28 February
Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong

We were well-rested from our flight, so the annoyingly long wait at HKG immigration was bearable. By the time we got through to the luggage belt our bags had already been doing a few trips around and we quickly made our way to the airport express. I really think this is the best way to get into Hong Kong. On several occasions I’ve had a hotel car pick me up but the traffic can be heavy and tedious in the afternoons, so I tend to prefer to take the train to Central and then a cab for the last bit. There is a shuttle bus from both Kowloon and Central (included in the train fare) that drops passengers at the major hotels, but I really can’t recommend this to anyone. I did it once and ended up in a tiny mini-bus with about fifteen bags on my lap and people squished in all around me. This made the exit at the Mandarin Oriental look pretty silly! Our train ride was quick and uneventful and we quickly found a cab at the other end that took us to the Island Shangri-La.

I don’t mean to sound too much like a snob, but I usually try to stay at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong. I know the rooms are beginning to feel a bit old and small, but you cannot beat the location or the service in the hotel (with the possible exception of the Peninsula, where I’ve not stayed.) We stayed at the Shangri-La for two reasons: (1) We were able to access a very competitive rate for a high floor executive superior room (of HKD1450) and (2) Mrs LE decided she wanted to be close to Pacific Place to shop while I was at my (brief) business meetings. We hadn’t stayed at the ISL before and we thought we may as well give it a try.

I won’t bore you with the check-in (which was – typical for the region – fast, efficient, professional, and friendly) but my immediate impression, and one which remained with me for our two-night stay, was that the ISL is like many Asian 5 star hotels: very nice but lacking in charm. I stay in hotels a reasonable amount for business, and I generally despise them. Many are soulless and uncharming boxes where someone you don’t know used the bed yesterday and someone else you don’t know will take over tomorrow. Given the choice, I would much rather beam myself home in the evenings to sleep in my own bed. The worst hotel rooms are the ones that put up little advertisement triangle cards telling you that you are a “special guest”, “can we do anything else?” I usually take these and put them in a drawer and put up pictures of my family. Very few hotel rooms (in every price range) make me want to stay there any longer than I have to (more on this below). The ISL, nice as it is, is not one of these. When I come across a hotel room that I really want to spend time in, I never stay anywhere else in that city.

I don’t mean to come down on the hotel too hard. It fulfilled our needs very well. The room was clean (except for the used toothpick I found under the edge of the bed), the bed was comfortable, the view spectacular and the location (if you’re into dropping lots of cash at Pacific Place) ideal. We also made fine use of the outdoor pool in the afternoon.

After my meetings on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, we went to one of the clubs we’re members at and enjoyed the lovely view over the Harbour on what was a stunning day. We were really looking forward to our trip to Phuket the next day.

A tip if you need a Hong Kong travel agent: A fellow FTer recommended Tiglion Travel, and I’ve had the opportunity to use them several times now, including picking up our TG tickets to HKT/BKK, and I was very impressed. The agent I dealt with was very helpful and efficient and I have no hesitation in recommending them on. Their website is www.tiglion.com or www.travel.com.hk Send me an email if you want the name of the person we dealt with.

2 March
HGK – HKT in Y
TG609 11:05
777-200

TO THE AIRPORT AND CHECK-IN

As I said above, I think the HKG airport express is the way to go between the airport and Central. What makes this facility even better, though, is the check-in facility. Unlike Paddington Station, the endpoint of the Heathrow Express, this is a large, airy, open check-in area that works. If you’re coming from Central, I can’t imagine why you’d check-in any other way.

At about 9:30 we made our way to the TG desks and checked in for our flight. We’re both *G on AC and were heading for the priority line but realised that it was closed and that only one TG desk was staffed. This was not really a big deal since (not entirely unlike our LHR T4 experience) we were the only people checking in at TG. We had reserved 32A/32B but this turned out to be somewhat superfluous as there were perhaps 40 other people on the flight (TG’s 777-200 are configured for 55 in C and 303 in Y).

We had considered booking these flights in C and, after consulting fellow FTers, decided against it. It’s been a few years since I had flown TG inter-Asia and I had hoped that the fairly unremarkable C product had improved in the interim but it has not (yet). This aircraft is configured 2-4-2, with a pretty tight pitch, so I cannot recommend the extra price for the marginal difference in seat comfort.

We boarded the train and were at HKG in about 15 minutes and made our way past security to embark on the long expedition to the TG lounge. Clearly we were going to lose a lot of weight on this trip walking between check-in/lounge/gate! The TG lounge, like most mezzanine level lounges at HKG, feels especially spacious because it is open and has view of the tarmac. Food and drink were pretty standard lounge material, and we decided to fight the effects of dehydration from our long walk.

An observation: Attention European and North American airports! Why can you not supply the mini-trolleys that many Asian airports have? Carry-on can get pretty heavy, especially when you have to walk several miles between the gates. LHR would be a perfect candidate.

At 10:45, after being in the lounge for about 15 minutes (during which we recognised 2 passengers from our earlier BA flight), our flight was called and we made our way to the gate. Boarding was swift and we pushed back at about 11:10. As I said earlier, the flight was virtually empty, so we decided that after take-off we would do some seat hopping.

Take-off was a pretty fast affair with such a light load and we climbed quickly into a clear blue sky. Once the seatbelt signs went off I decided to find a different seat and, despite being a committed window passenger, moved to 32D, the centre section aisle seat.

An observation: Maybe it’s just me, but I swear the seats in the centre section have an extra inch (or two?) of pitch.

TG’s economy service on this route is not worth reporting on. Not that it’s not good, just that it really is nothing that you wouldn’t expect. The food was reasonably edible (but we had been spoiled by BA) and drinks service was frequent and friendly.

An observation: I’ve lived in Thailand and have a great fondness for Thai food. With so many delicious national dishes, why are there things like goulash on the menu? Also, nothing goes better with Thai food than a cold Singha beer. Why then does the Singha brewery produce a wretched beer like Singha Gold? Don’t waste the water on this horse pee, make more of the regular stuff!

Shortly after the meal service a movie was shown on the main screen. I don’t know what it was called but it was without a doubt the stupidest film I have ever seen. I cannot imagine what would possess someone to produce a film with this go-nowhere plot: A film crew wants to shoot an action-snowboarding film. They go to a (temporarily) closed lodge at the top of a mountain. What they don’t know is that a bad Serbian terrorist is hiding out there. The groups meet. There is confusion. People get shot. Snowboarders save the day with clever boarding moves. If the producer is reading this, I’ve got some swampland for sale! BTW, I did not watch all of it; I gave up after 20 minutes. IFE was not going to be a highlight of this trip.

The flight was scheduled to take 3:35 hours, but we landed at 13:20 local time, 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We cleared Thai immigration, and fought our way past the taxi touts to meet our driver from The Chedi resort. We ended up there by about 14:30

NEXT INSTALLMENT: THE CHEDI, HKT-BKK, THE ORIENTAL, BKK-HKG, AND HKG-LHR