Tim and Sam... ...will be out of the office until further notice.

The flight to Hong Kong was a sleepless affair on a slightly battered Air India 737. Still, the curry was good and after I figured out that there was red wine available (you just had to ask for it) I was happy. Arriving in Hong Kong after three months in south Asia was like stepping into a brave new world. It's only when you go somewhere so spotlessly clean that you notice the dhobi wallahs have perhaps not managed to beat all the dirt out of your shirt, even if they did take care of half the buttons. We zoomed into Kowloon on the Airport Express and arrived at Chungking Mansions to find that our booking had been noted but disregarded. After a bit of negotiation with another hostel in the same building we agreed on a price for a very small but clean room on the 15th floor and caught up on some sleep.

The main aim for Hong Kong was to secure Russian and Mongolian visas. We had hoped to leave all this to an agent while we headed off to the New Territories to do some hiking. However, it soon became clear that our request was a little off the map for most of them. Several agencies gave a sharp intake of breath when Russian visas were mentioned and denied the existence of the Mongolian consulate in Hong Kong, others were unsure of the existence of Mongolia itself. After a little digging we managed to ascertain that both visas should be possible as long as the various bureaucratic requirements were satisfied. So we set about having ourselves invited to Russia, confirming a string of Siberian hotels and producing a detailed plan of our time in Inner Mongolia. Having to juggle all the applications meant we were reasonably constrained to staying near central Hong Kong. However we still managed to get out to the New Territories a couple of times between trips to embassies, printers, photocopiers and more embassies. Finally we were successful and our passports are now our most valuable posessions.

Our first trip out of central Hong Kong was based on a plan to walk up Tai Mo Shan, a 900m peak in a national park around 30 minutes north of the city. We took the train out to the last stop of the MTR and armed with a compass and what looked like a pretty good topographic map we struck out for the top. What our map failed to show, perhaps for aesthetic reasons, were the shanty towns clinging to the slopes bordering the national park. What was marked on the map as a single footpath soon turned into a maze of footpaths, each terminating in a chain link fence with a pissed off dog behind it. After trying out several incorrect routes it became clear that we were really going to struggle, so we reluctantly turned back towards the railway station. Wandering around the station a friendly man suggested we could take bus number 51 to near the top from where we could walk without problems. An hour later bus 51 finally turned up. "Tai Mo Shan?" we asked hopefully. "No, bus 53" came the reply. By this time it was starting to rain and was a little too late to be heading off into the hills so we returned to Kowloon defeated.

The second attempt we carried with us the benefit of experience. We hopped of bus 53 near the entrance to the park and headed onto the well marked path. The climb to the top was a steep one and again the map had failed to depict the presence of a high, razor wire fence surrounding some sort of military installation on top of the peak. The views from the top were great, if a little hazy and after we had picked our way around whatever it was on top of the hill we descended several hundred meters into a wooded valley via a couple of picnic spots. We found a clearing in the bamboo and had lunch sat on some boulders in the middle of a pretty stream before continuing down towards a reservoir. It was about then that I realised I had taken off my new sunglasses and in an effort to not scratch them (as I had done their predecessors) I had carefully placed them on a picnic bench... near the top of the mountain. To be fair to Sam she didn't even roll her eyes at me as we ground back up the hill to try and retrieve them. Luckily the whole park was pretty much deserted and we found them right where I'd left them. Not quite the route I had planned, but still an enjoyable walk!

Hong Kong is a really easy city to get around and it was a welcome break from the budget backpacking. We visited some interesting galleries and did a bit of shopping. The bars were a welcome change from the sordid drinking dens of India. Leafing through some flyers we noticed that The Young Knives were headlining a multimedia festival called Clockenflap. Sam got on the case with blagging some tickets and we soon found ourselves on the roof of a shopping centre (this is Hong Kong after all) watching a band from Oxford playing songs from their new album to a largely expat crowd. It was a fun evening although the crowd seemed to have been uprooted from Clapham wholesale and dropped on the roof, upturned collars and all. After hours it turned into something that resembled a quiet night at the Clapham Grand in the peculiar setting of the shopping centre atrium. It's never going to rival Fuji Rocks, but it was a fun evening all the same.

We're now in southwest China, and will fill you in on how we're getting on here another time.