The Hong Kong skyline from the Kowloon ferry

Consisting of a few islands and a chunk of mainland connected to China, Hong Kong is really a large and spread out city that also doubles as its own country: much like Singapore. Ferries are the most popular way to get around the islands, offer amazing views of the skyline and were my personal favorite transportation mode. However, for actually getting somewhere quickly and efficiently, the subway is top notch and connects all of Hong Kong’s islands as well as every place a tourist like me needs to go.

Hong Kong Island itself is one of the most amazing architectural things I have ever seen. More than 7,500 skyscrapers stretch across a riverfront for miles to the east and west. However, less than a mile behind the water Victoria Peak cuts off development and rises above the tops of the buildings. Visually, this massive mountain range provides a stark contrast to the city and helps to put the size into perspective.

A view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak

Once a spot only for the city’s elite, Victoria Peak is now a popular tourist destination reachable either by climbing hundreds of stairs or via a 100-year old cable car. The view from atop is spectacular with the Hong Kong skyline in the foreground and Kowloon and the other islands in the distance. On a clear day (not the day we went up) you can even see China.

The Hong Kong skyline at night from Kowloon during the Symphony of Lights

Another amazing viewpoint is the Victoria Harbor Waterfront promenade on Kowloon. Located directly across the river from downtown Hong Kong Island, the entire skyline seems to be a wall of skyscrapers facing directly at you. Many buildings are topped off with a large neon sign featuring the name of a big global company (ie. IBM, Sony, MGM) though not necessarily the company who occupies that building.

These signs all face out to Kowloon, furthering the feeling that the skyline was meant to be viewed from that spot. Best of all, every night the city puts on A Symphony of Lights where the buildings all flash different neon colors while strobe lights fill the sky to the sound of music. I hate to say it as a New Yorker, but it might just be a little cooler than our skyline. If only we had nightly neon shows…

Kowloon

The Golden Mile in Kowloon is filled with shops, signs and people

While Hong Kong Island is where all big business takes place and many of the city’s richer folks stay, those on more of a budget opt for living in Kowloon. Skyscrapers still fill the sky, though they are not as densely packed and tend to be more residential. While the area is filled with tourists, it also seems to house most the country’s international residents. We met countless African, Indian and Middle Easterners, many of whom came to Hong Kong to try to eek out a meager living while sending home whatever money they can.

Many of these international residents run or work at the thousands of shops, markets and restaurants that fill up Kowloon. The most famous stretch is the Golden Mile, which is longer than a mile and is literally wall to wall shopping, neon and crowded streets. The indoor markets are the craziest of all, like the Mongkok Computer Center that has four floors of shops no bigger than a closet all sandwiched in and selling the same exact thing. There were similar markets around Kowloon for pretty much every genre of purchasable item.

Hong Kong traffic at night

Sadly, as much as I wanted to purchase everything in sight, we had to save our money just to pay for living because man is Hong Kong expensive. Well, expensive by Southeast Asia/two backpackers at the end of a long trip standards. In reality, things were just city prices. I had heard that laptops were dirt cheap (hence the trip to the computer center)…it wound up being cheaper to buy it at home. Even the smallest dirty closet-sized hotel room was at least $20…versus paying $2 in India. Food was no bargain either…even street food. But regardless, the city was awesome and a great way to finish off the trip. So now, on with the details…

A Symphony in Lights as seen from the Victoria Harbor Waterfront promenade on Kowloon

Fishing in what seems to be an open sewer in Bangkok

After our visit to the floating market, we headed back to Bangkok and to the apartment of Tom, a local who we found through Couchsurfing. As he works from home, we quickly dropped our bags off at his sweet apartment and headed out for a day of price checking and shopping at the MBK mall. Though it is called a mall, it is really a massive indoor market with more vendor stalls than actual shops and bargain prices. Needless to say, we only left because we ran out of time.

Upon returning to Tom’s place that night, we promptly headed out to check out a local market to have a delicious meal. The poor guy had been waiting for us for hours, as no taxi would use their meter to take us home (they just wanted preset and sky-high flat rates) and we had to hop on the subway, which got stuck in between stations for 20 minutes.

Dinner was great and Tom turned me on to a new version of the traditional Thai soup that I have had countless times over the months. I guess all along they could have put sweet and sour sauce in it…I just never knew to ask! Our evening concluded over a few beers back at Tom’s house where we chatted for a few hours before hitting the hay. Tom was a great host and a wonderful final encounter with Couchsurfing…for this trip at least.

Escalators at the Paragon Mall in Bangkok

The next day we woke up early and headed over to Khan San Road, which is backpacker central in Bangkok. Basically two long streets filled with bars, guesthouses, clubs, 7-Elevens and thousands of tourists, it is the first stop for most people in Thailand and a hub of activity. We found the cheapest guesthouse possible, locked our stuff up and hopped in a cab for the Chatuchak Weekend Market.

The Weekend Market was actually our first stop in Bangkok when we arrived back in April. After a few hours there we realized that we wanted to return at the end of the trip, buy an extra suitcase and go hog-wild shopping for clothes, souvenirs and other fun things at dirt cheap prices. Return we did, as we spent the entire day wandering around shopping until, before we knew it, the stalls were closing. Still, our shopping spree was not done, so we returned to the MBK mall once again before heading back to Khan San Road.

Walking around Khan San Road at night is a very unique experience. There were food vendors every five feet, drunk Westerners stumbling around, beggars, lady boys and people selling everything from teeshirts to lighters, hats and drugs. This one blind guy was led up and down the street all night singing into a microphone hanging around his neck for tips. I saw woman shoving a disabled boy with sores all over him into a stroller and trying to make him look as pathetic as possible for donations. Massage parlous and strip clubs were handing out fliers, as were the clubs and bars.

Tall buildings and shacks share the Bangkok Skyline

Really, Khan San Road is a paradise for all types of vices or sin. It is party central and a completely unique environment, hence why I wanted to experience it at least once and spend the night wandering around and taking it all in. However, it is not Bangkok. It is not Thailand. It is not anything other than an fake little fantasy world. That said, we did have a blast people watching. We also once again met up with Claire for one last evening on the town. Our destination was The Club (original name, huh?) where we joined a room full of mostly Western tourists and bad techno music and danced until the wee hours of the morning.

As our flight the next day was not until 4:30pm, we headed back to MBK for one final trip through the aisles. Needless to say, our bargaining power was lessened by the fact that we had all our bags with us and were clearly headed to the airport.

All in all, we spent 16 hours over three days shopping…which is funny considering how much I hate shopping. By the time we got to the airport to head to Hong Kong we had around 30lbs of new items. Additionally, we never made it to the Royal Palace or to a Thai boxing match, both of which were big reasons for our return to Thailand. Oh well, at least we got a ton of cool stuff!

This bike in Ho Chi Min doubles as a fish, turtle and other aquatic animal shop

From the beginning, I had a tough time with most interactions we had with locals in Vietnam. Granted, most of the people we met were some form of shopkeeper and as soon as money was introduced to the equation the nice relationship became mean, rude and angry. However, due to our rushed pace and lack of knowledge of the language, it made interacting with anyone but a shopkeeper difficult. As such, I left the country with a very sour taste in my mouth. A few reasons why….

Haggling is a way of life when traveling in developing nations. However, for some reason in Vietnam it gets down right mean and personal. First, shopkeepers can’t even be bothered to come and talk to you when you are clearly waiting at their shop to possibly buy something. Then, if you try to haggle they quickly get mad at you and yell. “NO! YOU GIVE ME 10,000! GOOD PRICE! YOU BUY NOW!” It’s like they get instantly enraged. My favorite example was trying to buy a bottle of water in Hue. I knew the fair price and asked for it, to which the woman yelled, “noooooo!” She would rather not make any money at all than sell me the product at the fair price.

Veggie market in Da Lat...it's amazing how every stall sells the same exact thing

Another thing that really irks me is how many times I have been shooed away by a Vietnamese shopkeeper. Sometimes it’s because they don’t agree to my price, but other’s its just because they don’t want to sell to me at all. Is it because I’m Western? Because I sure don’t look American with my massive beard…not that you can really tell someone is from America just by looking at them. I can’t count how many times I’ve had a hand shoved in my face to get rid of me. Sometimes I like to shoo them back and say, “you shoo,” before lecturing them on how rude they are. Not that it ever makes a difference.

Physical contact during altercations is also, unfortunately, common. During a monsoon rain storm in Sapa, Carrie stopped at a street stall to buy a poncho. The lady charged far too much, but it was pouring and Carrie was desperate so she paid. The thing came out of the bag broken, but when Carrie tried to exchange it for a new one the woman demanded more money…yelling, of course. Carrie refused and more yelling happened, so finally she just said “here is your poncho, just give me my money back.” The woman refused again, so Carrie just picked up the new poncho and gave her back the old one, trying again to explain how she was not paying for a broken product.

At this point, the woman grabbed Carrie by the arm and squeezed as hard as possible, digging her nails into her arm. I physically had to remove the woman’s hands from Carrie’s arm, at which point the shopkeeper began to wave her arms, stomp her feet and yell at me in Vietnamese. So, I gave it right back to her. I yelled, stamped my feet and mimicked her, which finally got her to stop and actually caused her to have no idea what to do or say for a solid five seconds. In the end, I got Carrie the poncho, but the woman was beyond furious. All over what, 20 cents? It’s just the principal…and why did she have to get so angry.

Kites for sale outside the flag tower in front of the Citadel in Hue

You want another example, you say? Well, while waiting for our Halong Bay tour bus to arrive we ran into an old friend and wanted to get on the same boat. Before even getting on the four hour bus ride to the Bay, both Carrie and I talked to three different staff members and requested that we be on the same boat as our friend. Naturally, when we arrived they acted like this was the first time they ever heard this request and immediately started yelling at Carrie for not letting them know earlier. “I’m too busy. Leave me alone. You tell me at the beginning, not now. No, you go on your boat. He go on his boat.”

The scene got ugly so fast that none of us even saw it coming. One minute everyone was happy, the next minute every staff member was screaming at each other and slapping each other. It was a very unpleasant scene. In the end we got on the same boat as our friend, but the yelling continued for more than 20 minutes, even after Carrie went around and found people to trade boats with us so that the workers didn’t have to do anything at all. Apparently, the anger continued for the next two days and the staff, who were also the boat tour guides, did nothing but yell at the people on their boat. Thank goodness we switched.

The monsoon rains flood a market on the streets of Sapa

Moving on, it also really bugs me how every time I try to speak Vietnamese to a shopkeeper I just get made fun of. Sure, I get it…the language is very tonal and if I don’t raise or lower my pitch the correct way I might be making a mistake, but I know they can understand. Literally, I’ve been pointed at and I can hear as they repeat what I say and laugh directly at me.

Finally, and then I will stop this complaining section, I can’t count how many times I was shoved by a local. Never do I hear excuse me…or even the Vietnamese version. Instead, even if I’m slightly in the way I get shoved. Like when I was leaving a restaurant in Hue and the waitress, who had a huge smile for us the whole night, suddenly shoved me. Used to the insanity that follows us I thought nothing of it, but when I later returned to look for a hat I forgot there she was yelling at me from the start. “Look in your bag. It’s in your bag,” she yelled. Of course, it wasn’t. In the end I never got my hat, but I did get more abuse from the waitress.

Really, I’m sure that the Vietnamese people are very nice. We met plenty of non-backpackers who were paying lots of money for their tours and food and experiences and all of them did not have a single complaint. The people we met in the street that had nothing to do with money were quite friendly and the kids were full of smiles and waves. However, for backpackers, trying to negotiate anything in Vietnam is just a nightmare. At least the country was beautiful!