Friday 21st December 1984 – Hong Kong
Last day of our trip!! Up fairly
early to get the packing finished as we intended heading back to Peel Street because
I didn’t take my cameras yesterday and there were so many photogenic sights up
there. We invited Chris and David to join us as they had not been up to this area at all. None of the
others had either, as a matter of interest. They had all spent the previous day
relaxing at the hotel. They were all very glum and with no plans for today were
dreading the thought of another day at the hotel! What drips. What a waste of
two days in Hong Kong.
We finally got away at about 10.15
after paying our bill, getting our luggage down etc and landed up even further
up Peel Street
than we did yesterday. Chris and David were fascinated and we found a whole
raft of really cut-price stores. At one stall Chris bought a nylon padded
jerkin for Z$2.00. she was thrilled. We gradually worked our way down and
across and still found new and interesting sights on this, our third trip: such
as Foo Lee’s Beauty Salon. I also bought a very useful pouch for my new lens –
a 28/35 mm zoom which is the most useful one I have ever had. We all had a good
laugh trying to get a cab back at lunchtime. Leaping around and gesticulating
madly. Finally made it ahead of the pack – we missed Singapore’s orderly queues,
although they weren’t so much fun.
After dropping off the films at the
one hour service, attending to some banking (This
cryptic reference would be to the banking, in an off shore account in Jersey,
the unconsumed portion of the maximum travel allowance which each of us would
have taken from our South African accounts. It was one of the ways of
‘exporting’ funds outside the exchange controls.) and leaving our parcels
in the courtesy day room we headed for lunch at Landaus. What a selection of
food! I finally settled for two of my favourites – smoked mackerel as a starter
and kassler rib with sauerkraut for my main – took me right back to Bonn four
years ago. Rab had gravlax in memory of Sweden and a delicious main course
of chicken breasts cooked in black pepper and almonds. A delicious ending to
our gastronomic trip.
The rest of the party were all
languishing about the hotel, so we gathered them up and all went to the
courtesy room to finish off the remains of David and Chris’ booze – well almost
all of us because Richard wasn’t there and Widow Patty had gone on a tour to
Marineland. It was a very rowdy gathering before long with Stevie Wonder
bellowing “I Just Called To Say I Love You”
which had become the theme of the trip from Matt’s tape deck. we had
planned on leaving the party at about 16.30 to collect our photographs and then
have a coffee special at shop around the
corner. As luck would have it Richard walked in about 16.25 which was a signal
for a mass exodus – I felt quite sorry for him even if he did deserve it.
After picking up the pictures we all
went around to the coffee shop and since it was Jennifer’s birthday, she
insisted on paying for the round. The speciality of the house was a variation
on Irish Coffee. I had sambucco in mine and Rab had Drambuie. When we returned
to the hotel, it really was a raucous party and although Richard was still
lurking in the courtesy room, the spirit of goodwill prevailing was such that
no one was rude to him and some were even polite. We finished off the last of
the booze and then we were off.
There was a last minute hitch with
the baggage – once again no explanation from TFC for the delay, but once again,
everyone was so happy at going home that there was little moaning. The traffic
was very heavy but we finally made it to the airport a little late – but at
least that cut the waiting time there.
Our seats on the plane – British
Airways 747 – were not great, but they were over the wing so it was a stable
flight. Unfortunately the arm rests would not go up. (we usually lifted them between us to give a bit more room) That
was only the beginning of the problems though, because we then found that the
reading lights would not go on and then, when we finally got one on, it would
not go off. The sound system was not working either and the food was simply
bad. The wine was warm and the coffee cold – that sounds like the beginning of
a joke! The final straw for David was when he was given his postprandial brandy
in a plastic ‘glass’ with a hole in the bottom. When he dared to complain, the
chief steward went berserk and gave him hell for ‘whining’. David was furious.
He was a delightful bloke, polite and calm, but I thought he was gong to hit
the chief steward at one stage. He was threatened with being restrained and put
off the plane at Colombo.
(David and I wrote to British Airways
about the problems on the flight, with particular reference to this incident.
After a good deal of time he got a formal apology and, I think, some form of
financial discount on future flights. I simply avoided British Airways as much
as I could for the rest of my flying days.)
The crew were pretty lousy and we
were glad to see them go at Colombo.
The new crew was a great improvement but even they could not do anything about
our electrical problems – but at least they tried and gave us a mask to cut out
the light, something the other crew had refused to do because we were flying
economy. It was a long flight but we both slept quite well, at least until the Seychelles. I
wished I could have had a light to read by for the last leg, but it got light
before too long and then they turned on the cabin lights. We got into Johannesburg on time and, as our suitcases had been
sent direct to Harare, we got through Immigration and
Customs with just our hand baggage.
Jen was meant to be there to meet us
but I phoned her and found she hadn’t even left home yet. We had a couple of
cold drinks while we were waiting for her and spent the morning chatting away once she turned up. I went to check
in for the onward flight early so that we could get good seats only to find
that we weren’t booked on the flight, which was said to be full. No worries
said the little girl behind the counter, we’ll put you on standby. I was a
little concerned, but she assured me that we would get on – and we did,
although the people on the standby counter were typical rocks (English speakers’ contemptuous term for
Afrikaans speakers) and bloody minded, so Rab let rip at them – especially as
we were not sitting together. The crew on the Air Zimbabwe 737 were very good
and Rab was sitting next to a nice couple from Cape Town
– their first flight.
There was a tremendous crowd on the ground in Harare as an Air India and an Air Malawi
flight had landed just ahead of us. Baggage everywhere! (The international terminal in Harare
was pretty basic at that time – it certainly had not been built with jumbo jets
in mind.) our bags came through fairly quickly, we had no problems with
Customs and we went through quite smoothly and swiftly. (It is racist but true that if you ever wanted to go through Customs in
Harare with a
minimum chance of being searched, you waited to follow an Indian man through.
They had targets on their backs for Zimbabwe Customs.) Dad and Luce
were there to meet us, which was good of them. Our car had been left at the
lock-up garage so we were soon on our way to Ruwa to pick up the cats. The
countryside was green and it was good to be home.
We turned into a driveway at 15.45
almost exactly 24 hours after we took off from Hong Kong.
A lovely trip.
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