Ipswich to Hong Kong

Iraqi city at night
Flying over Iraq: possibly Najaf

Out of all the London airports, Gatwick Airport is the most annoying airport to get to from East Anglia. I'd have much preferred going from Norwich or literally any of the other London ones, but leaving from Gatwick was considerably cheaper and my Ipswich - Gatwick Airport rail ticket was £11.90 - a similar price to the Ipswich - Stansted coach. At least Gatwick is an airport where one can turn up 1¾ hours before the scheduled flight departure for a long-haul flight without getting nervous. 

LGW - DOH: BA2033, 1405-2350
There was a time - not that long ago - when I quite liked flying with British Airways. Long-haul economy class isn't that different between most airlines, but for a long time they'd even offer Worcestershire sauce with their tomato juice and had a doing-things-properly kind of vibe. Alas, not any more. The in-flight entertainment was quite good, with a strong British focus and I could even listen to BBC Proms on the way to Doha, but the overall experience was just disappointing compared to what I was used to pre-pandemic. They don't even provide eyeshades on request any more - understandable, but still a shame. That said, my choice of airline wherever I go depends entirely on price, and eyeshades from Poundland and a Bloody Mary from a pub are certainly much cheaper than the difference in price between this and the other airlines. 

Chicken biryani
BA dinner: chicken biryani. 

Doha Airport is enormous and quite impressive, built with Qatar's oil money and slave labour. I have precisely zero interest in luxury shops and there was no point in going into the city when everything's closed overnight, so the 8 hour overnight flight transfer was tedious - but at least I slept a few hours here and on the preceding flight. It did make a world of difference in reducing the jet lag to almost nothing, and after sunrise the tropical garden was very pleasant too - it's very much a novelty, but it does make for a much nicer overall experience. 

DOH - HKG: QR816, 0855-2130
My conclusions from my first ever QR flight were that the economy class experience was better than that of the previous BA flight - slightly better airline food, proper metal cutlery, small amenity kit - but nothing that I'd really pay extra for. It's just another long-haul economy flight, and all the airlines tend to be much of a muchness. It was interesting that the in-flight entertainment included Qur'an recitations and Islamic sermons, but that's not such a surprise given that it's Qatar. At least they still had a bar service, permitted in the air but absolutely haram in Qatar itself. 

QR breakfast
QR breakfast: omelette and hash brown

QR dinner
QR beef dinner, with G+T

I'd read that Hong Kong Airport has ferries from airside arrivals direct to both Macau and mainland China without entering Hong Kong, and upon arrival this option was very clear - so it was nice to see that this could be an option for me in future, maybe to visit Macau at some point.

Hong Kong airport bus
Hong Kong Airport bus station

I took the bus to Kowloon for my hostel as it was quite a bit cheaper than the airport train, and arrived at the hostel exhausted but at the correct local bedtime - going to sleep exactly then, and setting an alarm for local-time wake-up: that's the secret to west-to-east jet-lag. 

Location: London Gatwick Airport (LGW), Horley, Gatwick RH6 0NP, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

China to South Korea by Weidong Ferry: Weihai to Incheon

Image
The New Golden Bridge VII ferry at Weihai, China, before its crossing to Incheon, South Korea.  There is precious little English-language information online about how to get from China to South Korea by ferry: there are several ferry links, some of which have been mentioned on various English-language travel websites, but no information post-pandemic. For that matter, it seems there's only one company (Weidong Ferry) that has useable information even on the Chinese-language internet. So, here's my experience: I believe this will be the only English-language post-pandemic information on this ferry link on the internet as of publication.  First, the schedule: ferries run Qingdao-Incheon or Weihai-Incheon on alternate days: the ferry runs from Qingdao at 1900 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, arriving in Incheon at 1100 the following morning. They also run from Weihai at 2100 on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Sundays, arriving at 1000 the next morning. From Weihai, passenger check...
Read more

Welcome

Image
Elektrichka to Mir and Nesvizh, Belarus This blog is dedicated to the joy of travelling through unusual, historical places.  Many destinations have become so tourist-focused that they no longer have any sense of real adventure. Instead, let us rediscover the excitement of exploring places less travelled.  These foundational principles underpin all that we do: Travel gives us much-needed context for the world around us.  Disneyland is nice and all, but it's not real.  There's no point in going to Benidorm and spending your evenings in the English pub, watching Premier League football.  A view from a train window gives a much more authentic view of what a place is really like:  rural and urban, rich and poor.  Using public transport like a local is a much better experience than a hire car.  There's little point in getting London/Paris/Rome souvenir mugs or keyrings that have all been mass-produced in some Chinese fac...
Read more

Fortress Malta

Image
Valletta Harbour as viewed from the Upper Barrakka bastion, May 2024 Norwich is an airfield that I have personally piloted a light aircraft into*, so when I noticed that there were £13 tickets available from Norwich Airport to Malta International Airport - one of the few countries that I hadn't yet visited on my medium-term project to visit every European country - I was delighted to take the opportunity.  Ryanair is well known for using its loss-leader ticket prices as bait to then gouge the customer elsewhere. The real marginal cost of filling a seat on an already-scheduled flight instead of leaving it empty is the sum of £13 Air Passenger Duty, ~£3 extra fuel to lift another passenger's mass into the air, ~£5 per passenger to use airport terminals, and another ~£10 in the cost of the risk of rebooking/accommodation/compensation if flights are delayed or cancelled. Each airline's marginal break-even ticket price is commercially sensitive, but if a flight ticket is less th...
Read more