Island Hopping from Rasdhoo to Hong Kong

Goodbye to Rasdhoo

Our host Mohamed takes us to the boat dock on Rasdhoo Island at 7:15am to catch our 7:30am speedboat to the airport. He makes sure our luggage is on the large speedboat and stands on the dock waving to us as we leave.

As we pass the Bikini Beach John says he sees a group of octopuses waving to me, then corrects himself and says they were actually lifting a finger. Smarty pants! Maybe I’ll see an octopus on the next trip.

The 70 minute boat ride is very bumpy. Thank goodness I took non-drowsy anti-nausea pill before we left.

Many of the islands we pass have construction on them.

An Afternoon in Male

The speedboat dock is right at the airport on the island of Hulhule. We drop our luggage off at the luggage storage and take a short ferry ($1 US) to the island city of Male which is the capital of the Maldives.

We have a few hours to kill before our flight. We stop at a waterfront restaurant for breakfast where we have a good view of the ferry docks and the airport on the next island.

The city is busy and filled with motorcycles.  Motorcycles are parked all over the place. 

John has a few mosques and a museum on his interesting sites list. We walk through the busy streets and pass the mosques. The museum seems to be boarded up. Actually we are not finding much of interest here. Not a lot of charm.

We head back to the waterfront restaurant John orders a coke and I order a glass of milk which comes laced with sugar??!!.? I finally get a milk sans sugar.I notice that they sweeten a lot of things here that we don’t such as plain Greek yogurt.

We take the ferry back to the Hulhule island and the airport to check in for our Emirates flight to the Colombo airport in Sri Lanka (another island).

Back in Sri Lanka

Upon arrival in Colombo we need to collect our luggage, go through immigration, exit the airport then go to departures and check into our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. We have a six hour layover time to do this.

However we encounter a snag at immigration. The officer wants to know why we don’t have a visa. When we originally arrived in Sri Lanka we had registered for a tourist visa that cost $75 CAD each. But now we were just transiting through the airport so had not paid for another visa. We explain this, we show the Hong Kong flight information. He walks us to an office, speaks to one of his managers who goes through our information and they then issue us a 24 hour visa explaining we will be fined if still in Sri Lanka after 24 hours. I am feeling a bit like I’m in an episode of that TV show Airport Security.

Arrival in Hong Kong

Our flight overnight flight to Hong Kong passes without incident and we land at Hong Kong International Airport in Chek Lap Kok Island. 

John gets some shots of the long Hong Kong-Macau Bridge as we come in to land.  There are also many wind turbines in the water below that give the illusion they are floating in the air around us.

After landing, we pass through Hong Kong airport quickly and buy an Octopus Card for Hong Kong’s public transit system. At least I get some kind of Octopus interaction on this trip.

The subway here is called the MTR and is easy to use, modern, clean and efficient. We take the Airport Express to our final island: Hong Kong Island. From the Sheung Wan MTR station it’s  a short walk to our accommodation at the Ibis Hotel.

Although it is only 10:30am when we arrive they let us into our room on the 18th floor. We seem to be in a central area and we have an amazing view of the harbour.

Visit with Chris

After much needed showers, our friend Chris,  who lives in Hong Kong, calls us and we take a double decker tram and meet him near his apartment. He treats us to coffees and we drink them on the very high roof of his apartment. The views around Hong Kong are wonderful.

Exploring Hong Kong Island’s Waterfront

After a few hours of catching up, Chris gets back to work and John and I explore the waterfront. There are two cruise ships in the harbour.

I can’t get over all the high skyscrapers.

Hong Kong feels very safe but is a lot more expensive than when we were in mainland China a few years ago.

We walk around using the many enclosed overhead walkways that cross busy roads. We check out the IFC Shopping Centre that has many high-end designer stores. We also check out tiny alleys that have all manner of little shops & restaurants and food places selling dried things that I am unsure what they are.

There is a real mix of nationalities here and a lot of western chains including Canada Goose, KFC, McDonalds, Lululemon, Starbucks and more.

I am delighted to see there are 7 Eleven convenience stores selling a seaweed wrapped rice snack with salmon, tuna, beef or a myriad of other stuffings in the middle. I became addicted to this snack when we were in Japan. My favorite are the ones with eel. Yum.

After only sleeping a few hours on the plane last night, John and I call it an early evening.