Homeward Bound

New Years Day 2011 was our last day in Hong Kong; our flight back to Dubai was leaving at 00:35 the next morning. When we got dressed in the morning we knew we'd be wearing the same clothes for the next 40 odd hours.

Luckily, Hong Kong is very efficient and well-organised, so we were able to check-in at the Airport Express in Kowloon Station, which meant that we'd be able to get rid of our bags and have the minimum of fuss travelling to, and through, the airport that night.

We had a good lunch with Laura, Scott, Charlotte and Rod in a restaurant near their hotel and then had a walk into TST, where there was a record-breaking chinese dragon event going on. Unfortunately we were too late and we missed it, but we did see a lot of the performers packing up the costumes. Sally and I then spent about an hour trying to find a flower shop that was open, to get some flowers for Laura - in the end we did find one and managed to get some lilies.

In the evening we went for our final meal with everybody, in a Thai restaurant in TST. I was still full from our big lunch so just shared a mixed starter with Laura, and Sally picked at a salad.

At 10:30 the time came to start our journey, so we said our goodbyes to Rod and Charlotte and got a cab to the Airport Express terminal at Kowloon Station with Scott and Laura. The trains come every 12 minutes and we had about 5 minutes to wait until ours arrived. It was obviously a very emotional 5 minutes, especially for Sally and Laura, and in the end I had to almost drag them apart so we didn't miss our train.

It was a quick but quiet ride to the airport and we were on the plane almost before we knew it. The 9 hour flight to Dubai seemed to pass very quickly, as we both slept nearly all the way, and the 2 1/2 hour in Dubai was just long enough for a couple of coffees and a bit of shopping.

Sally about to go through security

The Dubai to Larnaca leg seemed longer, even though it was only 4 hours, but we arrived at Larnaca Airport still feeling reasonably fresh and awake. Unfortunately, we arrived at 10:30 and our flight to Heathrow wasn't until 16:15, so we did have quite a bit of time to kill - but we had a drink outside in the spring-like weather until we could check-in our bags at 13:30 and then went through to departures.

By the time we boarded our flight home we were starting to feel very tired and dirty, and the 5 hour flight felt much longer than that, but eventually we did arrive at Heathrow and were back home by 22:00, after over 30 hours travelling. We showered and went straight to bed - and Sally slept solidly for 13 hours!