Journey 1: Dublin to Hong Kong
‘Be adventurous, be spontaneous, roll with whatever is thrown at you, be smart, be strong, be clever, do not let this trip pass you by!’
Sound advice from my family and friends in the weeks leading up to my big adventure. All of the above is going through my head as I sit in a flying piece of metal roughly 40,000 ft above planet Earth.
Since the Summer, this trip is the only thing that has been on my horizon. It’s all been building towards this.
After the initial anxiety of being certain that I had forgotten something important (so far only my toothbrush, which I have of course replaced), I began to settle into my 12 and a half hour flight from Dublin to Hong Kong, the first leg of my journey.
I had never been on such a long flight before so I had to strategise each stage of this first journey.
I broke the 12 and a half hours into 4 segments of 3 hours or thereabouts. Part 1 was spent settling into the flight. Scanning through the inflight entertainment and looking at the flight tracker every few minutes to see what country we were currently over.
When the first meal arrived, I was thankful I had packed my mother’s turkey and ham sandwiches from Christmas Day (I flew out on the 26th).
Some sort of mushroom curry was what greeted me. No thanks.
The first three hours flew by. Part 2 was spent listening to a music playlist that I compiled from browsing through the extensive catalogue of songs that Cathay Pacific had.
Anything from Ray Charles, Coldplay, Bruno Mars and even ‘Holiday’ by Madonna was given a spin to get me in the mood.
Then came part 3. Nap time. Two Panadol night’s and I was in dreamland.
In fact, the nap was so good it took up most of part 4 of the journey too. When I woke up I was only about an hour from landing. Looking out the window as best as I could from my aisle seat, I could see the sky beginning to turn a most deep orange.
A spectacular sunrise over the horizon followed. My sense of wonder was briefly halted when I was handed my breakfast. As you can see from the picture below, it looked more like a bush tucker challenge than the most important meal of the day.
Mam’s Sambos to the rescue once again.
By the time I finish my trip I’m going to have used every superlative in the English dictionary so I’ll save a few for later posts.
Suffice to say landing in Hong Kong was like touching down on Mars for me. Bucharest is the furthest east I had ever previously been so flying into Asia was an experience that I’ll never forget.
Hong Kong:
The flight landed ahead of time which left me with 8 hours to kill before my connection to Perth. It was 7am local time, eight hours ahead of Ireland.
After queuing up twice to get through immigration at Hong Kong airport (I forgot to fill out the requisite card first time round) I set off for the city.
Only a 24 minute train to the city centre, it could not have been any easier
The sheer vastness of the place was something to behold. To borrow a phrase from my favourite priest, the people of Hong Kong are a great bunch of lads.
Very friendly and helpful. As an Irish country boy at heart, the prospect of strolling through this sprawling metropolis wasn’t daunting in the slightest.
I only really got to spend about two hours there but I’ll definitely return some day.
Back at the airport, I discovered my flight had been delayed by 90 minutes. On the advice of my friend Elliot, I spent the equivalent of 83 euro to book into an executive lounge. On such a long stopover it was worth every cent.
This 83 euro gave me an unlimited supply of free drink (bad time to be finishing off a course of antibiotics), a 3 course meal, access to comfortable recliner chairs and most importantly, a private bathroom to shower, shave, brush my teeth, whatever was required.
They had a wash bag laid out for me with everything necessary. The wash and change gave me a new lease of life.
When it came to my meal (I’m sure you’ve worked out by now that I’m an incredibly fussy eater), they allowed me to pick a combination of three different dishes from the menu.
This resulted in a delicious combo of chicken sausages, bacon rashers, sweet potato fries and toast.
When I discovered my flight was delayed further, I was just as happy to stay relaxing in this quiet oasis of an extremely busy airport.
I overheard some Australian man who was a dead ringer for Ric Flair telling someone at the bar that his flight had been cancelled twice and he was fuming.
I guess the charm of the lounge had worn off for him at that stage.
Journey 2: Hong Kong to Perth
At last, the second plane was wheels up and we were on course for Perth. Not before the captain came over the intercom to let us know that the flight had been delayed due to a faulty part found on the plane but that it had been fixed. Gulp! I added an extra ‘Hail Mary’ to my pre-flight prayers after hearing this.
The guy in front of me had his seat reclined all the way back so that I was struggling to see the tv screen on the back of his seat. God, I hate people who do that!
Rather than complain, I ‘accidentally’ kneed his chair really hard every so often to ensure he wouldn’t get a good sleep. Extremely petty of me but I was deliriously tired at this stage. He still didn’t get the message.
While flying over the Indian Ocean I could see a pulsating orange light through the clouds. It was so clear even from 40,000ft up.
Maybe it was the tiredness, maybe it was the few whiskeys in Hong Kong but I was convinced that I was about to fly over a live volcano.
Far less exciting than that, it turned out to be a lighthouse as you can see from the photo below.
As we began our descent, I wanted to have a song playing that I would forever associate with the first time I landed in Australia. I searched the Cathay Pacific catalogue for AC/DC, Men at Work, the most Ozzie song I could find.
As fate would have it, neither of the above were on the list. So looking out at the bright lights of Perth as the tarmac approached, I had no other choice than wait for it… ‘I should be so lucky’ by Kylie Minogue!
Wheels down, I’ve finally made it to Australia. An exhausting journey but an unforgettable experience.
If you’ve made it this far, good on you. I’ll keep you updated as often as I can throughout this trip of a lifetime.
Ben.
Ben's Big Adventure 