Another week and here we are sitting in our beautifully cool Hong Kong hotel after just experiencing the most surreal few days getting here. Our last week in England was spent farewelling friends and family, revisiting London, having a farewell beer and roast in our local pub – the Clifton Arms and generally looking forward to some warm weather.
Getting home was always a bit of a sticky point for us due to sheer distance and time involved. Failing to find an affordable train or boat – our last resort was flying and a bit of thought was put into how we could “hop” home. Darryl is unable to sit for the lengths of time involved in flying to Australia and so with two planned stop overs, an aisle seat conducive to walking and standing, some good old trusty pain killers and a lot of grit we have conquered the first two legs of our journey.
First leg involved departing awesome and huge Heathrow. What an amazing airport. You would never know that it’s the busiest airport in the world. From alighting our commuter train at Terminal 3 (Heathrow has 5 terminals) to boarding our Qantas flight at Gate 1 the transition was seamless. No need to go through lengthy customs departing anymore. Plenty of Duty Free shops to keep one happy and relatively uncrowded. Easy.
For the journey home we had booked through the Emirates online site but as they code share with Qantas – two out of our three flights will be with them. So first leg – London to Dubai with Qantas. One of the new huge Airbus A380’s. Pretty crowded. Very very laid back crew. Limited selection of movies. Average meal. Messiest plane I have ever seen on arrival at Dubai. Score 6 out of 10.
On landing in Dubai – the surreal part of our journey starts. Knowing that Darryl would not be able to handle another 7 hours flying we had made reservations at the Dubai International Terminal Hotel. Located in the actual airport itself – there is no need to go through any customs, one does not leave the airport at all. Its front doors are tucked in among all the Duty Free shops – brilliant. Standing at the exit of our plane was a man with a nice big sign with our name on it – have always wanted to have that happen so it was a fun buzz. We were escorted directly to our room via reception check in and basically 30 minutes after alighting our plane we were showered and in bed.
Next morning and its out the front doors and once again browse the Duty Free before boarding our Emirates flight to Hong Kong. Another Airbus A380 but this has a better more roomier layout. Not as crowded. A very very professional crew. A huge movie selection. A great meal. An immaculate plane on landing. Score 9 out of 10. Sorry Qantas – you have a lot to prove on our third and final leg.
So now we are in Hong Kong and looking forward to all she has to offer. We have gone from a wet 17 degrees to an extremely humid 32. It feels strange being back on nearly the same timezone as the rest of you. I will catch you up on all our reconnoitering in my next and final (for the time being) blog.
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