Don’t Defecate

My arrival at Hong Kong Airport didn’t go as I had originally planned. Don’t get me wrong immigration was once again a breeze and I got some cash out and a SIM card like I have been doing in every new country. However, my plan here was to use the metro to get to my hostel, as I am getting out of the airport nice and early and the metro in Hong Kong from my understanding has English signposts everywhere. That was my plan until my flight from India destroyed it. Having been extremely lucky up to this point with my flights, my luck run out here! I was seated next to a group of middle aged rowdy Indians who insisted on spending the whole flight, that was at night, drinking and generally having a much better time than all the passengers around them. So with two hours of very broken sleep I made the decision to get a taxi to my hostel – and boy was it a culture shock! I found myself sitting in a taxi in line to merge lanes and no one was laying on the horn, drivers respected and obeyed the rules of the road, and all was peaceful – a very big change from the Sri Lankan and Indian roads that I had come accustomed to over the last month.

My taxi drops me off and I have an absolute nightmare. It takes me about 15 minutes to find my accommodation. You see, at the start of each trip, when arriving early I have just paid for an extra few nights at whatever accommodation my tour was starting in, but here I had booked my own place and I went for cheap and nearby. The picture the Alhambra Bed & Breakfast had uploaded as a guide was of the back of the building, down an alley that is off the main road. This was exasperated by the fact the address on Google and Apple Maps say it's on the other side of the street. Anyway I finally figure it out and arrive, sweating in the newly-risen Hong Kong sun, to find that the lift is broken. So with my bags I trudge up seven flights of stairs to the reception, in what is not a hostel or bed and breakfast but a shitty apartment block in which someone has converted a couple of rooms to overcharge tourists that don’t know better. In the stairwell I am greeted by what every tired and, lets be honest, slightly spoilt and likes-his-home-comforts type of traveller wants to see, hand written signs on every floor asking people not to defecate, and graffiti advertising cheap sex. To be honest the building is so dirty and disgusting with litter, cigarettes and dirt everywhere I can’t help but imagine that some defecation might spruce the place up a bit.

As well as being relatively cheap, the big reason I booked this place is because booking.com claims that you can check in at anytime 00:00 through to 23:59 on your start date – this was a lie! I can’t check in until 2pm, it is 9am. I have five hours to kill before I can have the shower and nap I desperately need! Finally I manage to get hold of someone who begrudgingly lets me leave my big bag here, YAY, only six more floors to climb up to to my room when I get back! He says, as if I am an idiot, that they put that in the check-in box to explain that once checked in (after 2pm) you are able to return to the accommodation at any time.

So after dropping the bags off, I start walking. Tired and a little dejected, I am already worried about this trip. You see I booked all my tours together with a company called Gap360 a company that represents, or I should say misrepresents itself, as a tour company that is well priced and has a global reach, where other tour companies tend to focus on specific area. They are not a tour company they are a third party booking company that books you onto other company’s tours after upping the price to take a cut for themselves. This trip is with a company called Dragon Trip. What I didn’t realise was how bare bones this tour is when I booked. It was only after Gap360 had my money that they sent through the Dragon Trip itinerary and I then realised that a lot of what is listed on Gap360’s website are not included options but are optional activities which you have to pay extra for. In fact on this 27 day tour only 10 of the days include paid activities, so this one is gonna hurt the wallet!

But my mood changes as I reach Kowloon Park, my hostel is on the Kowloon not the Hong Kong Island. It is a beautiful park that puts any other park I’ve seen to shame. It is a free park that includes, but not limited to, a massive out door swimming pool/water park, kids play areas, an aviary, terrapin ponds, conservation areas, an educational health centre, statue and artwork display and a Hong Kong heritage and history centre, along with all the beautiful trees, plants and walkways. I find myself a nice quiet shaded area near some water fountains and write a few blog posts. Writing these always makes me thankful for my situation and realise how amazing this experience is. So after a while I am feeling a little more refreshed and happy. I decide this park is so good I should let the rest of the group know about it. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that it seems like there are only four of us on this tour which doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence, but we shall see. One of the group replies instantly, his name is also Tom, he is nearby at the ferry station and heading to Macau for the afternoon. So I decide to join him…