Deb's Travels: May 2011

Today is my last day in Hong Kong, my flight home leaves at 19:45 tonight. Hong Kong is an awesome place and makes a great layover city. It's nice to leave all the chaos of S.E.Asia behind and get back into a developed county again. Hong Kong reminds me a little of Tokyo but with far less people and an simpler and easier to use metro system...and more Chinese! It's an extremely easy place to get around, I've barely looked at my maps at all. As long as you know what metro station to get off at for the site you want to visit all you have to do is follow the well marked signs. There are even signs all over pointing you in the direction of the closest metro station so if you get disoriented just follow them to an MTR station and off you go! They have a really efficient airport express train that takes you immediately from the arrivals area of the airport to the MTR station you need complete with shuttle buses to all hotels for about $10...the train goes 135km/hr so you are in town in 20mins and they have same day in-town luggage check-in for your flight home....so when I check out of my hotel today all I have to do is head to Kowloon station, check my bag in and I can wander the city at my leisure until my 7:45pm flight without having to worry about what to do with my luggage!

The Peak

I visited the Peak yesterday, too bad it was a bit rainy/cloudy... the views would have been better on a clear day. You get there on one of the world's oldest and most famous funicular railways, the tram rises to 396 metres (about 1,300 feet) above sea level. It is so steep that the buildings you pass look like they are leaning a gradient of between 4 to 27 degrees!
The 360-degree panoramic view across the Hong Kong, the Sky Terrace standing at 428 metres above sea level has spectacular vistas of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, much of the New Territories, the outlying islands, mainland China, and Macau.

Lantau Island and the Big Buddha

Lantau Island, Hong Kong's largest island, was the location of my day trip 2 days ago. It's an easy 45min metro ride. There you take the Ngong Ping, a gondola cable car, the 20min, 5.7Km journey up to the Buddha. It has really amazing views of Lantau Island and the South China Sea. You are soaring above the airport too at one point and can watch the planes take off and land. The cable cars have glass bottoms as well that made your stomach drop!

Buddha on the hill to the left..the final destination.

YIKES!

The Big Buddha, or as it’s officially known the Tian Tan Buddha, is a 34ft tall statue of a seated Buddha that’s part of the Po Lin Monastery complex. Weighing over 250 tons, the statue is the biggest, bronze, seated Buddha in the world and one of the world’s top ten Buddha statues by scale.

Start climbing...30C makes that a lot of stairs.

The skyline of Hong Kong is really like no other I've seen. Hong Kong Island Skyline looks so great because of the small size of Hong Kong, there are more skyscrapers packed into a tiny area.
Hong Kong actually boasts two skylines: one on Hong Kong Island and the other on Kowloon across Victoria Harbour. I think Hong Kong Island's skyline is the most impressive one, and since I was staying in Kowloon it offered me great views!

They have a light show every night at 8pm which was pretty cool. Hong Kong's skyline is impressive during the daylight hours but it really impresses when all the skyscrapers are lit in the evening.

I also took a ride on the Star Ferry across the bay for more views from the water.

Kowloon Park and the Zoological/Botanical Gardens

Shopping! Hong Kong is the land of amazing shopping!!!!!

Whole city is lit up like a Christmas tree!

Some sample items from the menu in the street restaurant I ate at....I chose a non-adventurous squid and broccoli, Yum!

Well, that's all folks! 7 weeks just flew by!
Home Sweet Home in about 15 short hours....ahhh, my wonderful bed!

Legian beach sunset reflecting on the wet sand in low tide.

I said a sad goodbye to the lovely Lombok and flew into Bali (30min flight for $20, cheaper and faster than the ferry or fast boat!) My last 2 days in Bali were spent in the major tourist beach areas that are just south of the airport. I usually try to steer clear of these busy beaches when I travel as they come with crowds and hassle. This was no exception but generally, as they are good for shopping, cheap massages and restaurants, it's worth a couple days of hassle...Kuta beach, however, was NOT and is probably the worst, most unpleasant beach destination I have ever been too. I wouldn't recommend anyone go here short of using it as an overnight stay before flying home...whatever you need to shop for can be done elsewhere. There are 3 main beaches along the strip: Kuta, Legian and Seminyak over an approx 10km stretch and they get nicer and more expensive as you travel from Kuta into Seminyak. My hotel was thankfully nice and in a quieter area in Legian about 500meters from the beach.

How phallic are banana trees???!!!!!

The beaches are all actually nice...really big, clean, soft sand and lot's of waves for surfers but they are very busy and the hassle factor was so incredibly high it made you crazy. I had some last shopping I had to do that I left until the end so I walked into Kuta, where most of the shopping is, from Legian (about 3-4km and actually faster to walk than take a taxi due to such serious traffic problems... assuming you don't get run over by all the motorcycles driving on the sidewalk to avoid said traffic) and I lasted only about 3 hours before I had to get the hell out of there.

Aside from the bumper to bumper traffic and non-stop offers for transport, massages and tours the worst hassle came from the tourist shops(the ones selling clothes,fake bags,sunglasses,watches etc.) and they increase in numbers the further into Kuta you get. I've been in a lot of markets in a lot of countries and I've never experienced such a horrible market vibe. Even in the cities with the more aggressive sellers I've always found the whole bargaining song and dance good-natured: you spend a few minutes haggling, either agree on a price or do the fake walk away and get called back with a cheaper price then everyone agrees, smiles and exchanges money. Here, even after a deal is made, they grab your money, ask for a tip and then glare at you. Even in India, where just walking down the street was exhausting due to all the sellers yelling at you to look in their store, no one would dare lay a hand on you...here I was constantly getting grabbed as sellers were forcibly trying to pull me in their stores. In the couple places I actually went into to buy the few things I needed I got immediately surrounded and backed into a corner by several men. The bargaining was impossible due to their starting prices being totally outrageous!!! You expect the haggling to start at 2x maybe 3x their actual value but here it was 20-30times the value! Seriously, I asked how much for a pair of sunglasses( these are worth $2-3 TOPS..that's a pretty standard price for fake sunglasses across Asia) they started the biding at $30.00!!! $30! I actually started laughing. I offered $2.50 for them and they came down to $25.00, Ha ha...then as soon as I walk away they agree to my price immediately. Clearly a lot of tourists are stupid enough to pay $30 if they think they can get that. In one store I wanted to buy 2 copy watches...these are worth $2-6 TOPS, as well, and again the guy starts the bargaining at $30 for one watch. This is place I had my worst store experience of the day. I offered him $5 for each watch, which is more than fair, and in the end I knew he would accept it because that's all they're worth...after 10mins of bargaining he is still asking over $20 per watch demanding I "give him a serious offer"...I'm finally like: "dude $5 is my final and most serious offer, I bought watches just like this in Malaysia for $3-5, they are cheap watches and not worth more than $5" to which he replies "these are better than the Malaysian watches, see this one has diamonds" as he points to the cubic zirconium's on one of the watch faces. ha! Does he think I am stupid? That was when I laughed and having reached a $20 impasse I tried to do the walk-away only to be grabbed by my arm and held in the store. He would not let go no matter how hard I pulled away demanding I "give him a serious offer" I had to forcibly rip my arm out of his hands and push through the men cornering me to walk out of the store. I got 2 feet away when he yelled after me that he would accept my $5 offer. He practically threw the watches at me, especially after I refused to tip him too. This happened with all 3 stores I shopped in so not an isolated incident... by the last one I was sick of being grabbed and restrained and intimidated. I gave up all hopes for shopping and hightailed it back to the oasis of my hotel pool.

I was generally really surprised how high the hassle fatcor is in Bali. I thought it would be a lot like Thailand here but the vibe is definitely closer to that of India. It is extremely corrupt. People were constantly trying to scam me, get a couple more bucks from me and generaly take advantage of tourists. Even in Ubud, which I otherwise quite enjoyed, there was hassle. I was in a state of constant hyper vigilence here to avoid the scamming. I'm glad I spent most of my time in Lombok and the Gili Islands( still corrupt but on a much smaller scale that was more tolerable...it was night and day compared to Bali). There are beautiful places in Bali definitely worth visiting but Kuta beach is not one of them.