Map, Journey and Costs

Note: prices are for 2 adults with baggage

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From	To	Mode	Duration	Cost
🇻🇳 Saigon Amigo Hostel	🇻🇳 Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport (SGN)	Taxi	00:36	£5.03
🇻🇳 Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport (SGN)	🇭🇰 Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)	Plane	02:40	£109.70
🇭🇰 Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)	🇭🇰 First Inn	Tube	00:55	£26.47

Phwoar, we got there eventually! In February/March 2020 we went for a holiday in Thailand, and were planning to travel back home via. a 1 week stopover in Hong Kong.

We made it to Thailand, but had to abandon the Hong Kong portion of the trip at the last minute:

• The Hong Kong protests were in full swing
• COVID-19 was growing more and more concerning

We were really disappointed, as the idea of enjoying some staggeringly beautiful hiking trails by day and a buzzing metropolis by night ticked many boxes.

So we jumped at the chance to pop over this year, especially when we realised it could also help tick off some life admin.

We keep getting airmail, with a Hong Kong return address, for a Walter Turner Esq. We’ve never heard of him, nor had the previous owners of our house.

Laura brought one of the letters across the world with her, and put it in the postbox after scribing “No such person” on it.

Fingers crossed the system works 🤞

After a quarter of a year on the road, a bit of familiarity was welcomed:

• Pavements 😱
• Pedestrian crossings 🚦
• Red buses and London-esque street signs

Whereas other familiarities were less so:

• £6 for a coffee?! ☕
  • We’d gotten used to £1.20 being a bit pricey
• It’s expensive to eat out 🍟
  • A basic evening meal for 2 costs £25-£40, we’d gotten used to £5-£15
• A pint costs £8 🍺
  • We’ve gone tee total 😂

Personal finance management may not be everyone’s cup of tea, so feel free to trot on.

A year on the road is a bit of a beast, and spending could easily runaway.

Unless you’re super minted I think it’s inevitable to have anxiety about spending too much. On the flip side, it would be a shame to forego an experience you can afford and regret it.

It’s a marathon not a sprint. A couple of things have helped us feel a bit more in control.

Trabee was recommended by our friends Tim and Abi. You can use it to record all spending, in any currency, against each country in your trip.

When Tim first said he recorded everything on their year away, even down to a purchase of a packet of crisps, I had 2 thoughts:

• That’s such a Tim thing to do
• It doesn’t really seem worth it, nor sustainable

It turned out I was wrong about the latter. We’re recording all spending in Trabee, it’s not too much faff, and it’s helping us to keep on top of things.

A flippant spend on holiday isn’t much of a problem. I fancy a Coke - sure, why not. Ah that beer looks yum - sign me up. How about an ice-cream, Laura - wowzer extra sprinkles.

It took a while to transition from the holiday mindset, to the year-on-the-road mindset. But I think we have now, and hopefully our waistlines, livers, and pockets will thank us for it.

One thing that helped us was to channel our inner dog 🐕 and impose individual treat budgets. A fixed weekly sum, which you’re free to quash any hedonistic hankering with.

Anything outside of bare essentials comes from your treat budget. Leftover spend can be carried forward.

Putting a cap on things has helped us feel more control and less guilt with indulgence, and it’s something we might even consider applying when back home.

We use the super simple Weekly Budget app to track treats.

Our main draw to Hong Kong was its ease of access to some great hiking trails. We were able to tick off 3 during our 5 day stint:

The Dragon’s Back was our first endeavour into Hong Kong hiking. It was a big success. A little bit Mancunian at times, but that added to the atmosphere.

We got some good shots:

And it was an easy first outing: an hour from the city by public transport, costing £10 total.

The MacLehose trail is a 100km beast, and is handily broken down into 10 stages that are easily accessible from public transport.

We completed Stage 5. Again, it was a bit Mancunian so we didn’t get much of a view. But the vistas we did encounter were gratefully received. We really enjoyed wandering through the misty forest too.

Here are some pics:

Our final hike was on Lantau Island, along the Ngong Ping 360 Rescue Trail.

It was a fairly long, steep slog but had some cracking views. Boardwalks are one of Laura’s favourite things in life, and it had an ample offering - they did get treacherously slippy in the rain though 😱.

There were some great misty views from the trail:

It led to the fictional village of Ngong Ping, which was set up by the cable car operators 😂. There was an actual monastery though, and one of the biggest Buddhas we’ve come across so far:

Was a really nice place for a nighttime stroll. Canary Wharf and Hollywood’s love child with some spectacular city scapes, hand prints of stars we hadn’t heard of, and some bizarre statues.

On our final night we took the Star Ferry across from Avenue of Stars, to take in a bit more of the city. It was dirt cheap (£1.25 return for the both of us).

We noticed the observation wheel (Hong Kong’s answer to the London eye), and pessimistically remarked that it would very much not be for backpackers.

But a quick Google revealed that a ride only cost £2/person, so we went for it. It gave us some great views, and was a pleasant way to end our time there.

Hong Kong is notorious for vastly dense and expensive abodes. We can confirm.

Mansion in name only, it was simultaneously the most expensive accommodation on our journey so far and the cheapest available in a decent location.

We’re by no means fussy about our stays, and have accepted the odd creepy crawly as par for the course whilst in South East Asia on our budget.

Moments after we entered our room, I spied a cockroach climbing up the wall 🪳. No big deal, I had my hiking boots on so made light work of it. It soon became apparent that the hostel suffered from an extremely vivacious infestation however, which was less than ideal.

We eventually worked out they were entering from the hallway, and that they were extremely adept at scuttling in or out when we opened the door. After a few days training we had a graceful but effective whack-a-roach routine to launch into as required. First dance sorted ✅.

The building hosts a large market on the ground floor, followed by 18 floors of accommodation. Chungking Mansions is the ‘Little India’ of Hong Kong. This would usually be serendipity as we love a curry, but the kitchens were definitely close to our unwanted usurpers upstairs as we shared many lift journeys with unaccompanied samosas:

Living space doesn’t get much more dense than the “Monster Building”. We saw some pretty dense apartment blocks whilst exploring, but were aware that the Monster Building was notorious for being another level.

It’s been overrun with instagrammers since appearing on the Transformers movie. We still wanted to see it though, so popped by for a drink at a coffee shop at the base of one, and took a couple of photos. It lived up to its reputation.

There was a cash casualty when we abandoned our 2020 trip to Hong Kong. We’d booked and paid upfront for a kayaking tour.

The owner said that business was bad due to the protests, the company no longer had any money, so he couldn’t give a refund even though their policy entitled us to it. He suggested we come back at some later point and he’ll honour the booking if the business is still alive.

I emailed him 3 years later, figuring it was worth a shot. Sure enough, he was true to his word and he booked us on a trip. In a way it kind of worked out well. Past Martin and Laura were apparently money bags, the trip is worth way more than we’d spend on a day-trip whilst backpacking!

It was a great day out, with some cool sights. The weather was still very Mancunian, so we unfortunately missed out on some of the mountain views. Our arms were definitely achey towards the end, but that may partly have been due to us getting our final travel jabs the day before 🤦‍♂️.

This is a hill on Hong Kong island, and gives a cracking view of the city. After a few days trail plodding we opted for the lazy way to get up - boarding the tram.

We took in the sunset:

And descended by foot.

We had a blast in Hong Kong. Would we go back? Yep, definitely. But probably with:

• A challenge in mind - e.g. to hike the Macelhose trail in a certain number of days
  • We usually go hiking to escape the city, one of the pleasures in Hong Kong was to gawp at the city from a trek!
  • Would be great to combine the gawping with a challenge
• A bigger budget!

Next stop is the Philippines, to get our beach fix and hopefully spot a turtle 🐢.