Lei Hou from Hong Kong!

Hong Kong's a cool place, and probably the hottest and sweatiest place we've been to yet. We won't drone on about the heat, but it's been unreal.

This place is an all out assault on the senses ranging from blinding neon, sewer smells mixed with delicious dim sum, deafening traffic and the constant chatter (shouting) of the Chinese.

We've been here for 10 days, split into two parts: the first five days we stayed in Kowloon on the Premier Floor of the Nathan Road Novotel. When we booked the room we were unaware of the prestigeous title which our floor commanded (at the time it was the cheapest deal out there which says something about room prices). Upon arriving, we were told there was a seperate desk for us... we immediatley thought we were being shunned because we were sweaty, dirty backpackers. How wrong could we be? We were whisked up to the 15th floor where we had our own private premier help desk, a luxury top floor room with views over the city, way too many seats for two people, a massive wide screen TV, and a bathroom you'd be happy living in. There was even a choice of pillows. On top of all this, we got a choice of two floors to eat breakfast (which consisted of every breakfast food on the planet), afternoon tea with finger sandwiches, cake and jelly AND... wait for it... evening cocktails with a selection of hot and cold nibbles. Three cheers for Novotel!! We lived like royalty and managed to spend almost nothing on food... although we did turn into upper class 'A-holes'... demanding our bed be turned down and pillows fluffed before 6pm. To be honest, Novotel deserves a blog entry of its own, possibly even it's own blog - but we know it may not interest to you so we'll move on.

The second half of our stay was spent on Hong Kong island in a 4 star, well regarded hotel... which did it's best... but got it's head kicked in by Novotel. Put it this way, on the first morning... we had to wait for a free table at breakfast like mere commoners and the options, amongst others, included potato salad, burgers, squid balls, shredded lettuce, and pasta. Wrong on every level. We'd landed back to earth with a bump. We're ashamed to admit this, but we were actually homesick for the Novotel and were really sad for a couple of days... pathetic aren't we.

When we did leave the air conditioned haven of the hotels, we walked around what felt like all of Hong Kongs malls... but realistically it was probably only a tiny percentage. This place is a shoppers paradise... and a very easy way to get into serious amounts of debt. We had grand plans to come back in Hong Kongs finest garms - but clothes are actually cheaper in London, so we'll come back with just a nice hat each.

Here's a shortlist of HK's highlights:

- The habour laser/light show over the most impressive skyline around.

- Riding the enginerring masterpiece that is the Ngong Ping cable car on Lantau Island to see the biggest bronze buddha statue in the world. We also saw a Shaolin Masters Showcase... somebody get us some weaponary quick.

- Carly took some time out with a Soothsayer who told her fortune in the traditional manner using chinese fortune sticks... the results are top secret and predictably cryptic.

- Historic temples and shrines, one which is heavily rumoured to be haunted... but we only saw some headless horseman and slimer.

- Still riding the A-Hole train, one day we barged into the Four Seasons Hotel expecting a hero's welcome into the 6th floor infinity pool. After paying £15 for two cokes, they kicked us out and told us not to come back as we weren't actually guests. The guy actually laughed in our faces... you wouldn't have got that at Novotel.

- Rode the famous Star Ferry, visited the top museums and galleries, explored the remote New Territories, went on the tram up to The Peak, the highest point in Hong Kong, and climbed the massive Bank of China building.

- The facinating history of Hong Kong: the pre-war days, the British 99 year rule and how its evolving since China took back the reins.

Hong Kong felt strangely familiar with its underground system (much cleaner), hectic streets and pockets of oasis in the form of city parks - there were times when it felt we were in London. But it is definitely becoming more and more Chinese by the day and it seems that its a place will continue to develop at a rapid pace. Hong Kong would be paradise if you had endless amounts of money and anti-perspirant, but after ten days and no money left - we were ready to leave.

We're now in Beijing, in the Hilton Hotel (better than Novotel if you can believe it) and today has been full of surprises. At 5:30am we had to argue with our hotel over whether we'd paid the bill or not, (we hadn't) then the second flight of our journey to Beijing was cancelled which resulted in a 1 hour bus journey to a different airport, then Al's bag got left in Shanghai by the airline (amazingly we've just had it delivered to the hotel - 9 hours after lift off), and finally we waited for an hour and a half for a "runs every 15 minutes" shuttle bus. So there's been ups and downs, but the Hilton's making up for it and we're 100% ready for the Mongols.

We'll have no internet communicado for the next 3 weeks, but fly back to London on the 24th September. Despite the end of our trip being in sight, we're not too depressed as we've actually decided to spend some time volunteering at an animal sanctuary in Thailand! So we'll officially be back in mid November - we're stretching the dream out for as long as possible.

Thanks for reading, muchios lovios to all

xx