Au revoir Hong Kong

Wednesday 25 December

And so the final day of this amazing trip had arrived. After checking out of the hotel and dropping off my bag at the Central airport check-in, I had the whole day until my flight just before midnight.

First of all, I went back to Kowloon and had a good walk around including the Park. It's a rather crowded park rather than an expansive area of nature and I came across the first of many groups of Filipinos I would encounter during the day who had been given Christmas day off and were having a get-together.

I then went on to the have a look around the Museum of Art that had several special exhibitions on. For me, the most accessible was the Contemporary Art Awards because it was what I'm used to. There were also exhibitions of Chinese paintings and calligraphy, with which I'm afraid I was only able to skim the surface. Work for next year!

By the time I'd finished at the Museum of Art it was getting on for 5 o'clock and I had it in mind to go up to the Peak to see the skyline at sunset. I had reckoned without the crowds. I got the ferry back to central and walked up to the stop for the tram to the Peak. A two hour queue. Back to the harbour to find the stop for the number 15 bus to the Peak. There was no real queue and the bus came quickly. Like the bus journey to Stanley, this one affords spectacular views as the bus makes its way up the series of hairpin bends. On the way, it occurred to me that it would only take a little prang like the one I'd seen yesterday and I could forgot catching my plane!

At the Peak itself, there was not surprisingly quite a crowd but the main viewing platform seemed surprisingly peaceful. The views, of course, are amazing but I had been well-prepared for them by the bus journey. I didn't linger over-long before making my way down to join the queue for the bus back for a downhill journey that took about half the time of the up hill.

So now it was time to bid a final farewell to Hong Kong and enter the tunnel of the Airport Express and be processed back to London. For me, this had been a really fabulous way to avoid my least favourite time of year in the UK and I am resolved to make such a change of location an annual feature.

So that's it until next November. 

We wish you a Merry Christmas

Tuesday 24 December

I woke up to the sound of the people in the adjoining room having a good old ‘domestic’. I don’t know what he’d done but she was most certainly giving him hell for it. And whatever he said seemed to make matters worse as she became increasingly shrill. This lasted about an hour and I tried to drown it out by catching up with The Archers, which also featured a rowing couple!

Once I got going, I headed off on the bus number 6 to Stanley. It was a recommended bus journey and lived up to the descriptions. Up past Happy Valley, a large tennis complex and the Hong Kong Cricket club to gain spectacular views of Repulse Bay before arriving at Stanley. I had a good wander around and found the Tin Hau temple as well as the much smaller Pak Tai temple in Ma Hang Park particularly worthwhile. 

I also was engaged by the Hong Kong Correctional services museum. They nowadays preach a policy of rehabilitation but the exhibits from earlier times feature pictures of beheaded pirates, various instruments of corporal punishment and a gallows. There is also an interesting section on the Vietnam Boat people in Hong Kong, with examples of gas masks and weapons that they fashioned for use in riots. The whole history of the boat people is distinctly sobering for me a lucky westerner. Also sobering is the Military Cemetery with a large contingent of victims of the Japanese invasion and occupation from Christmas Day 1941.

Stanley has a very pleasant vibe with a parade of cafes and restaurants that are a bit like the French Med. It would certainly be a good place to go for a relaxing meal, rather than the eat-at-a-gallop establishments in the centre.

When it came to return, I was slightly held up by a crash that had occurred between a bus and taxi right outside the bus station. The taxi driver was sitting in situ with a neck support waiting for the ambulances. Unfortunately from the positioning of the vehicles, it looked like it was his fault. It took about an hour of photographing and so on before the bus was moved and things started to return to normal and I got a bus (6X) that went through the Aberdeen tunnel which seems quite a feat of tunnelling.     

In the evening, I went out to see what Christmas Eve was like in Hong Kong. I was in for a shock. I took the tram towards Central and we passed one or two choirs singing carols in a quite up-tempo fashion. I thought I’d take the Star ferry to Kowloon as it is probably the best show to be had for a 20p ticket – by which I mean one gets spectacular views of the Hong Kong skyline. Arriving in Kowloon, I was amazed at the crowds, all getting into the Christmas spirit with gusto. There must have been a dozen different groups singing carols, none particularly tunefully – rather like a carol Karaoke session. There were also groups offering Free Hugs, and all in all it was great. Taking the ferry back, there was a group who started singing – the best so far and gaining deserved applause.

I then thought I’d take a look at Lan Kwai Fong and maybe have a pint to help me stay up and get on something nearer UK time. Goodness. I found myself in a major police crowd control initiative. The crowd seemed far greater that at a normal London New Year’s eve and there were hundreds of police controlling it. They had turned the approach roads to LKF into a huge zigzag switchback, making Theresa May’s queues to get into UK look like chicken feed. After walking about a mile (I kid you not) I eventually got into the LKF zone and managed to get a suitably over-priced bottle of Corona.  

At this point it was getting on for 1.00 and I decide to call it a day and head back to the hotel, filled with admiration for the Chinese no holding back approach to fun. I say Chinese because Westerners were conspicuous by the absence in an area that normally has a clientele demographic resembling Broadgate in the City.

Peace and quiet in Hong Kong

Monday 23 December

So the day has arrived. The day I leave Vietnam. I caught the bus to the airport, getting there in very good time as the bus only took half an hour. This gave me the opportunity to sit in the morning sun and finish my notes on an enlightening book called Understanding Vietnam. 

I was reluctant to leave the lovely warmth outside the terminal building and go inside, knowing this was the end of my time here. And then I was on the plane near to landing in Hong Kong. That brings its own excitement but it is a very different experience to Vietnam. I enjoyed it all apart from the over-supply of Boob-Boom merchants in Hue, the chaos of Saigon district 1 and the rubbish that is everywhere. I was heartened to read this isn’t just my fantasy. There is an article in today’s Vietnam News about this very topic under the headline ‘odorous garbage clogs local roads’. Another is entitled ‘Toxic waste flows through Bin Yen’.

But Vietnam is an addictive experience, marked out by the tsunami of scooters. They really are the constant backdrop, providing their own sound and experience. Back in Hong Kong, it really does feel quiet - and quite dangerous. I've grown quite used to casting myself across streets and expecting the traffic to weave its way around me. Anywhere else, you'd probably just be run over.  

So now, I most certainly feel sad to be no longer in a country populated by people with a remarkable spirit and a country that gave me the most excellent and varied holiday. But that is not to say that I would want to live there for a great length of time. Although I miss the chaos, I don't think I could do other than dip in and out of it.

Poor old hens

Sunday 22 December

The trip started slightly inauspiciously as we ground to a halt on the highway out of HCM City and the driver rushed round to the back of the coach with his rather rudimentary toolbox. Apparently the air conditioning wasn’t working properly. Gradually people wandered off the coach to have cigarettes or look at the driver doing his work. 

Thankfully, with the help of some tape, the job was done after half an hour and we set off again. We had the usual retail opportunity break and carried on down the busy, garbage lined, road which gradually afforded more opportunities for rural views, until we arrived at our destination Cai Be. This town is on the Mekong and one is struck immediately by the vastness of the river. At times it’s like being on a lake.

We boarded a tourist boat to look at the floating market. This was for me very interesting. It comprises boats that have come to Cai Be, to sell their products wholesale. The owner puts an example of what is for sale (e.g., a pineapple) on a bamboo. 

Then we went on to a place where they produced various products like rice wine and Royal Jelly, affording another chance to buy souvenirs. 

We carried on up the Mekong before turning into one of the tributaries. It was low tide and the water levels were pretty shallow. We transferred into rowing boats, four to a boat plus the rower and went for a peaceful twenty minutes up the tributary until we arrived at the place for lunch. The restaurant was in a ‘home stay’ a short walk away.

With my slightly mutinnous stomach, I decided it prudent to skip lunch and went for a wander. The area seemed to consist of a vast network of smallholdings and gave me some clearer idea of the Mekong. The delta is home to around 20 million people.

We all then proceeded up the road to rejoin the larger Mekong transport boat that took us up to Vinh Long where we disembarked and walked through the large market. The varieties of rice in the market are amazing, each with its own price reflecting its place in the rice pecking order. Rather sadder were the poor old chickens, lying resigned with their feet tied tightly together. However even at that stage it’s probably a better life than our battery hens have and one must be careful not to anthropomorphise and attribute death row feelings to them.

The drive back was predictably tedious, punctuated by a real emergency stop caused by a crazy young man dashing across the three lane highway. He must have been within an inch of being hit and potentially a gonner. If I heard him right the tour guide said there are 27 deaths a day on the roads. That’s not in the least surprising and I kept looking at the families with little children on their scooters, struck by their extreme vulnerability.