Our review of PGH, our home-from-home in Chalong, Phuket, has been under ‘Places to Stay’ for some time now. I’m merely adding this shortest post of all time to draw your attention to the fact that the article has been updated with the latest prices (lower than before) and a few general comments.
That’s it apart from saying that when we do eventually move to Kamala, we shall miss PGH!
Further revision dated 24 January 2011 – see comments under Phuket update; 8 January 2011!!
David General, Places To Stay
We’ve just returned to Phuket from what is becoming our annual trip to Hong Kong and as always, we’ve had the most amazing twelve days. Hong Kong has an energy, efficiency and a buzz like no other place. OK, I’m biased – I lived and worked there for 28 years and returning feels more like going home than any other place in the world. The place hums with efficiency, from the airport and its associated transportation to the hotels, restaurants, coffee bars, parks; the list is long.
For this trip, we used the fairly new AirAsia service that runs daily non-stop to and from Phuket. It’s a flight of just over three hours, arriving in Hong Kong at just after 8 p.m. Despite the airport being huge, you will whisk through immigration, pick up your luggage and be on your way within around half-an-hour. The quickest way into town is on the Airport Express, a 24 minute high-speed rail link to Central on Hong Kong Island. However, being more conscious of costs than we were in the days of working there, we chose to try the airport buses that run every 10-15 minutes. The A11 took us to Admiralty on the Island for HK$65 (US$1=HK$7.8) return each, which is much cheaper than HK$180 return each on the train. The trip only takes about 20-30 minutes longer. (TIP: buy the return tickets at the airport ticket office or you’ll pay HK$40 each way)
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David General, Hong Kong
May is poppy time in Italy. You don’t have to go far in our neck of the woods to find fields, hedgerows, embankments and olive groves with poppies bursting out of them. The contrast of the vivid red of these paper-delicate flowers with the wonderful green of the countryside is fabulous. This post is more a photo feature than an article, put up for you to enjoy a riot of colour!
I took these photos in the field immediately below our house, just in time as it turned out since the following day our neighbour, who owns the field, turned up with his strimmer and removed the lot! However, poppies are pretty tenacious as well as widespread – there are plenty more around here safe from strimmers!
I posted five of these shots on Red Bubble and they have been well-received with some of them featured in various groups. Always nice when that happens. If you’d like to buy any of them as greetings cards, pop over to Red Bubble…
Click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger version and then use the arrows to scroll through the set. Click on any enlargement to return here. Enjoy!
David General, Italy
