My Easter holiday went as follows: revise, complain about revision, revise some more, and finally, after weeks of pure misery, drop the revision and visit Thailand and Hong Kong. Needless to say, I welcomed this trip with open arms. And a truly great trip I got.
My trip began with, unsurprisingly, a flight. Like EasyJet or Ryanair, there are cheap Asian airlines that can get you from one place to the other while hardly making a dent in your bank account. (Though take note, if travelling on Air Asia as we did, they WILL make you throw away your Starbucks Frappuccino in an effort to force you to buy ridiculously overpriced plane food. Uncool.)
Landing in Bangkok, horribly jetlagged and unwillingly uncaffeinated, the first thing my sister and I did was the first that anyone should do upon arriving there—eat. Aside from the delectable food itself, the best bit about dining in Thailand was the prices; a whole day’s worth of food cost as much as one meal out here. For the duration of our trip, we kept our bellies happy, indulging in curries, satays, soups, noodles and fresh mango shakes.
When we would manage to drag ourselves away from the food, we also saw some beautiful sites, namely Wat Arun (a Buddhist temple), the Grand Palace (a grand palace) and the Reclining Buddha (a reclining Buddha). The Grand Palace, the most majestic of these sites, was home to former kings of Thailand and is easily one of the most elaborate structures I’ve laid eyes on. Constructed from massive quantities of gold, the Palace required us to rent out long skirts to cover our legs, since bearing one’s legs, shoulders or midriff is prohibited on the country’s sacred ground—understandable but also highly unfortunate given the scorching 40-degree weather.
Leaving Thailand was a bittersweet moment as we headed to the also exciting Hong Kong – a city worlds apart from Bangkok, aside from their shared offerings of effective transportation networks and amazing food. Hong Kong has a truly unique feel; it is considerably Anglicized due to British colonial influence, reflected in British chains like Pizza Express and high tea offered in hotels, and yet it is distinctly Chinese, all the while very cosmopolitan.
Again, I must highlight the food (an obviously common theme on this trip) – any variety of Asian food can be found there without much effort, be it Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Singaporean or Indian. Hong Kong also offers great nightlife, with one major street that all the young people flock to.
Sadly, I found that my money didn’t get me very far in our outings; prices in Hong Kong are more than what they are here – a bit of a shock after leaving Thailand, I must say!
Because I’ve been to Hong Kong a few times before, due to the fact that my relatives live there, I can’t say I did much sightseeing. Instead, I spent a week as I’d like to think a local would, and a busy and exciting one at that.
As all good things must come to an end, after ten days so did my Asian adventure. And back to revision it was.