Hong Kong Dim Sum…

…at Maxim’s Palace with Cat, Hana and Josh. Not a spare seat to be had by 0930…

July 13: Hanoi to Hong Kong. Tears and treasures…

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.
Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye.

SO FAREWELL Hanoi, and hello Hong Kong.

On Day 13 we bade farewell to the Vietnamese capital with something of a heavy heart, leaving Southeast Asia for the last time on our Long Trip Home.

A room with a view — our Hong Kong hotel vista…

On reflection, it was a curious place, Hanoi…. a place where communist monuments sit cheek by jowl with designer shrines to commercialism and excess. I struggle to put my finger on it, or give a sense of what makes it tick. I guess, though, what it comes down to is that while it may lack the energy of a Saigon or the charm of a Hoi An; it is not all bad news, for missing too, it would appear, is the extreme poverty found in many Asian cities. It is a city where communism would seem to have worked.

After a fairly fractious departure from the otherwise-splendid Metropole (okay, okay I was a little twitchy but they were SLOOOOOW checking us out and the clock was ticking…) we set off for the airport for one brief and last deviation from our rail odyssey — a short flight from Hanoi to Hong Kong (it is the railroad all the way from Hong Kong to London now…)

KA267 was a short flight on a fantastic airline (Dragon Air). Mrs S, Kitty and I bagged one side of row 26, while Jasper and Ben squabbled over who would have to sit next to the poor non-Shine in the row of six.

We had tears from an over-tired Ben, shouting from an over-tired daddy and then tears from an over-tired Jasper before Ben agreed to sit in the middle, still feeling a little aggrieved at having to sit next to :the stranger.

Take a look at this picture. Who do YOU think got the short straw?

Let me OUT OF HERE…. It doesn’t look too far. I could jump…

Immigration was cleared swiftly and we were soon loading our bags into a taxi — this was slick. Ngai Kiu’s bright red Toyota Crown had plenty of room in the boot for our nine bags and we were soon on our way. For around 45 seconds. And then we pulled over.

I know our driver’s name is Ngai Kiu because I had a good 20 minutes to stare at her ID as she frowned, screwed up her eyes and rotated her Chinese map in confusion.

She twisted it this way and that in a bid to align it with the English map I had marked for her. It was like a bizarre geography jigsaw. And Ngai was very, very bad at jigsaws. She looked at the map from six inches, then 16 inches, then two inches. She squinted and grunted and snorted and sighed. She even phoned a friend.

Hello. Do I come here often?

We got there in the end, possibly more by luck than judgment, and as we pulled up outside the Metro Park Hotel in Causeway Bay, poor old madam Ngai could barely look me in the face.

Still. We were at home base and went to check in. The pimply doorman with the shattered Samsung Galaxy phone screen told me check-in was on the first floor and we headed up the escalator lugging our bags behind us.

Once at the reception, Nigel checked us in. QUIZ POINT… guess which of these characters is Nigel:

“We’re only making plans for Nigel…”

Well, quite!

I’ll put you out of your misery. Nigel is on the right. The assistant manager, Nigel caught me at a bad moment post-madam Ngai but after a shaky start we got on fine as she shuffled some rooms and managed to find two fairly close to each other on the 18th floor.

The boys are sharing one room and Mrs S, Kitty and yours truly have another. I don’t anticipate any problems, though, as Ben has figured out how to operate the room-to-room dialling if he needs us. And left 14 messages for us in the first FIFTEEN MINUTES within checking in (true stat, that).

Hello operator? I’d like to make a trunk call. Yes, please. Errrr… to next door please.

After a quick turnaround we headed up to the Peak to visit the marvellous Cat Preston, mummy of Hana — a schoolfriend of Ben’s from Tanglin who moved from Singapore to Hong Kong last year. (Hana, it turns out, is the maker of the finest lemon-glazed shortbread known to man)

Ben and Hana… just like the old days…

Our taxi crawled its way up the hill to where the kites glide and the clouds begin, and to where Cat treated us to some of the best supper we’ve had on our trip so far. The children were in their element, in a real house, with toys and friends and not in a train carriage or restaurant… we had to drag them out of the house to get them home to bed.

The happiest girl of all, though, was Mrs S, who took possession of a much longed-for pendant studded with our children’s birthstones, designed and created by the über-talented Mrs Preston (did I mention that in addition to being a wonderful hostess she is a fantastic jewellery designer — you don’t have to believe me, check out her website: http://catherineprestondesign.com/)

This thing of beauty was hewn from enough gold to fill an Inca mine and featured Tourmaline for Jasper, Amethyst for Kitty and Diamond (of course) for our Ben… It really is beautiful – Mrs S is beyond-words-thrilled…

The object of all desire…

We really don’t know how to begin to thank you, Cat, but thought dragging you round Disneyland Hong Kong tomorrow with all the children would be a good start, so consider that a date…

More images from Day 13 of the Long Trip Home:

I can’t think why they are such good friends, can you?

Cat, Mrs S and Kitty get papped in The Peak

The motliest of crews, including Hana’s brother, Josh

Okaaaaaay…

Bye bye Hanoi, hello Hong Kong…

Trains, planes and automobiles. And ferries.

After eight happy years living in Asia, we had to make our departure something special, and this is it: a 13,000 kilometre overland odyssey by rail from our Singaporean home back to the UK, and a new adventure.

Jasper, Ben, Kitty and the two of us old enough to know better set off from Woodlands railway station in Singapore on July 1st bound for London’s Waterloo.

We’ll be catching sleeper trains, bullet trains, sleek trains and rickety trains; and will travel some of the world’s most storied routes including Vietnam’s Reunification Express and the awe-inspiring Trans-Siberian Railway.

It promises to be an eye-opening affair, criss-crossing a dozen countries and, so long as we don’t miss too many trains, one which will span 32 days.

Brave or foolhardy? Probably both… we‘ll find out on the Long Trip Home.

By the time we pull into Britain’s busiest railway station my guess is none of us will be left in any doubt we’ve been halfway round the world… watch this space — and wish us luck…

Zoe, Oss, Jasper, Ben and Kitty Shine x