drydruid and ollie’s travels

We retrieved our passports from the Chinese Public Security Bureau on a Friday  ($100 each!) and had until Tuesday to depart China.  Where to go next?  The places we wanted to visit required visas that take several days to process.  It’s now the weekend and we have to be out of the country  in 4 days. Where can you go on an American passport that doesn’t require a visa?  Several places came to mind, most of which are in the wrong direction if we wanted to start working our way back to Doha.  Almost all of SE Asia was out, due to the monsoons, so we settled for Hong Kong.

 We dually arrived at the airport 3 hours early.  Checked in, all is well.  They didn’t even charge us for the overweight baggage. Walked through customs, no problem.  Got to Immigration.  Oops.  There’s no entry stamp.  How did we enter China?  After explaining our saga to three or four different officials, we were shown to a staff room to wait.   gulp.  People are scurrying back and forth, carrying our passports, tickets etc.  It’s a bit disconcerting to be the topic of conversation among 7 or 8 people and have absolutely no clue what they are saying.

 Eventually, a very nice agent handed us our documents and bid us a pleasant journey.  Without further fuss, we boarded and arrived Hong Kong.  No problems arriving and hopefully none when we depart tonight.

 We have now seen three very different faces of China: Tibet, wild and primitive, mainland China, steeped in history, and Hong Kong, the capitalist heart of a communist country.  Talk about a split personality!