Sue and myself first met over eight years ago while volunteering in Mombasa, Kenya. We had a
lot in common including being single mums with grown up children and a shared sense adventure. We lived in different parts of Ireland, me in the capital Dublin and she in a small town in the south of Ireland Tramore in County Waterford.
We had travelled on short trips together both in Ireland and various countries in Europe but never for more than a week so this promised to be a lot different. Both in our fifties and after downsizing our homes, we decided on some overseas adventures
in Asia. We booked return flights to Hong Kong and decided we would see as much of Asia
as we could in 3 months.
Our plan was to use trains and buses instead of flights, so we
could really experience the different cultures. Following an eleven hour flight from Amsterdam we finally touched down in Hong Kong and made our way to our very trendy and reasonably priced funky hotel on Kowloon.
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| Junk Sailing in Victoria Harbour |
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| Hong Kong Harbour Skyline |
The Hotel Sav supplied us with a free smartphone which allowed us to travel and explore Hong Kong with ease. Numerous special offers and money off vouchers were listed along with recommendations for restaurants and shops. The phone even gave us free local calls to make bookings or buy tickets and the SatNav meant we were never lost. The hotel also supplied a free shuttle bus also so we could travel to the Victoria Harbour area and even to and from the airport for free.
On the second day we decided to take the Big Bus Tour which takes visitors on a trip around Hong Kong Island. Out to Stanley Market and the nearby Repulse Bay close by where many wealthy Islanders have expensive beach-side homes. Later in the evening a trip around the harbour in a Junk followed by the nightly fireworks display as the sun set, rounded off an amazing day.
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| Nightly Fireworks Display Hong Kong |
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Galleria Shopping in Kowloon
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Leaving Hong Kong after a few days we boarded the train to Guanghzou - formerly Canton. The two hour journey was very pleasant. We then had to cross the huge city of 14 million people by metro. Our next train was the brand new high speed bullet train. The large station which was built to house the train, was in stark contrast to the traditional older stations we were used to. The train got us to Nanning in under four hours, a trip which took thirteen hours by normal rail.
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| High Speed Bullet Train Guanghzou to Nanning |
China was a very different experience to Hong Kong. Getting from the train station to the hotel was particularly difficult as our directions were printed in English and of course none of the taxi drivers could read them. English speakers were rare and we found this particularly difficult especially when ordering food. Lots of restaurants show pictures of the food served, although what appeared did not always resemble the picture! Sue managed to entertain the staff on a few occasions doing chicken impressions to try to find out if what we were ordering contained chicken! The children especially stared at our unusual hair and faces, though a smile is the same in any language so this always helped convince them that we were human!
Nanning was sweltering and even the locals looked uncomfortable. We took ourselves off to the beautiful
Qingxiu Mountain Park which was nicely cool and overlooked the city. The sounds of birds and cicadas was a great respite from the noise of traffic and we loved the beautiful gardens set out in themes. The park was filled with beautiful trees and lakes. There are also ornate wooden buildings and temples celebrating many different neighbouring countries and regions of China.
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| Qingxiu Mountain Park |
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| Tai Chai in the Park |
That evening we treated ourselves to a two hour long head, foot and back massage. The entire session cost just €11 and our sweet massage therapists were shocked when we offered a tip along with the payment. Tipping is not normal in this part of China and we had our money returned to us when we offered to tip a taxi driver on another occasion.
Leaving Nanning for our next leg was tricky. Even though we were close to the railway station we could not manage to carry all of our bags over the uneven pavements, so there was nothing for it only to hire two motorbikes to take us. We each climbed on the back with rucksacks on out backs and suitcases between the feet of the drivers. We had some giggles as we passed numerous entire families of 4 or 5 on other motor bikes, and seeing their expressions of surprise as we passed them. We must have been a strange sight - these two middle aged aliens with luggage pilled high on the backs of motorbikes racing through the traffic.
We got our overnight train from Nanning to Hanoi without too much trouble and fortunately had the four berth cabin to ourselves. The journey took from 6 pm until 5 am. It was a bit of a hassle having to take our luggage off the train and go through security twice in the middle of the night as we passed out of China and into Vietnam but it made our arrival in Hanoi very welcome indeed.
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| Nanning Skyline |
Traditional Chinese Artwork
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| Nanning Sculptures |
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