Hong Kong

Hong Kong Island - Central
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Our trip to Hong Kong wasn’t born out of choice, it was just where our ticket took us from Kathmandu to get to Thailand, so you can imagine our surprise when we landed in Dakhar at 1am in the morning! Thankfully it was just a pit stop to pick up some more people, however the commotion that they caused - refusing to sit down, refusing to stop talking on mobiles, wanting different seats and stealing the plates and glasses the food was served on was like nothing we’d ever seen before – getting to Hong Kong couldn’t come quick enough.

View of Islands from Peak - bad pollution
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Landing at Hong Kong is great – you think you’re about to land in the sea until the last minute – then the runway suddenly appears right on the edge of Lantau Island whilst all the time there’s the largest bronze sitting Buddha in the world watching over you from one of the mountains next door.

We were quite simply amazed with Hong Kong, we arrived slap bang in the middle of the morning rush hour commute and had to make our way to Kowloon on one of the other Islands using the MTR (tube). Knowing well the hatred that London commuters have for backpackers who don’t know their way we gingerly headed underground and vowed not to stop and look for signs at the bottom of the escalators. But here – people are the most helpful we have ever come across... and they didn’t want paying.

More lights
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Before we managed to find our way to our hostel we were helped three times without asking and to be honest before we’d even managed to get our map open – and every time the information was spot on – incredible.

So – our hostel was another amazement – we know why Hong Kong is a 24 hour city – no-one wants to go home. Not because of filth or cleanliness issues, just because space here is at such a premium living space is tiny. Our room had a double bed in it - it was as long as the double bed and as wide plus just enough space to open the door, next to the door to get in was a half size door in to the bathroom which was just big enough for the toilet and your legs – in that space it also had a small sink and shower, so you kind of did your business at the same time as cleaning your teeth, having a shower and cleaning the bathroom. As we said – cleanliness is not an issue – our room was spotless and although without window our room had air-con, phone, large flat screen TV and free wireless internet.

More Neon
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Hong Kong is a great mix of western convenience, huge multi-national business and just one block off the main streets tiny family run businesses and independent markets selling anything you’re ever likely to want and more.

We expected chaos and the huge number of people making life and getting around really difficult, but the place is so well organised it’s a breeze. Everyone looks happy doing their job – and everyone takes such good care of their city – the public transport is clean, there’s no graffiti and people don’t litter – it’s all in a good way, not over the top – just clean and well run. However – all this is superficial, as you can see by the photos they have a major pollution problem, to the extent that life expectancy is reduced – bizarre in a country that’s clearly educated and has buckets of money and burns Neon lights like no-where else, there’s even a nightly laser show courtesy of all the businesses on Hong Kong Island, each of them out-doing the other with lasers and neon – but to be fair, it is impressive.

Fresh Food
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Walking around the Business District on Hong Kong Island is an experience – from leaving the Star Ferry in Kowloon you’re immediately on the raised walkway looking down at the traffic below, nicely lit and covered it’s like walking on the set of Gattacca – then you find your way to the Central Escalator, the longest escalator in the world built for the daily commute it spans 800 meters through Soho to an area called the mid-levels where the standard classes live – in the morning the escalator takes you in and in the evening they switch direction for the homeward commute – so bizarre that even the residents thought the government was telling them an April fool’s joke when they announced their intention to build it back in the 80’s... they probably thought that they were having a bigger laugh when it weighed in at 500% over budget – certainly beats any overspend on any of my projects – an achievement by anyone’s standards!

It lives
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Eating here was fun – you’ve got to go somewhere that has pictures on the menu, ideally somewhere that has English translation, but to be honest – there’s not much you’d recognise and most you’d rather not know. The food however is superb and even in the open air cafes in the markets you can see your dinner swimming around in buckets – and the beer is cheap.

So for the three days that we were in Hong Kong we saw Big Buddha and took a cable car ride, looked over the Islands from The Peak, checked out the Temple Street market, toured Kowloon and bought ourselves a small notebook from one of the computer emporiums (well we had too didn’t we?) – so lucky you – more blogs to read...