Michael Smith

Well there I was armed with medication.....enough to knock out a bull elephant so I could enjoy a restful night flight from London to Hong Kong. I sat beside a woman who after sharing 12 hours of torture with I have diagnosed with ADHD/JKLM and a touch of XYZ. Things started out OK but deteriorated rapidly as night approached. At first she watched about 2 hours of Blackadder without incident. Then the fun began.....she kept moving her legs around as though she were suffering with Restless Leg Syndrome. Kicking me every second time seemingly oblivious to the contact. She even had her leg contorted so that her foot was on the seat in front of her at about shoulder height. Blackadder finished and she began pressing the screen using every available touchscreen button starting and restarting shows before they got past the preview stage. She even tried swiping the screen on no less than 100 times even though it obviously doesn't respond to this gesture. Then she continually hit the button on the screen that summoned assistance from airline staff on no less than 4 occasions. This caused staff to respond to her summons on each time to turn off the button on the screen. On one of these occasions she actually asked for a drink and was given 2 plastic cups pf apple juice. She sat one on the partly opened folding table in front of her this she managed to spill allover her crotch area and the seat. Another staff attendance was required to bring towels.
By this time I was fairly sure I was not going to get any sleep even with the aid of phenergan and in actual fact if I took the phenergan and didn't sleep I would be like the walking dead the next morning. So I decided to forego the drugs and battle it out. She was now in a semi catatonic state continually swiping the screen and starting and restarting shows. Then she would sit forward quickly and headbutt the seat in front causing and a noise to escape from her followed by some vigorous rubbing of the injured area. Now she was getting really tired and agitated and would turn off the screen only to lean forward touching the screen again with her head turning the screen back on and starting the whole swiping and button pushing process again until she stumbled on to the shut down icon again. The process would the be repeated again and again and again! !!!
I was fairly convinced that there was a significant mental deficiency at play here so I had some degree of sympathy but this was rapidly waining with my increasing level of exhaustion.
About 2 hours prior to landing she finally went to sleep. It was too late for me. And about 1 hour into her sleep the crew turned the lights on to begin serving breakfast so that finished any opportunity for even a power nap.
We landed and went through the airport without any further grief catching a taxi to our hotel. The taxi let us off at what we thought was out hotel but after attempting to check in we found that our hotel was somewhere up the road. It was about 38 degrees and about 85% humidity as we dragged our suitcases about 1.5klms to our hotel. The sweat was rolling off us. Not a good start. We checked in and went to our room. When we walked in we were immediately hit with a musty smell which obviously eminated from the mould and mildew on the walls and ceiling. The bed was firm enough to qualify as a plank. We both confided that we were not happy to sleep in this room, which paid $260AU per night for so I went to tell the manager our feelings. He said I will give you another room and sent a young man up with us to another room. As soon as we walked in the same smell assailed our senses. We went back down and informed the manager who said I will find you another room just sit down over there. We waited for about 4 minutes while he was on the phone organising a room at what I thought was another hotel. Alas it was not, it was another room same hotel. The same you man accompanied us up to inspect the room. Strangely when we walked in the power already had been turned on with the air conditioning going. The room didn't smell as bad at first so we decided it would be acceptable to sleep there. Then my wife opened the bathroom which had not been getting the benefit of the airconditioning and the musty smell was again apparent. The time taken had been to arrange the room to have the airconditioning turned on by a cleaner to clear the smell prior to letting us inspect it. The manager again said let me get another room but this time I had exhausted my patience and informed him that we would not be staying in his hotel. I was giventhe $HK 5000 deposit I had paid on arrival but he refused to pay the fee we had paid via our travel agent in Australia saying that would be lost. I will take that up with the travel agent when we get home but in any case we could not have stayed in that hotel. We stood out the front of the hotel and I was looking for hotels on my phone which was connected to the hotel's WiFi but one of the staff came to the door to see what we were doing and suddenly the WiFi was disconnected. So after 2 taxis we finally found The Luxe Manor in Kowloon and what a difference!!!!! We were give a beautiful room, provided with a mobile phone for our personal use while in Hong Kong even international calls at no cost to us. We went out for a walk the next morning and returned to a freshly made up room. We relaxed for a while and laid on the bed while enjoying the airconditioning. Later we went out again in the afternoon and when we returned the bed had been made up again. We couldn't believe it. This hotel certainly salvaged the stay in Hong Kong.
But wait there's more!!!! Going through immigration at Hong Kong airport I was asked to move to the side as a supervisor took my passport away to some other higher officer to discuss I don't know what. Had to stand there in front of the rest of the line of passengers looking like the latest drug bust for Asia! Eventually my passport was returned with the only explanation being.....sorry sir just some record checks.Read more