Our last day in Asia - Tuesday 19th July

We didn't rush again and after a late breakfast we packed our bags for the last time and checked out. The hotel stored our bags for us as we didn't need to leave for the airport until 2015.

We wanted to go to the south side of the island to see the beaches and different scenery. As it turned out the number 6 bus stopped near the hotel and went across the middle of the island to Stanley. An interesting and scenic ride on a double-decker bus up and over the twisting, turning roads of the central mountains. If only the upper deck of the bus was more stable there would have been some good pictures.

Stanley is an old colonial seaside town with a couple of sandy beaches and a small pier. It still retained a very English feel to it, including the torrential rain that poured down while we had lunch. The rainstorms blowing across Hong Kong were the tail-end  result of a typhoon that had passed northwards a long way out to sea towards Japan.

There was a small covered souvenier market with the usual merchandise but randomly inflated prices. Dominic had a theory that this was probably due to the fact that Stanley was a seaside resort for wealthy elderly people.

 

He might have been right when a light lunch became the most expensive meal of the whole trip. Then again, it's not every day you get to eat your lunch while looking out through a tropical rainstorm at the South China Sea.

When the weather cleared up we went to both Stanley and St. Stephens beaches - both small, quiet, well kept beaches in amongst the rocky landscape. It's just as well that Hong Kong doesn't get too many beach-seeking holidaymakers.

The return bus ride was another bone rattling trip with more good, but unattainable, views.

Later in the evening we caught the hotel shuttle bus to the Airport Express station in Central and were whisked off to the airport in a very smooth, fast, modern train. A final farewell to Hong Kong, a very international city in every respect.

The saddest part was that this signalled an end to an amazingly wonderful trip through China. Although the true Chinese part of our travels really ended in Guangzhou.

This was our first visit to China but, based on our personal experiences, it will definitely not be our last. There are a lot more of China's wonders that we want to see across this vast, beautiful country.



(P.S. The flights home were normal and uneventful. However... Dominic had managed, somehow, to avoid the use of a squatter toilet throughout the trip until he got to Dubai airport and chose the wrong door - we had to laugh.)