Day 14 May 21st: Yangtze to Chongqing to Shenzhen to Kowloon

It was to be another transit day for us.  We got up at 4:30, had our bags outside our doors by 5:10, ate a quick breakfast at 6:25 and left the cruise ship by 7:00.

The day was very smoggy.  I felt sorry for those poor porters who had to carry our suitcases up the never ending stairs.  This fellow is probably carrying about 200 pounds in luggage here.

We'd all given Charlie $150 a person at the start of our trip to tip all the people we came across.  This made it a lot easier for us.

When we got to the Shenzhen airport, Charlie's little nightmare began.

The girl at the check-in counter said we couldn't board our flight.

Our flight had just been cancelled because of too few passengers!

Charlie called the main office and they had not heard about this.

They rescheduled us for a 4:00 flight which upset Charlie who had a flight at 3:00 to return home.

Charlie never let on to us when anything went wrong.  He would hide behind pillars or corners where we couldn't see him reaming out people.

We could see by Charlie's round eyes and gritted teeth that he was really upset and that things were looking bad.

Still... none of us were exceedingly worried because we knew it was all in Charlie's capable hands.

Charlie said he felt so bad about the last minute tension that he paid for a KFC lunch for us whether we wanted it or not.

Everything had run so smoothly up to now.

Charlie was frustrated that our last day with him would be marred by this airline snafu.

By the time lunch was over, Charlie had somehow gotten us seats on another airline for 1:30.

We sadly waved good bye to Charlie after we passed through security and were on our way to Hong Kong.

At the Shenzhen International Airport, we were met by Jessica who took us to the check point between China and Hong Kong.  There was pretty heavy security there with screeners watching for people who looked sick or had fevers.

Another tour operator named Daniel met us when we got through the check point and drove with us to Kowloon's Harbour Plaza Hotel.

The hotel was five star again and very nice.  HOWEVER (and that's a big however) breakfast was not included, nor was wifi.  Unlike the rest of China where we received two bottles of water every night, we did not receive the water bottles on the second night here at the Harbour Plaza.  There was a hot water pot to boil your own though.  We were spoiled.

Daniel changed some of our money for us which wasn't as great as Air and Sea had indicated on their information card, but his rate was still better than the hotel.

We were told that we were pretty much on our own now.

"Don't worry," said Daniel.  "Kowloon and Hong Kong are easy.  You'll have no trouble getting around by yourself.  Everyone speaks English."

Dinner was a bowl of dumpling and noodles.

We missed Charlie.