Hong Kong
May 1, 1997 to May 8, 1997
Through the miracle of flying, it took only a few hours to travel from Kathmandu, the ancient capital of Nepal that is hardly changing to a huge modern city that can't stop moving. We descended into Hong Kong through a corridor of tall buildings that seemed close enough to touch. Hong Kong’s airport probably had more planes on the ground than Kathmandu handles in a week.
Plane landing at Kai Tak Airport
Hong Kong is expensive, and more expensive than our budget could really afford. We included Hong Kong on our trip mostly as a place to get visas for Vietnam, which would be our next stop. It turned out to be even more expensive than we had feared, and we spent much of our time trying to remain solvent.
Arrival
At Immigration and Customs we knew we were back in the modern world – long lines of travelers being processed by unsmiling officials taking their jobs very seriously. It took forever because they suspected Nepalis of smuggling drugs, which provided an excuse for lots of rude questioning and thorough searches. At one point we tried to switch to a line where everybody was being waved through, but a Customs agent saw the Kathmandu stickers on our luggage and told us to stay where we were.
After getting through the airport, we headed to Tsim Sha Tsui section of Kawloon, where we would be staying. We'd been warned about the poor quality of budget accommodation in Hong Kong, and so our expectations were low. Still, we didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. We stayed in Mirador Mansions, which is quite the misnomer. Next door was Chunking Mansions, which is better known and notorious for being a "house of sleaze." Both "mansions" are firetraps full of cheap guesthouses, sweatshops, and apartments. Mirador Mansions is only slightly better than Chunking Mansions, but our guesthouse was clean. It was on the 14th floor, and to get there we had to spend what seemed like forever waiting for elevators. The room was only about a foot wider than the bed and with our packs on the floor there was no room to walk. The bathroom was like a marine head in a small sailboat.
Our $50 hotel room in Hong Kong
Given how small the rooms are, no one spends much time in their rooms and we quickly left ours to explore. Our first images were as we'd expected, with streets alive with people and ablaze with neon. There were more cameras for sale than I knew existed in the world and electronic gadgets that we didn't know existed.
We looked for a place to eat and the best we could do was a pub that charged $30 US for two beers, one sandwich and fries. Ouch, first world prices with vengeance, and much more than we’d been spending in Nepal for everything for an entire day.
Street scenes in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Impressions
In the morning, we headed across the harbor to Hong Kong Island. Like Sydney, there were certain images of places that we've all always had. Of Hong Kong, one has always been old Chinese junks bobbing in the harbor in front of the gleaming skyscrapers of modern Hong Kong – a mix of old and new and east and west. Sadly, the junks were gone, and new skyscrapers overwhelmed most else. We rode over on one of the Star Ferries, which is one of those magic names out of history but a bit of a disappointment after Sydney’s ferries.
View from Victoria Peak
View from Kowloon
Still, Hong Kong was fascinating. It is a very successful mix of east and west. Modern west seems to dominate, but not by all that much. It's almost as if San Francisco were as big as New York but all the neighborhoods were Chinatown. It's also a city that is booming, and although there is some worry, it hardly seems to be skipping a beat as the hand-over to the Chinese approaches. Signs of affluence are everywhere, from the gleaming skyscrapers to Mercedes (more sold here than anywhere else except Germany) to Rolls Royces to cell phones on every waist.
At the same time, and surprisingly, the city didn’t have as much Asian character as we’d expected. From the mix of east and west and the neon, double decker buses and streetcars, and the skyscrapers and the landscape, this hardly seems possible. But it seems that capitalism dominates in many ways that make it feel very much like a modern western city.
Nightime view from Kowloon
Geoff & Lauren in Hong Kong
By the time we left, we were glad we went but even more glad to be on our way. It was interesting to see it before the Chinese take over. Today, Hong Kong is a very complex place, and it's hard to believe that the Chinese government can really understand it or abide by it. It is almost impossible to control something you don't understand, but it's easy to ruin it. Like everyone, we hope the best for Hong Kong, but when China’s governments takes control, you can’t help but worry for its future and its people. We'd like to go back sometime to see how things turn out.
Hong Kong transit
Shopping
The shopping in Hong Kong is pretty amazing. The Golden Computer Arcade in Kowloon has the largest selection of software (mostly pirated) we've seen anywhere, booth after booth displaying the latest CDs – even Windows 97, which Microsoft hadn’t released yet, was available. Another gem is the Giardano chain of clothing stores, sort of the Gap of Hong Kong, and which uses the saturation technique to get market share. There's a Giardano on virtually every other block of every street in Hong Kong, selling very reasonably priced t-shirts, polos, shorts, and jeans. Better still is the giant HMV music store in Kowloon, where we checked out the latest music at listening stations. After spending so much time away from this kind of stuff, it was cool to spend time on first-world pursuits.
We had read that the average visitor in Hong Kong stays for four nights, spends most of their time shopping, and never visits any of the museums or other cultural attractions. In Hong Kong it seems we were pretty typical tourists.
Food
The most disappointing thing about Hong Kong was the food. It was, at best, bland, and more often, terrible. The guidebooks talk about great food here and talk a lot about how much better it is than in China because all of the good cooks fled here. Maybe the really good cooks just kept on going to San Francisco. By the time we left, we'd given up trying to find good Chinese food were going to great lengths to avoid it. So far, Hong Kong rivals Fiji for the worst food of the trip.
Quotable Quotes
We have big sizes!”
--A petite Chinese saleswoman to Lauren, Mary, and Diane when they entered a Giordano’s. Until then had been feeling pretty good about themselves after losing weight trekking in Nepal
Hong Kong Map
Hong Kong Links
For more information on traveling to Hong Kong, the following are particularly good links:
Lonely Planet The best online source about Hong Kong for general information for independent travelers.
SCMP 1997 Hong Kong Handover Website Information about the handover, as well as links to other sites.
South China Morning Post Hong Kong daily news.