Round the World trip
November 2014 – May 2015
week 1 of 24
HONG KONG | THAILAND
香港 | ราชอาณาจักรไทย
by Xavier
Greetings from Bang Niang Beach.
The last few months in London have been exhausting, so we are taking the start of this trip as easy as we possibly can… with the exception of my unexpected debut on the Thai stage this evening; but more of that story later.
Our first, brief stop on our way to Southern Thailand was Hong Kong, the Fragrant Harbour, courtesy of a British Airways Airbus A380, a very pleasant first time on this type of aircraft for both of us. HK is an extraordinary metropolis. A sensory overload. We spent a few days there on the back end of a trip to Indonesia earlier this year, and loved every minute of it. This time was no different despite only staying one night, in a cute little hotel near Central (by little I mean our room was the size of a coffee table), a short walk to Hollywood Road, where we know some places to go to for food and drinks.
That same lovely and warm night, security forces came down hard on some of the still-going protest sites and arrested a whole load of people. Thankfully, we didn’t see a thing, but social unrest in HK is sadly very far from over.
Our next stop was Bangkok. Big, hot, dirty, crazy, fun Bangkok. We stayed two nights at Le Mèridien, right by the world famous Night Market in Silom, (which is also a world famous red light district but it’s the shopping we’re more interested in). A spot of shopping on the first night was followed by a couple of drinks at one of the local nightspots and, somewhat bizarrely, by Weißbier and Wurst at G’s Bangkok, a great find.
The next day we got on a boat and went to see Wat Arun, one of the main sites, though not as exciting as Wat Pho or the Grand Palace, which we know from previous visits. More drinks in the evening, and a quiet night in at the hotel, and then we made our merry way to where we are at the moment in Khao Lak, just North of Phuket, chilling out and catching up with friends for a few days.
So far, so good.
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we are out of the office 