Change of plan
Our travel agent told us that flights to other parts of South East Asia are getting booked up thanks to SARS (BBC News article here), so if we wanted to change our mind about flying to Hong Kong we had to do it now. So we have.
We will now fly direct to Bangkok on 21 April, instead of Hong Kong. The loose plan is to travel around Thailand for a few weeks and then check what the situation in Hong Kong is like. If the situation has improved, then we’ll go to Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong. If the situation has not improved, we’ll go to Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and then fly to Singapore to pick up our second flight on to Australia.
Obviously we’re quite upset after so much planning. But we’re still going to have a great time, so obviously we can’t complain too much!
(2023 Update: The final itinerary, updated when we finally returned home in November 2004, can be found here)