Hong Kong

March 26 - 27, 2006.

Hot. Humid and Huge. That seemed to be our first impression when we disembarked at Hong Kong port and drove into the city. It felt like a Chinese version of Mumbai with plenty of buildings, shopping areas, little cramped up eateries everywhere, numerous flyovers. The only difference was the stench here was mostly of Chinese noodles and sea food.

We were dropped off at our hostel called Dragon Inn. In our quest to try and squirrel away some Hong Kong Dollars we had chosen a place that had familiar sights such as underpants hanging outside. A room of 6 feet * 8 feet including one bathroom was to be shared by four people. All we wanted to do was get over the claustrophobia and move out. Having very little time on our hands and no mood in being adventurous we always headed to the nearest Mc Donalds outlet. Even the hard core Indian Non veggies found it a little tough to handle the strong Chinese food aroma.

We headed to the famous Nathan Street, the area that added several points to Hong Kong’s Glam quotient. Several of the city’s up market malls and hotels were located. Doing window shopping at an exclusively lit up glass enclosure displaying Versace and Gucci designer outfits did not excite us anymore. We were more interested in the extremely cheap flea market and did manage some good bargains.

As we walked the streets gawking at some weird looking insects being sold like peanuts; we were enjoying the extremely pleasant sea breeze. We walked through Kowloon park. The area was enclosed with green patches, serene ponds, pavilions, sculptures etc. People were either opening picnic baskets, spending quality family time, or leaning against a tree in some quiet spot and leafing through pages of some juicy pulp fiction novel.

It was a nice long walk in the park and we had the evening to spend. No trip to the ‘Fragrant Island’ is complete without a visit to the Central Harbour, the picture that appears most on Hong Kong postcards. It was as glamorous as it looked in glossy travel magazines. A gentle breeze carried some spray of rain. The skyscrapers were wearing designer outfits lit up in a riot of colours. It called for such a pretty group photograph. We then hopped on to a ferry that took us to the foot of the Victoria Tower or ‘Peak tower’ that it is colloquially referred to. Then we had to take a tram up the peak tower. The ride up was incredible. Each and every edifice was an architectural marvel. There were so many of them. The entire area simply spelled out the amount of wealth creation that happened there. It is Hong Kong’s business district. It was reflective of the USD 30000 per capita income that we can never even imagine. ti

The top of the peak again had some restaurants, shopping malls and walking trails. Unfortunately for us we had to peer down at 1810 feet of fog. The vista of the business district would have been difficult to weave. Spending time there walking around we saw the HSBC head quarters whose claim to fame was that it was made of steel completely and easy to dismantle and be set up any where else.

Taking the tram and the ferry back we tried to soak in the ambience of our last few hours at the city. We walked back through some street shopping streets, night markets etc. We then took a cab back to the hostel. To our utter dismay we lost our way and were searching high and low for Sincere house at midnight on the streets of Hong Kong. Now this city has the notoriety of too much similarity everywhere. Everything is similar. The shops, the eateries, the buildings and to a certain extent even the people. And an important lesson that we learnt in landmarking in Hong Kong never land mark with HSBC buildings, Mc Donald’s, Seven Eleven shops or flyovers. Nearly every street has one.

It was the last night of our trip and we were in the mood for mischief. We shot some crazy videos, laughed over some pictures over cola / beer. The next morning we surfaced and were ready to fly back. I carried back home images of an extremely urbane city with a perfunctory style of existence. May be it was too premature to paint a picture. There was so much more I wish I could have seen – Ocean Park, Disney land, temples and monasteries. Sigh – we always live on a hope called next time.