It’s ‘only’ 350 miles from Yangshuo to Hong Kong and we covered the comparatively short distance using 2 trains – Yangshuo to Shenzhen and then a 15 minute hop across the border into SAR (Special Administrative Region) Hong Kong. It’s China still, sort of, but very different, and we had to pass through 2 sets of border controls at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon station – first officially exiting mainland China, then crossing a painted line on the floor and walking less than 100m to Hong Kong immigration (where no visa is required nor passport stamps given). And immediately everything felt VERY different indeed – in the words of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more”.

But were we ‘over the rainbow’? Perhaps not totally, as scamming taxi drivers existed in Hong Kong too. A short journey to our hotel on Hong Kong Island should’ve cost about £20, which in itself is very high for the distance but there’s expensive tunnel tolls to be added, and within a couple of minutes of our destination the meter was showing a fare of £12-something plus £6.20 extras (tolls) so about right in total. But the final meter figure, calculated when the driver was distracting us by pointing at our hotel, was just shy of £30 – he’d obviously just added a nice round HK$100 (£10) to the total somehow. A check of Uber prices confirmed that we’d been ripped off again – why did we not learn our lesson from Guilin?! We’d naively expected Hong Kong to be more ‘honest’. Anyway, it was only a tenner, which turned out to be about the price of a glass of wine in HK restaurants, so not worth getting too upset about.

Hotel Indigo Hong Kong Island was another luxury stay in the Wan Chai district, booked using the last of Debbie’s IHG points, and we were upgraded to a deluxe corner room on the 27th (of 28) floors complete with floor to ceiling windows on 2 sides but no real view as we were about half a mile from the waterfront and in amongst the skyscrapers. It was a nice enough room if a bit on the small side and with a not very private toilet, and the hotel was well located just 2 minutes walk from the metro station and with plenty of food and drink places nearby.

Hong Kong had a very different feel to China, even to westernised Shanghai – unsurprisingly British in feel, with driving on the left, UK roadsigns, all signs in English, most people speaking perfect English and even M&S Food stores. There’s a different currency, credit cards & cash are the norm, and the Chinese authorities’ censorship of the internet doesn’t apply – so we could access Facebook, Google and WhatsApp on wifi and not need to eat through mobile data at the horrendous rate we had in China. Debbie also felt confident that we could publish our China blog posts without fear of upsetting the authorities somehow. We also quickly saw from the prices that we weren’t in a communist society any more and had rejoined the capitalist world – Hong Kong was not going to be an especially cheap place to be, but probably not as expensive as Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.

Public transport was good value though, and we quickly mastered the metro after downloading the Octopus public transport card to our phones and loading some funds. We didn’t get chance to try the double decker trams, the only ones left in the world apparently, but couldn’t miss the famous Star Ferry which carries commuters across the spectacular Victoria Harbour between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon – normal price £0.50, special deal if using AMEX only £0.09! We took the ferry over to the other side, marvelling at the sight of Hong Kong Island and the density with which the buildings were packed into a narrow strip of land. It’s not quite Shanghai-stunning but it’s a pretty spectacular skyline. We wandered along the Avenue of Stars, HK’s answer to Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, recognising only one name – Bruce Lee – and on to a statue of Hong Kong’s most famous son.

A ‘tram’ ride to the top of Hong Kong Island’s Victoria Peak was a must-do – one of the world’s oldest and most famous funicular railways, climbing to 1,300 feet in less than 10 minutes on a track incline so steep that the skyscrapers alongside the tracks appear to be leaning at gradients of over 25 degrees. The ride itself is not for the faint-hearted but the view from the Sky Deck at the top was utterly breathtaking.

Another spectacular vista was from the Ngong Ping 360 cablecar, a 6Km (the longest in Asia) 25 minute ride across a number of peaks on Lantau Island and offering views over HK Airport, the surrounding islands, bridge across to the Macau tunnel and eventually down to the Big Buddha. It’s an expensive trip, with the cheapest pods costing £30 per person return and with far more expensive options (with totally transparent carriages including a see-through floor) available. Debbie found that Klook sold discounted tickets, so on arrival at the base station she quickly booked on her phone, saved £20, and whizzed straight past the ticket queue with our online QR codes – result! It wasn’t the best visibility on the day of our trip but we still got some great views and the Buddha (yes, it was very big) and nearby monastery were stunning. We did baulk at £5 for a single scoop ice cream cone though!

Each evening at 8pm brings The Symphony of Lights – with Kowloon’s buildings lit up in time to a musical score from the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. It was OK, but not amazing, apparently Shenzhen’s version IS amazing though.

Unsurprisingly HK has great shopping and fabulous food – we enjoyed delicious Mexican (complete with Margaritas) and Thai feasts, a welcome change from Chinese, and a variety of very tasty dim sum from a hole in the wall takeaway near our hotel.

We were aware that July is in typhoon season and that the risk of encountering one was relatively high – but weren’t too concerned as Hong Kong is very well geared up for extreme weather. We actually got mostly good weather – hot & sunny but humid, so Debbie splashed out £20 on an upgraded portable mini-fan (a bit like a Dyson hairdryer design in miniature) – but there was a weather system lurking in the South China Sea between The Philippines and Hong Kong. Initially a tropical depression it soon turned into Typhoon Danan and Hong Kong hoisted a typhoon warning signal, but only level 1, indicating that a typhoon is within 800Km. Debbie suddenly became very interested in the HK Meteorological Service website and her Windy app, a bit concerned about our 27th floor glass-enclosed hotel room, but the predictions were that Danan would head away from Hong Kong and make landfall in Taiwan – which it did with record winds tearing across the island, killing 2 people and injuring 500 more 🙁

We liked Hong Kong – it reminded us a bit of Singapore although we’d recommend Singapore in preference as there’s more there and it’s more interesting. We’d probably not choose HK as a ‘destination’ city, but it’s a lovely place for a few days (flight layover or at the start/end of a China trip).

At any other time of year we’d have headed to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, next but it is rainy season in those countries, and we are trying to follow the sun so decided to by-pass them totally, destination Indonesia……