After our flight landed in Hong Kong, Maren and I took a bus straight to the downtown neighborhood of Kowloon, which is on the mainland as opposed to Hong Kong Island just across the water. My first impression of the city was that it is a cross between Singapore and Las Vegas. It is modern and efficient, yet wild and fun. There is a constant sensory overloading stream of advertising, ranging from flashing neon signs to screaming people. There are people everywhere at all hours of the day, and they seemed mostly friendly. We stayed in a gigantic old building called the ‘Chungking Mansion’ on the main road through Kowloon, right in the center of the action. There are several so-called ‘mansions’ in the area, which are basically 20+ story run-down apartment-style buildings divided into several sections filled with businesses, cheap guest houses, tiny shops and restaurants. We found a miniature room in a guesthouse on the 6th floor with its own bathroom for a very cheap price. There was hardly even room for us to lay our backpacks down, but we didn’t mind for the price and the location.
We spent most of our first full day in Hong Kong searching for a guide book to China. It was surprisingly difficult to find a used book store, and we didn’t want to pay for a brand new book. We finally searched through all the guest houses in our mansion. Several places had books they didn’t want to sell, but we finally found a hostel with the newest copy of the Lonely Planet book. We asked the guy if he would sell it to us, and he just said, ‘You can have it.’ We sure felt lucky and saved a lot of money! Later in the evening, Maren stayed in while I took a ferry across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. The skyline at night is truly incredible. There is also a nightly light show where most of the major buildings on the island turn on colorful, flashing lights. Once on Hong Kong Island, I wandered around until I found the Mid-Level Escalators, the longest set of escalators in the world. They are outdoors, and take you nearly halfway up the peak at the center of the island. Along the way, I passed through a few different neighborhoods and tons of bars, restaurants, and shops. By the time I arrived at the top, I was surrounded by luxury apartments and Western businessmen. There is an amazing diversity of people in Hong Kong, particularly in terms of class, culture, and clothing.
Maren and I took the ten minute ferry to Hong Kong Island the following day. We walked between the high rises and took the elevator up the Bank of China building to the observation deck. After the views across the harbor and the city, we took the famous peak cable car up to the island’s high point. I was surprised to discover that most of Hong Kong, including the peak, is covered in rainforest. It is quite easy to escape the crowded city and find yourself alone on a trail in the forest. From the top, we walked along a cool trail that wraps around the entire peak. The sky was gray, but the weather hung on to give us great views across the sea to Hong Kong’s numerous tiny islands, many of them uninhabited.
The rain arrived that evening, and we bought an umbrella for about 3 euros. We walked to a nearby street night market, which wasn’t very crowded due to the weather. We drank fruit shakes and perused the stalls filled with fake brand name stuff. It was easy to find a bar later on showing the World Cup, but only the England game, not the U.S. match. We watched the later German game in the middle of the night with a crowd of people while standing on a sidewalk outside a bar.
I was really looking forward to the food in Hong Kong, which was for the most part good and cheap. We mainly ate at little hole in the wall restaurants with no tourists. The food was not quite as diverse as I had expected though. We only seemed to find meat choices to go along with noodles, rice, or soup. They rarely added many vegetables, and we never found any vegetable dishes on the menu. One highlight was some authentic dim sum, which we tried at a nice restaurant in Kowloon.
We left Hong Kong by ferry in the morning, destination Macau. Macau is a former Portuguese colony about an hour’s ferry ride away. Like Hong Kong, the island has special economic status, which has helped turn it into a gambling mecca even larger than Vegas! We didn’t want to spend too much time there, so we decided to make it a day trip. We organized a bus ride for the evening and dropped off our packs. We walked through the downtown area and checked out a couple of casinos, with the first being the Wynn. I couldn’t believe how similar it is to the original Vegas version; in fact they are basically identical! Several of the big Vegas hotels have built carbon copies of themselves in Macau in the last five years. I attempted to try and play in the poker game going on at the Wynn, but the line for the low-limit games was way too long. We also checked out one of the older ‘classic’ casinos. It looked like it was designed in the 80s and the decorations were mostly cheesy and over-the-top.
We next walked through the pedestrian only streets filled with cool Portuguese-architecture buildings in various bright colors. We followed the road to the ruins of a very old Catholic church. Only the front façade and the steps up to it remain, which is a bizarre sight. Our last stop was the food and candy neighborhood, filled with shops and free samples. We tried dried meats, egg custard tarts, and peanut brittle candy. I had to fight the crowds of Chinese people to buy some candy, which seemed to be an incredibly popular souvenir. We made it to our bus in the evening and took it to the border, where we thankfully didn’t have any problems with our Chinese visas.
Our bus arrived in Guangzhou very late at night. I am embarrassed to say I had never heard of this city before coming to China, despite its having over 10 million people and being the 3rd largest city in the country! But that is because I had only heard of it by its old Westernized name ‘Canton.’ Guangzhou is the capital of all things Cantonese, the most noticeable to us being the language and the food. After hopping off the bus, we walked through the rainy night along the Pearl River. After a few kilometers, we reached a tiny island where the river forks, and found our hostel. In the morning, the weather was still dreary, but we grabbed our umbrella and hit the sights anyway. After walking around our island and the river area, we found a metro stop and took the surprisingly modern and efficient metro north to one of the main train stations. There, we bought tickets and dropped off our packs. Our next stop was the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King. This was the tomb of an important king in the Nanyue kingdom, over 2000 years old, yet it was discovered only in the 1980s by accident. The museum and mausoleum were impressive; we saw the burial site along with tons of relics and artifacts found in the tomb. The highlight was the actual burial ‘suit’ of the king, made of thousands of little jade pieces.
After the museum stop, we walked through the nearby neighborhood and found a local restaurant to eat at. We found a place that had pictures of the dishes on the wall, because like many restaurants we found in China, there was neither an English menu nor English speaking people. The meal turned out to be one of the best of our entire trip. We got three huge plates of fresh vegetables cooked in different sauces and noodles. It was delicious and enough food for the whole day, plus it all cost less than 3 euros. We also found a bakery with strange looking sweets and got a few to try out later. We then walked to a small lake set in a nice park. The path around the lake felt like walking in the jungle. There was a hotel that looks like a palace which was built basically on the lake itself. The park was a nice and peaceful getaway from the frenetic industrial port city. We had a nice leisurely walk around and then made our way back to the train station. The stop in Guangzhou was quick because both of us wanted as much time as possible in China’s countryside and small villages. Which is why we then took an overnight train west to Guilin, in one of the most beautiful areas of China.
There is one thing I forgot to mention in previous blogs. While in Thailand I received news that my bank had put a hold on my debit card due to some unauthorized activity on my account (which I later found out came from Texas… bizarre). Upon losing Maren’s wallet, neither of us had a working debit or credit card. The rest of the trip was cash-only, which proved to be challenging at times. It was nearly impossible to make any kind of reservation!
