7 - 16 november 1987

Hong Kong
a highrise surprise!

Early in the morning of november the 7th we sailed into the (then) British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. After China (the China of 1987) Hong Kong came as a total surprise: skyscrapers , huge modern shopping malls, trams, fast cars, businessmen, neon-signs , and a bustling vivacious atmosphere. Now Hong Kong is a part of China (that has been modernized much itself meanwhile) the contrast will not be so shocking as it was back in 1987. For me it was then a very special experience to travel from the provincial Chinese town of Xiamen to the cosmopolitic city of Hong Kong.

The (former) Crown Colony Hong Kong consists of a number of islands and a piece of mainland. (a small peace compared to China but I'm from the Netherlands so what is small after all?) The largest island is Hong Kong Island, with Central District, the business-center, being hte most impressing part. At the opposite side of the mainland there's Kowloon, the shopping-centre, full of shops ranging from huge air-conditioned shopping-malls to small street-hawkers), full of signboards and undeniable Asia. (see map to the right) Between these two parts of Hong Kong, that together more or less form hte center, the "starferries",green-white ferries, see picture at the top, sail to and fro all day long. These are the way, and a most pleasant way, to travel between the two parts of the city.

We find a "hotel" in Kowloon at Nathan Road, in Chungking Mansions. Chungking Mansions is a sight in itself: a big chaotic building, many stories high, full of lots and lots of small shops, restaurants and other businesses of various nationalities (lots of Indian sweetshops and sari shops for example). It looks like a big roofed market place, or rather tradecenter. There also are a lot of "hotels" (to name it hotel may be a bit exaggerated) in Chungking Mansions. Our hotel has a couple of miniscule rooms on different floor. We share the bathroom with cockroaches (the first I'm aware of, but they must have been there before) we share with the other rooms on our floor. In our room most of the space is taken by hte double-bunk- bed that exactly fits the width of the room. There's just enough space left for a small cupboard, a chair and a television set but then the room really is full. We must not try to stand both of us at the same time for example. At night we fall asleep at the clicking sound of the Mah-Jong stones from somewhere on the other side of the air-shaft that our "window" looks out at. There's no food available in the hotel itself, as is the case in lots of budget-hotels in Asia, but that's no problem, There's food for sale everywhere, all day long. And wheat's even better in Hong Kong is that you can choose from and endless amount of varieties: from Sumatra rijsttafels to Kentucky Fried Chicken and from pizza's to (my favorite) Indian tandoori food. (check out the one line diary if you want to know what we ate exactly.)

Hong Kong was our first poste-restante addreds. (This was 1987 remember, computers did exist but nothing like world wide e-mailing for humble backpackers) We kept in touch with everybody back home by sending letters and postcards and receiving them as poste-restante. Hong Kong was the only big city of which we were sure we would go to so that was the firstposte-restante address. And immediately upon arrival, after getting settled in the hotel, we went by starferry (great !!!) to Hong Kong Island where the GPO, the General Post Office is to be found near the arrivalpier of the starferry. For both of us there was a pile of letters. (Seealso the postcard I sent home from Hong Kong)

In Hong Kong we had our first photo's (of Moscow and the Trans-Mongolia-Express) printed. We also did some serious shopping in shopping-paradise Hong Kong, souvenirs as well as duty-free things. Like the camera that my friend had spotted in the Netherlands but bought much cheaper in Hong Kong.(Click what the money looks like if you are interested in rolling Hong Kong Dollars!) Of the souvenirs that we bought for us ourselves and for our beloved back home, plus the things we brought along, didn't need anymore but didn't want to throw away, we each made a parcel (it was quite a problem to find a suitable box) that we sent home where it arrived one-and -a -half month later. (Do you want to know what was in it? Click!).

For us Hong Kong also was the place to arrange the next stages of our journey: we will go by plane to Singapore and then travel by the Eastern Coast of Malaysia to Thailand. In Hong Kong we buy the tickets to Singapore and we go get the required visa for Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

And then there's time for sight number 1: The mounting of Victoria Peak (the highest top of Hong Kong Island) by a funicular railway and admiring the view. Click at the photo below or at Hong Kong - View from Victoria Peak for a better view (polychrome or black and white).

Tere's much more to see and do in Hong Kong: the boats of Aberdeen and Stanley at the south of Hong Kong Island, the Happy Valley Racecourse, the Chinese Man Mo Temple in Western District. But we will not get to all that this time. ( 7 year later I will be back but I don't know that at the time of course.) We have booked the flight and go on to Singapore and Malaysia. The last adventure is the take off, between the high apartmentbuilding of the city, from the airport of Kai Tak with it's runway in the sea. (If this frightens you: don't worry, Kai Tak is not being used anymore since 1998, there's a new safer airport at Lantau.)

But before we go on one more Hong Kong surprise: as the sun is set, the lights go on. We saw it from the quay at Kowloon .....(for a full-screen picture - - for instance for your windows-background: Hong Kong by night)

Hong Kong by night