A Long Weekend in Hong Kong - Great Tips for a Fun Time

A while ago, we had a 3-day weekend at my school, so a co-worker and I decided to go to Hong Kong for the weekend. We flew out of Bangkok on a Friday night on Thai Orient, which was definitely an experience.

We got on the plane to a temperature that was just a little less than a hot sunny day in downtown Bangkok. After 15 minutes of sitting in intense heat, I asked a flight attendant (who was fanning himself with a laminated 'What To Do In An Emergency' brochure) if it was always this hot. "Oh yes," he said. "It'll cool off when we get airborne, but yes it's always this hot on the ground". As I'd already mentioned to my co-worker, as we got aboard, this was the oldest airplane I'd ever flown on, so I wasn't too surprises. So, we waited on the ground for well over an hour (the flight finally left 1 hour and 15 minutes late) and I tried to read. But, the seat overhead lights didn't work. Also, the window shade wouldn't stay up and there were NO air conditioning vents over the seats (no wonder it was so bloody hot).

The funniest thing was, when we got on the plane, we put our bags in an overhead locker and then were just about to sit down when my friend said "There's no window". We'd requested one window seat and one aisle seat. But, to our surprise, the 'window seat' was next to a blank wall - that part of the plane had NO windows. Now I've never seen that before!

Once we actually got airborne though, after the initial nervousness of a severely vibrating ceiling panel, the flight was smooth, the flight attendants were nice, and the food was very good. All in all, I'd probably fly with them again. They're the cheapest airline to go to Hong Kong (only $126 round-trip) and we got there safely enough!

We stayed at The Concourse Hotel, which was actually not too expensive for Hong Kong prices and quite nice. The room was very clean, the staff were polite and friendly and it's in a fabulous location - across the street from the underground, so easy to travel all over the city from there.