More from Asia...

So for my first real attempt at traveling alone, since I did the main sights of HK last time I was here (peak tram, dim sum, Kowloon etc.) I decided to head out to Macau, another "special administrative region" an hour's ferry from Hong Kong. Macau is a former Portugese colony, best known in the past for fireworks... and now for gambling. It's the Vegas of Hong Kong.

Getting there was fine. However, the instant Tara left the ferry terminal, my famous navigational abilities kicked in... I ended up on the other end of the island at the *other* border crossing. Bonus of being a single female traveler however, was a local gudie took pity on me, and got me bus fare, a short lesson in cantonese, and a talk with the bus driver to have me bundled off to Sun Ma Lo... the area near St. Paul's Cathedral (destroyed by fire, only the fascade is left) and the old Portugese Fortress and Museum at the top of Macau. Then I was on my own getting lost again in the streets of Maucau, which deserves a word of description probably stronger than dilapidated.

Other than the casinos (which are incredible - and gaudy) the rest of the city is like an old Portugese Capital invaded by the chinese - the city is full of great colonial fascades, dirty, crumbling around the edges and festooned with neon signs and lit sign posts. Everything is a mixture of Chinese and Portugese, sometimes in both languages, and sometimes they don't bother. It's an interesting contrast to Hong Kong.

Waking up the the biblical rainstorms that seem to be greeting my every day -on Friday I made the doubtful decision to explore one of Hong Kong's outlying islands, Lamma. While Thais was crossing her fingers for a typhoon warning so she can skip going to work, I should have been packing my poncho. Instead, with my trusty teal-spotted umbrella, I set off for one of Hong Kong's gorgeous and surprisingly natural outlying Islands. There is a great little family walking path extending from one harbour to the other, about an hour's walk. Just as I arrived on Lamma, the clouds started to part and I blissfully set off....and about 25 minutes into the hike, across a beautifully verdant landscape, just after I decided to take an extra tour of the home town of Chow Yun Fat (remember him from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?) and I am out in the open, the heavens open up and I am drenched, instantlly. And the driving torrential rains continued all day.. by the time I got back to Hong Kong, flooding on Lantau (another island) had stranded 150 tourists, I was lucky to make it back for our Junk trip in Hong Kong Harbour. Where of course the torrential rain continued and most of us ex-pats stood on the back deck trying not to get sick as the boat heaved and rolled.

Suffice to say on the week Thais showed me how the ex-pats do Hong kong - a
couple of long nights spent in the dance clubs in The Fong.

Arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam just in time for the storm battering Hong Kong to it here - I woke up to a foot of water flooding our hotel foyer yesterday morning. I am traveling with a troop of Aussies, one German living in London working for a french bank... and me - 3 people celebrating their 50th birthdays and one wedding anniversary.

The first day of the tour, we wadded through the water to take a bus out to Ha Long Bay, and spent an overnight on a boat touring amazing Limestone islands (3000 of them) that dot the harbour before you reach the south china sea. The bay is pretty salty - we all got a chance to jump off the boat to escape the heat before dinner.

I can't seem to find a computer to load the pictures up, but I will eventually I am sure.

And... Cheers in Vietnamese - is Yo

Tara