Returning to Hong Kong — 15 Years Later
After touching down in Hong Kong, exhausted and excited to be near our hotel since traveling such a long way, we made our way to baggage check, retrieved our bags, and continued on with the plan. There’s a bus that goes right to our hotel, almost, and the plan was to take the bus and jump off near the hotel and walk the rest of the way. With no sleep except a few airplane naps, the energy was running low, and we made a u-turn to the taxi stand. The ATM gave us $2,000 in Hong Kong dollars, about $250 in U.S. dollars, and that would last the whole stay in Hong Kong.
The taxi got us to the hotel quickly, in less than 30 minutes, and the luxury hotel, the Royal View Hotel, was all I had hoped for. Hong Kong hotels can give you either luxury, location, or price, not all three. We chose luxury and price. The Royal View is located near Tsuen Wan, one of the many towns in Hong Kong dotting the coastline.
After a well-needed night in a real bed, I was back up before sunrise to go to the Mai Po Nature Reserve for bird photography. The Mai Po Nature Reserve is run by the World Wildlife Fund, Hong Kong, and is located right across the border of Shenzhen, Mainland China. It’s mostly a wetland area, with most of the common wetland birds, like egrets, herons, and ducks. I saw some others, and got some pretty good photos, but all in all the activity was not what I had expected. There’s no migration going on, and although there were quite a few birds to be seen, most of them were the same or similar wetland birds seen in most parts of the world.
To really experience Mai Po, one needs lots of time over several days — I would say 3 days — to visit all the hides early in the morning and explore the trails. I only had a few hours, so I did what I could and headed back to the hotel to join my crew.
The public transport is excellent in Hong Kong, the problem is the traffic and congestion. After about 8:00 a.m., pretty much everywhere you go is going to be slow moving except for the subways. The subway here is called the MTR and runs almost everywhere you need to go. It’s quite efficient to take a taxi to the subway then a bus on the other end to reach your destination. The price for tickets is low, but I bought an unlimited day pass for tourists at HK$65, less than $10 US. This allowed me to get everywhere I needed for 24 hours, at least on the trains.
We got on the MTR at Tsuen Wan and took the line all the way downtown, choosing to go hit the tourist skyway to Victoria Peak after doing a little urban exploration. We got off at Central station, made our way to the Peak Tram and all hope was lost when the more than 1,000 people waiting in line delayed our arrival to the famous Hong Kong overlook to well after sunset. Thinking quickly, we cancelled the Victoria Peak part of our plan and went to the Kowloon peninsula and Tsim Tsa Shui station. This area is the busy shopping district of Hong Kong — there are stores on top of stores and under stores in every alleyway in a maze of clothing stores, jewelry stores, restaurants, tailors, and massage parlors. Going up dozens of floors there are cheap rooms to rent that are tiny cubicles no larger than the bed with community bathrooms. There are a few nice hotels, but they are very expensive.
This is where everything happens in Hong Kong.
Nathan Road is the main street through here, and from this backbone all the roads and alleyways break off from here to lead into other complex turns and dead ends with a seemingly unlimited amount of places to spend your money. Intertwined and underneath of all of these crammed together buildings is an underground network of tunnels connected to the subway system, letting the urban traveler exit almost anywhere to avoid the above-ground traffic.
We found a basement restaurant that served spicy Sichuan style food, and got some fried chicken wings. The food was delicious, and the language barrier was not a problem since most places have all menus in english, although dealing with problems or specific questions is quite often a challenge. Portions here are small compared to in the United States, and often one has to order two portions of the same dish or two different items to get enough food. I eat large meals but less often, so I ordered 10 wings, which is two orders and cost about $8 in U.S. dollars.
Prices in Hong Kong are generally the same as in the non-urban areas of the United States, so it’s not too bad, but compared to mainland China it’s really expensive. Items such as clothing and other things in the famous street markets are a waste of money for two reasons — first you have to bargain for a good price, which you’ll really never get unless you are a local — and second because it’s the same crap that you can buy online with no hassle for cheaper. The only thing in the street markets that are worth buying are the souvenirs that say “Hong Kong” with some random artwork that you can show all your friends. Go ahead and buy a Hong Kong snow globe — then think about how often is snows in Hong Kong. I’ll help you with that — never.
I got some photos of Nathan Road and the classic red taxis that everyone knows is Hong Kong, plus a few street photos, explored a little more and took the MTR back to Tsuen Wen. The hotel shuttle was there and took us back to the hotel where we got ready for the crazy day that was to be our last entry into Mainland China.
Next Stop — Shenzhen China
