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Early morning rise to see Stephi off.... Her flight to Darwin left 4 hours before ours... On arrival at the airport she discovered that she had Kats wallet... Cue a massive rush to the domestic airport to find Steph and retrieve the wallet before her departure... Made it in time.... Then got to the international airport around 7am...2 hours before we could check in...5 hours before our flight...! But at check in we were smack on 23kg.... Though in order to achieve this i did have all my shoes and presents in hand luggage... All electrical items.... 2 hoodies and some spare clothes... None the less, i was smack on 23kg....! Lots of time for breakfast and duty free.....not to mention some cracking people watching activities including a family drama unfolding where somewhere in between customs and the departure gate a passport was lost... There were bag item flying everywhere in hot pursuit of this passport...! It was located in a shop, just before the flight departure..which fortunately for them was delayed by about 30/40mins...!
In the departure lounge we saw some more Cardiff medics..! The world is swarming with us!!! We see them everywhere we go! It's so surreal.... But very nice to see a friendly home face!
Watched 3 films on the plane, including the vow... With Channing Tatum in it... Math he is still looking hot...!
This is where the day gets interesting and potentially dangerous...Came through customs at the Airport to find that to get to our hostel we have to catch a bus to Tung Chung, people here do not queue or wait or be helpful... I can see im going to love it... It was a bit like my london underground experiences, but 25 degrees hotter and more humid, with more luggage and a bigger language barrier...then a taxi to ngong ping as the busses to the town had stopped running (8.30pm ish) this should have been a clue to pick somewhere different.... Then when we found a taxi, he looked quite confused as to why we were going (clue 2) then he warned us that when he dropped us off he couldn't take us direct to the door, we would have to walk 5-10 mins to get there (clue 3) so after a 30 min taxi ride going further and further out of the city finding more and more dogs and cattle on the road and fewer and fewer people we found ourselves in the closed village (clue 4) we were in Ngong Ping, the village with the largest bronze Buddha in the world, a huge monastery and a cable car experience.... A buzzing tourist spot... IN THE DAY! By night the roads shut and everyone leaves....ps it was dark when we landed at 7pm, it's now 9pm in a little deserted village... The taxi driver took us as far as he could then directed us to which path we walked up to get to our hostel.... It was poorly lit, but lit all the same... Just enough infact to see that we were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by complete woods, with all rundown tea rooms shut and guard dogs roaming very freely, over 20 mins drive from any town walking towards what we hoped, but couldn't be sure was our hostel.... I think it was the most scared I have ever been in my life... (Even more scared than the goa incident.... Because my family and fighting buddies weren't there... Not to mention my lack of stick, and just Kat and I with huge luggage).... We finally stumbled upon the YHA hostel which was all locked up...s***! I ferociously pressed the bell and shook the gates.... We had absolutely no where to go.... We had no taxi numbers too dark and secluded with not enough reception to go searching for numbers online to call for the hostel or taxi just the international mobile police number 112 which I was hoping to god worked here in hk... I was a few seconds away from calling them when the hostel security/receptionist came out to let us in... Helpfully telling us that this was the countryside and did we know what we were doing when eyeing up 2 girls with huge luggage in the pitch black wondering what the hell we we're thinking coming here at night... Followed up with, ah it's perfectly safe though.... Yeah right mate if you aren't mauled by the guard dogs or attacked and dragged into the woods it is....Anyways we were here safe checked into our room for 6, but just the 2 of us here...Fortunately though since our luggage takes up over half the room, not sure where the other 4 people would sleep or put their luggage...I have a funny feeling I won't sleep too well this evening... Though I have stacked the cases against the door and barricaded us in....
Tomorrow should be exciting since we have used up all of our cash (and were still short for the room) because they don't accept cards and we have absolutely no money whatsoever to get us a bus or taxi back down to the city... So hopefully there is an ATM in the damn place, or the bus drivers take our uk money or we can convince a taxi driver to take us to the city to a cash machine and we pay on arrival... This could be interesting...! A strongly worded letter is going to find its way to YHA... It's a huge organisation with a reputation to uphold and nothing at all was on the website about the dark alley to walk up, the lack of card facilities, the fact that the village shuts... All in all very dangerous if a girl were to turn up here on their own....!
But I'm here safe, and in the light of day tomorrow it will be a hell of a lot easier to sort this all out... But I will be insisting on beginning to head into the city early... Guys never stay in this hostel, visit the village for the day and stay somewhere safer...!
Cxxx
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