Lamma Island, gorgeous, wanna move here! Lamma is a small island just south west of
Hong Kong Island. It hosts an eclectic
group of residents; Young & old, hippies & punkers, grade school art
teachers & business tycoons. No
cars, no Wal-Mart’s, no gang shootings.
We could easily set up shop on Lamma!
Hong Kong is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, so this would
be a “splurge”. But, it was me
birfday!! Concerto Inn it was. Set up right on the beach, our balcony
overlooked tropical hills to one side, the sea in front, & more tropical
goodness to the right. Settling in was a
breeze. First things first, find two
palm trees to hang my hammock & a bit of book time, then some eats & a
bottle of wine. My big 2-7 was the next
morning... I could sense Ben was up to
something. I woke in the morning to
breakfast on the balcony & a wonderful Skype date with my family during their
Thanksgiving dinner. Gramma B couldn’t
have been more hilarious & the family was lookin’ good! Couldn’t have been happier. It’s amazing what technology does for home
sickness! What to do next... hmm... Beach sesh, snacking, seafood
overlooking the sea, followed by a bottle of wine. One of the best birthdays I’ve had.
Our next few days on Lamma would be spent exploring the
hills. Pathways wind through the palms,
up and over the hills, letting you in on the most amazing views! It was hot!
Not Paris Hilton hot, like, plus 35 hot.
Most days the beach was bare with water cool & inviting, especially
to sweat soaked hikers. Our room had a
mini-kitchen, letting us play “house” which helped the budget & diet stay
reasonable! Danny & Franka were now
on Hong Kong Island allowing us to plan to reunite in Macau. Now that place is a trip... South American influenced architecture, Vegas
style casinos & well, Chinese people.
I’ve never seen such a mixed up city.
We hit up the church thing, the ruins thing, ate some jerky stuff, &
jumped into a run-down Casino to take their money! Bing, bang, boom! It was a really cool place, for a day. The heat was getting to us so we boarded the
ferry back to our hermit island. We’d
have another day to spend with Franka & Danny back on Lamma. The sweeties, remembering my birthday &
my longing for legit chocolate, brought me a “box of chocolates” Forrest Gump
keychain which now dangles from my pack!
Realizing we were coming up on our last day on Lamma, we
decided to book another week! Haha. Why
not hey?! We marched back to the cheaper
part of town & snagged a place by the harbour instead of our lovely beach
accommodation... Rough life. But even that would eventually come to an
end. We spent hours online searching for
cheap flights, cargo ships, anything to get us to Vietnam, but each option had
a ridiculous route; HK to AUS to KL to BGK to Hanoi... Nothing exciting about lay overs &
flying for 15hrs just to get the country right beside you! So we would change our route. Instead of starting in VN, we’ve decided on
Bangkok & north TH, over to Laos, down Vietnam, west through Cambodia &
then back into south Thailand.
Now that we had a game plan, we needed to figure out how to
get double entry visas for Thailand without having to border jump every 15-30
days to reactivate it. After much
guidance from our friend Reffa in Thailand, we still couldn’t figure out how to
make it work. With an embassy on HK Island,
we would give classic hands & knees begging a chance down at the office. Apparently it’s not possible (but totally is
because we’ve spoken to people who have it!!). Anyways, Franka & Danny were meeting us at
the ferry in a bit... We get an automatic 30 day visa for flying in, &
we’ll figure out how to get back in when we get to Cambodia!
Now back to hanging on the beach!! Not much to show them but that... So we kicked
around a ball for a bit, swam about & finished the day with a chilled beer
& some cards. Sad to see those guys
go, but we’re already planning on how to meet up with them in their neck of the
woods!!
With only a few more days left in Hong Kong, we decided to
take a day on Hong Kong Island. There is
a main look-out point to take in the whole of downtown, recommended by Franka
& Danny. To get there we hopped on a
tram which hikes up the small mountain at about a 45 degree angle! We purposely made it to the top a few minutes
before dark to take in the day time, dusk, & night time views over the next
few hours. With Typhoon Megi on her way,
the views were a little grey, but still, it was absolutely gorgeous.
On our way past the Guesthouse office, we were stopped by
the owner warning that with the Typhoon on its way, we should think about
catching the ferry a day early in case it stopped running. Spend the night in the airport (assuming our
flight wasn’t grounded) & we’ll save on a night’s accommodation. A few calls to the airline & it sounded
like everything was a go. To be honest,
we were hoping we’d get to stay on the island a bit longer, typhoon or not. Bags packed (again), we were on the very
bouncy ferry, 3 LRT line transfers, & finally a bullet train to the
airport. Not sure what we were
expecting, maybe a monitored sleeping area with free massage & tea... But it was absolutely the opposite. Each row of chairs were made sure to be ultra
uncomfortable with dividers between each seat making lying across them
impossible. All restaurants were closed,
all coffee makers empty, no ketchup chips, no early check-in, nothing. Just a clock tricking our tired eyes into
thinking that time has actually stopped.
Somehow, 10AM finally rolled around & we boarded our flight for
Thailand. Thankfully this was Air Asia,
not Air Canada, so we had some room to stretch & beautiful, attendants
happy to make our next few hours in the air as nice as possible J
If you ever find yourself on Lamma Island, we recommend the
Concerto Inn & Sunrise Guesthouse.
The staff were ultra friendly & nice rooms.
