Hong Kong - Preparation

The first Chalissery family vacation!!! It's the first time at that all six of us managed to take a week's vacation together. Kudos to Kuru, my bro-in-law and his wife for planning this entire thing.

We have been deliberating about a family vacation for quite sometime. It was to be a trip abroad, especially to a country that allowed you visa on arrival and we didn't want to involve a travel agency. It was my bro-in-law who suggested Hongkong. He had been to HK couple of times and was quite familiar with the country. He could also "manage" a few words in Mandarin, which would be quite helpful (And believe me, it was!!! Most of the time :-))

So, in the month of August we booked our flight tickets to HK. We went for Cathay Pacific, as it was the only airline that offered direct flight to HK from Mumbai. The return airfare worked to around Rs. 30,000 per person. Then came booking a suitable hotel.

Hotel room rents in HK are very expensive and hence it is not uncommon for tourists to opt for a budget hostel in HK. These are basically residential apartments that have been converted into a tiny hostel room. The rooms basically contain one/ two beds with an attached bath. We booked Wang Fat Hostel situated at Causeway Bay in the main island. I went through many reviews of hostel in various websites and they were very mixed - ranging from unfriendly staff, unclean rooms, shared bathrooms etc.. This seriously dampened my holiday mood and I have to mention that I was really not looking foward to this trip.

 

Then came the itinerary. We wanted to plan the entire trip on our own without involving a travel agency. My bro-in-law and his wife did most of the research and prepared an itinerary that covered the best tourist destinations in Hong Kong & Macau. So, in the end, out itinerary looked something like this -

27th October	Board flight from Mumbai
	Check-in Wang Fat Hostel
	Brunch
	Avenue of Stars
	Light & Sound Show
28th October	Times Square
	Tram ride
	IFC Tower
	Victoria Peak
29th October	Board ferry to Macau
	Macau Observation Tower
	Senado Square
	Ruins of St. Paul Church
	Casino – Grand Lisboa
	Casino – The Venetian
	Back to Hong Kong
30th October	Junk Boat ride
31st October	Shopping
1st November	Ocean Park
2nd November	Shopping
	Board flight to Mumbai

As the D-Day approached, our pre-holiday preparation reached a frenzy. Taking print-outs of the ticket, and hostel reservation, photocopies of passport (actually not required), holiday shopping etc. Research on internet about the places to visit and shopping localities were happening parallely.

Our flight was on 27th October, early morning at around 1.40 am. We reached airport by 11.00 pm and proceeded to complete the check-in and immigration processes. We had already check-in online. Immigration was pretty smooth and security checking also passed uneventfully. The departure lounge at Mumbai airport is pretty neat. Lots of duty free shops ranging from liquors, artifacts, perfumes etc. This being my first experience inside an international airport, I was very impressed. However, my husband and rest of my family informed me that Mumbai airport is very basic compared to what other airports across the world has to offer.

Our flight took off on time. The in-flight entertainment on board Cathay Pacific is very good. We were served a late dinner cum very early breakfast, comprising of masala dosa and omlette, at 3.00 am (IST). I could barely manage couple of hours sleep as the seats were very uncomfortable. I felt like the seats in our domestic flights are much comfortable than the Cathay Pacific aircrafts.

So, there I was, on my maiden international holiday. Everything had proceeded smoothly and uneventfully but I was still dreading about "Wang Fat Hostel", as I drifted into a very uncomfortable sleep.