lunch. Here we found a a fantastic little cafe, purported to be Britain’s most southerly, nestled on the cliffs overlooking the rugged coastline. The food was fabulous and the views extraordinary, and such a sunny day, it was just lovely.

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On to Penzance and another quaint BnB, a pleasant walk along the seafront and dinner at a pub serving Italian fare, which was a nice change.
The next day we drove to St Ives, foolishly driving all the way down to the waterfront, where the streets are extremely narrow, filled with holiday making pedestrians and parking is at a premium, still we found a place to park on the pier, paid a ridiculously expensive parking fee, and headed for a walk along the crowded foreshore. This is a very pretty place but at this time of year, filled with tourists. We also watched people swimming in the chilly water, jumping off the pier and saw a seal swimming by. There was such a holiday atmosphere , it was almost contagious.

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Next stop was Padstow, our primary reason for coming to Cornwall, to have lunch at one of Rick Stein’s restaurants. Of course, without a booking in peak season we were obviously just dreaming, so after a lovely walk around town, we settled on Cally Oyster Bar restaurant which was lovely; great seafood.
No amusement arcades here though, clearly there’s a class structure around holiday destinations here, Padstow is restaurants, upmarket souvenir shops and art galleries.
As there was no available accommodation around here (we hadn’t booked ahead) nor at nearby New Quay, due to the Boardmasters festival (later cancelled due to bad weather), we looked for something out of town, and found a gem. A farmhouse near Bude, called Higher Tresmorn farm BnB. This place was just beautiful, set up on rolling hills above the Atlantic coast, the views were amazing, the farmhouse was lovely and Emma was an excellent host, serving a sumptuous English breakfast in the conservatory with views of the sea. So peaceful, watching the sunset over the ocean as a flock of wild geese flew in and landed on the dam, and whilst watching and photographing this, I was also occupied by constantly throwing a ball for the resident dog to fetch. Bliss. I would highly recommend this BnB if you are out that way.

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Next we headed North towards Cheltenham, staying the night in the historic town of Broadway, at Abbott’s Grange, a 14th century building set in beautiful gardens right in the centre of town. This place is so picture postcard, old stone buildings wherever you look. Our room was on the first floor, complete with 4 poster bed. We had a lovely meal at the Swan gastro pub across the road, and then a quiet port by the outdoor fire before retiring.

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After leaving Broadway we headed back to Bracknell to spend a few more days with Chris and Sondra, but stopped along the way in Oxford. Many of the larger towns and cities in England have park and ride facilities, and we made use of the one outside Oxford, parking our car on the outskirts and taking a bus into the centre. We visited the historic covered market and had a pie for lunch, then went to the Science museum, which showcased scientific equipment across the ages; very interesting.

Back in Bracknell, we checked into our apartment near town centre and spent the next few days taking the bus to and from Chris and Sondra’s house, just hanging out, chatting, watching tv, looking at old photos. The love of motorcycles has been a binding force between him and Neil; the shared brotherhood that only motorcyclists understand.

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It was with great sadness and many tears that we said our goodbyes knowing it is unlikely we will see him again, but hoping that we brought a little bit of happiness to his last days, by just being there, watching some motor cycling together, and Neil cooking him a creme brulee, to try and tempt his ailing appetite, and to provide some moral support for Sondra at this very difficult time. I know that these few days have been meaningful for Neil and I hope also for Chris.

Post script: Saturday 24th August

Sadly, Chris passed away today. So sad, but glad we were able to see him and spend some time with him. RIP.

Recently we found out that Neil’s uncle who lives in the UK has terminal cancer, so we decided at the last minute to pop over and see him for the last time.

We hurriedly booked flights and hopped on a plane within two days and are now in transit at Colombo (flying Sri Lankan airlines) with a stopover in SL on our way home. So we get to go on the visit we missed after India, even if only for 7 days.

More to come over the next two weeks.

Flying into Colombo last night, sorry it’s a bit blurry.

Hong Kong have a great service where you can take your luggage and check it in for your flight at the MTR station. This is available at Hong Kong station and Kowloon station, so you go there and they have airline check in desks, and you show your boarding pass and they send your luggage off to the airport. It’s brilliant, especially if you have to check out of your hotel long before your flight. Then you can wander around unencumbered, and catch the Airport express train to the terminal later.

So, after checking our luggage in, we spent the rest of our last day in Hong Kong with Neil’s cousin Rod and his wife Bles, and they took us out to Stanley on the island where we wandered around the shops, and had some lunch on the waterfront, and also saw some dragon boat racing. It was a lovely day and such a nice way to finish our holiday.

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Out of the plane window, on our way home I noticed Venus had risen just before dawn as we crossed central Australia. Managed to take this very freaky looking shot using my iPhone zoom, no filters.

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Now we are home, the house feels strange, it seems bigger, perhaps because we have been living in hotel rooms for almost two months. The next chapter begins. Time to face the reality that I am unemployed; so perhaps there is another blog to come…the experiences of an older person after redundancy, trying to carve out a new career and find their creative side. Lol. 🙂 We’ll see. Until then, au revoir.

We arrived in Hong Kong early in the morning. We had arranged to take a shuttle to our hotel, so headed to the desk and were promptly stickered and shepherded to sit and wait. Some half an hour later we were walked to our shuttle bus, a considerable distance from the terminal. As we drove from the airport my first impression (first time in Hong Kong) was amazement at the sheer size of everything. The apartment buildings, the bridges everything seems vast. I had always pictured Hong Kong to be a small tightly packed place, so did not realise how many different parts of it there are. As you head from the airport you can see some of the New Territories to the west of Hong Kong proper, and the huge bridges connecting the islands are breathtaking.

We arrived at out hotel in Mong Kok, The Cordis, and were sent up to the 36^th floor for check in at the club lounge. As it was so early on the morning, we though perhaps we would not get a room for a while, but we were offered breakfast while they prepared our room, which was nice. We had a shower and a nap, then headed out to look for a laundry to get our washing done.

Side note on laundry while travelling: whenever you travel for more than a couple of weeks, you need to get laundry done. The way to do this differs in different parts of the world. Generally, we avoid using the hotel laundry service as it is invariably about twice the price of a local laundry. They send the laundry out to the same places but add their own mark-up. In Europe we have frequently used laundromats, which are readily available in most cities and work very well, they are also great places to meet people. In Asia, and other countries where labour is cheap, there are usually laundries which will wash, dry, fold and iron for reasonable prices. This was variable in India, quite expensive in Shimla, where the laundry sent the washing down to Siliguri (3 hour drive) to be done, but everywhere else it was reasonable and usually same day service. We check the hotel price list, then we know that anything less than that is a bonus. Here in Hong Kong, the hotel list showed to wash a T shirt cost $80 HK and jeans $100 HK each. That’s pretty expensive by any measure. We Googled nearby laundries and found one about 200 metres away, so took our bags of clothes to see how much it would cost. The lady weighed our washing, about 9 kgs all up. Cost for the lot was $140 HK; we dropped off it at about lunchtime and it was ready for pickup by 9pm. Great service, and so much cheaper than the hotel, all it took was a little bit of research and a little bit of effort carrying our washing to the place.

From our hotel lobby, we can walk across an elevated enclosed walkway to the Langham centre, which is a huge shopping centre, that sits above the Mong Kok MTR station. The whole complex is mind boggling complicated with escalators going in all directions, but if you follow the signs with the MTR symbol, you can easily find the station. It is all quite accessible by escalators as well as stairs and lifts. (I don’t think I have spent so much time on escalators in my whole life, as I have here in a few days in Hong Kong – they are everywhere in multitudes)

This brings me to make some comparisons between Hong Kong and India around queuing etiquette and general public social behaviour. These are only my observations and not intended to draw any conclusions about Indian or Hong Kong Chinese people. It seems to me that people in Hong Kong are more compliant with rules and social norms. There are signs with rules for where to stand for the train, where to walk on the pavement etc, and people largely obey these rules. People form orderly queues, and wait for passengers to disembark before getting on the train; it’s all quite ordered and polite.  In India, queueing etiquette seems non-existent, getting into trains or lifts is a free for all, you have to fight your way to get anywhere, and frankly lane markings on roads in India are a waste of paint; no-one stays in their lane, it’s as if they don’t exist at all. It feels like rules in India are made to be broken, and that only policing keeps people from breaking them. For example, in India in places where there are long queues, there are security people with whistles and sticks to keep everyone in line, any attempt at queue jumping is pounced upon by these fellows who wildly blow their whistles and wave their big sticks around, in one place the guy had a shotgun. No such controls are needed here in Hong Kong, people just queue politely without anyone telling them to do so. Interestingly, though, in India on crowded transport I was offered a seat by young men on several occasions, however that hasn’t happened here in Hong Kong. We took the bus up to the peak as the tram service is not running at present, and the bus was packed, so we had to stand up. It was difficult standing and hanging on as the bus went around sharp corners and stopped and started, yet no-one offered us a seat, and we were the oldest people on the bus by a long shot. At one point a man in the seat beside me got up to get off the bus, so I thought, here’s my chance for a seat, but I was not quick enough, a young woman almost bowled me over and jumped into the seat barely before the man had moved.

We visited the Nan Lian garden and the Chi Lin Nunnery, which was a peaceful place with lots of what I would call giant bonsai trees, they were cut and controlled like bonsai, but were almost normal sized. The nunnery is a retreat for Buddhist nuns and is built entirely from wood without the use of nails, apparently. (though I did see some screws)

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We caught up with Neil’s cousin Roderick, who lives here, for lunch at a pub that sells Moondog beer, which was nice, and he showed us around a few places and gave some ideas on what to visit.

Shopping: this seems like it’s a national pastime here, I have never seen so many shops…everywhere you look there are shops, and so many shopping malls with all the big name international brands as well as local markets and small shops along the streets. I heard someone say “there used to be a temple here, but now it’s a shopping mall” and thought, you could say that for most of Hong Kong. When we went up to the peak, at the top there is a shopping centre, with souvenir shops, restaurants, even jewellery and sunglasses all available as you head up to the viewing terrace, via multiple escalators (which costs you $55) where there are professional photographers set up trying to get your business. Plenty of people were happy to fork out for professional photos of themselves with Hong Kong in the background. We stayed here for a while mostly people watching, ever incredulous at the degree of narcissism of people so busy taking pictures of themselves, they are oblivious to what’s going on around them, and oblivious to me taking their pictures. 😊 We did witness two marriage proposals while we were there; I assume this is a regular occurrence here.

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Whilst here we visited the Temple street market and had dinner at a street restaurant selling spicy crabs and other delicacies. We had some spicy prawns and spicy beans which were good. As the restaurant was busy, two Korean men shared our table, they ordered their food and a beer, then one took a flask out of his pocket and poured some clear spirit into his and his companion’s glass before topping up with beer. He saw us watching and offered Neil some of what turned out to be Korean Saki, apparently is was quite good. They smiled and bowed as we left. Sometimes when travelling you have little encounters like this that make things all the more interesting.

We also took a ferry out to Cheung Chau island and walked around to the beach there and had some lunch at a seafood restaurant on the waterfront, which was a bit of a tourist trap, average food for high prices, but the ferry ride was good and gave excellent views of the city from the water.

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Here are some street market pictures, check out the guy at the pork butcher with no shirt.

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One evening we headed down to the harbour, in front of the cultural centre to watch the evening light show. The video was taken with my phone, not sure why the lights are flaring.

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Tomorrow is our last day here, then we fly out to Melbourne and back home. It’s been an interesting time in Hong Kong, the weather has been a little dull, although it was sunny today. It’s a very different place to anything in India or even Australia. Hong Kong feels like a 21st Century city; so modern and fast paced, excellent public transport and shiny shopping malls, bright city lights and tall skyscrapers every where you look. At night I can almost imagine I will see flying cars from the Jetson’s zooming around the buildings. There is a lot to do here, and I think we could definitely return another time. Thanks Hong Kong, till we meet again.