Lamma

Whoooeee.  I haven't really said anything about our trip for ages.  Mostly because we did naff all in HK.  We rented a tiny appartment on Lamma Island for a fortnight, and used it as a place to focus on letting the bits of my brain strung out between there and, hmm, Korea, catch up with me. I feel much better for a dose of 'normal life' - shopping, cooking, afternoons on the beach and nights down the local or in front of the TV (they have a couple of mostly English language channels, and show lots of undubbed films - we saw MIB, amongst others.  I love the way the ads are in a mix of English, Cantonese and Mandarin)

A couple of times we went over to HK island and mooched around Soho and spent a fortune eating amazing global food (Habibi's babaghanoush was particularly delicious) and spending even more money on hairtoys to send home. (It is such a weakness of mine!)  We got our new Chinese and Laos visas.  We even made decisions about where we are heading next.  No mean feat, I can tell you.  After lots of research on Andy's part, and about 5 minutes thought on mine, and in the interests of getting back to England before the money runs out, we have decided to skip Vietnam and Cambodia. It's a shame, but thanks to all of you who voted, it gave us something to think about.

We have also sorted out our malaria stuff for Laos.  Ho hum.  We've gone with Doxycycline on the grounds that a) mosquitos love me and bite me even if I have loads of repellent on. b) neither of us can take Larium due to our medical histories (hurray!)  c) it is cheaper than Malerone and also guards against filarial worms (and syphilis!)

I liked HK, it was small enough to handle for a day trip, sufficiently Chinese to be interesting, and sufficiently western to have clean toilets.  All the huge consumptiveness of it did get to me a bit - every shop from Harvey Nicks to Leonidas, and every designer you have ever heard of, has a shop there.  Talk about streets paved with Gucci.  I have been very amused to go from working in chav culture in the UK - where fake Burberry and Louis Vuitton is ubiquitous - across Asia, where, you guessed it - fake Burberry and LV is also everywhere.  On everyone of all ages.  Little old guys wearing Burberry check shirts are my favourite. 

The air pollution is awful though.  We had one clear day on Lamma.  I was pleased to see HK has its own edition of Positive News.  And some lovely vegetarian cafes, Bookworm, Life and Green Cottage.  It was such a relief to know I could eat without any hassle.

I loved the flowers and butterflies on Lamma, and we did a bit of walking, but although my knees are getting better, they still ache enough to keep me awake (after painkillers) after a few hours of walking.  Seems ironic after all the work I did to strengthen my back....  At least that isn't a problem as well, and as Nic kindly took lots of heavy things home with her, my pack is a few pounds lighter.

We are now in Kunming, but I will have to tell you about that in another article.

I'm sorry I can't put in many links today - the Wikipedia site is blocked.