To the Pearl River Delta.

I finished packing the night before. Early morning rushes never amused me, especially since I tend to remember things only when I’m halfway to the airport. The taxi I requested the night before arrived a few minutes early, the driver was an upper-middle aged woman with a desire to have a job but a lack of ambition to train for anything else. Fair enough, not everyone can reasonably be expected to claw his or her way to the top of society. We chatted for a few minutes as we drove to main bus centre in Saint Cloud – it’s possible, albeit slightly inconvenient at times, to live there without a car. The bus and train journeys were predictable. Quiet, comfortable – but underwhelming. The flights to San Francisco were somewhat more interesting, but only in how revealing they were about the collapse in service standards. One flight was on time, but the air host clearly hated his job and wished to make everyone have as unpleasant a flight as possible. The second flight was delayed by over an hour and all customer inquiries were handled by a woman who preferred prattling on incessantly about how much she worked with one of her colleagues and could only be bothered to pay scant attention to customers needing to know when their children could meet them at airport or if they should began preparing for their funeral arrangements as information came so slowly risk of death caused by old age was a real possibility for anyone over 15. The flight to San Francisco finally departed, half-full, with an assigned air hostess who neither listened nor cared to pay attention to anyone or anything. I asked for water without ice, that is, water with no ice put into it. For someone reason she thought that meant I wanted ice with a little bit of water in it – and for her to throw it at me like a Ryan Air check-in employee realising that she could not charge over-weight/over-size fees returning a bag. These experiences reminded me once again why I do not travel more than I absolutely have to in the USA – this was one of the USA’s better airlines for customer service.

The next flight went better. Cathay Pacific, non-stop to Hong Kong. Travel time: 15.5 hours estimated, arriving 90 minutes early. The air hosts and hostesses were quick and diligent. For passenger convenience they set up a few places where we could pour ourselves cups of water, juice, and tonic or have a light snack if we were still hungry. Of course, they were also happy to them to customers as well. Upon alighting at Hong Kong, within an hour I was at Wan Chai MTR station. Passport control went quickly; the train to the city arrived promptly. The hotel was also not overly difficult to find. After leaving my bags, I went walking. Still early, life was only starting to emerge from its slumber. Stores were opening, banks were opening. Street vendors were setting up their stalls – dim sum hawkers, butchers, fruits and vegetables hawkers. Pedestrian traffic was picking up, and the temperature rose quickly. Not even 10 in the morning, I was sweating profusely. The heat and humidity, even in October, are notable. Air conditioning once thought to be the reserve of the wet and Americans, though perhaps the two mean much the same, makes life in HK tolerable. Sky scrapers are like bee hives – every level is teeming with life, people working, people travelling to work – people taking a break drinking a cup of coffee.

At one in the afternoon I returned to Wan Chai from Central and Admiralty. A few blocks from my hotel a small store sold dim sum at a reasonable price. My aeroplane meals long worn off, the meal was especially delicious. Steamed shrimp dumplings, shrimp and pork siu mai and chicken feet – yes, chicken feet. They’re delicious if cooked properly and these were cooked very well. Savoury, but not overly salty the flavour was properly spicy with a slight sweetness. After eating lunch my room was ready – something I appreciated having been on the go for over 40 hours. After sleeping for a few hours, I returned to Central to watch the sun set over the sky scrapers. Dinner that night was light, a Beijing-style crepe with spring onions, cucumbers and duck.

The following morning I woke up early to go to Macau. By boat it takes just under an hour to reach the city, once the outpost of all Europe in China. The skyline was obscured by fog and air pollution from the mainland. Once famously languid, Macau is now glittering – a gambling centre with 7 times more money spent than Las Vegas. The casinos, oppressive towers of glass, steel and concrete are best left to those with more money, for a time at least, than sense and a greater belief in luck than a grasp on the odds against them. What Macau does have is its architecture. The Portuguese have left Macau with churches, largos, theatres and other architecture that is some of the most striking in the region. Hong Kong is beautiful, it is dynamic – but it can be sterile. Macau is dirtier, Macau is grittier – yet Macau is more beautiful if one knows where to look. The worst mistake travellers make, in my opinion, is concentrating their efforts on o Largo do Leal Senado – the famous square with the black and white stone cobbling. At one time a beautiful city centre, it is now a depressing tourist trap overflowing with tourists, primarily mainlanders and – even worse – backpackers – too busy taking pictures to see or pay attention to anything or anyone. There are other parts of the city with interesting buildings that do not see as many visitors. Even a Fortaleza de Monte, the old Portuguese fort, is free from the worst of it. The small store/café is worth visiting. The old tile work is pleasing and the women, who work there, mostly older Macanese, are often willing to tell a story or two if someone asks. What I must confess to, and hope that you will forgive me my indiscretion, is my paying a tour guide to drive me around the city for 2 hours. There are things I wanted to see but the heat and poor transportation system made it difficult to gather the will to do it on my own.

As interesting as Macau is, I am always happy to return to Hong Kong. Macau is the mainland with Portuguese buildings and pastries. The people are crude, they’re rough. They’re loud, pushy – at times very aggressive in their tactics. Hong Kong has its roughness, but the people are of a different class entirely. Cleaner, well-organised and more polished Hong Kong and its people are a world city and remain cosmopolitan. In many respects, Hong Kongers polish the cultural legacy of the British era in ways that the Macanese do not. To differentiate themselves from mainlanders, they invest more in clothing, they become multi-lingual.

On my final day in Hong Kong I went to Kowloon, ostensibly to go to the Hong Kong Museum of History. I didn’t. It was hot; the museum is not easy to reach from the MTR station. Finding it difficult to even locate the correct entrance I simply returned to Hong Kong Island. Central has its sites – the Cenotaph, the Anglican Cathedral, and the old French Legation, the old Wan Chai Post Office, the stone steps and gas lamps. Biding my time I returned, by Star Ferry, to Kowloon that evening in time to see the Symphony of Lights – a laser light show held every evening on both sides of the harbour.

The next morning I woke up early to return to airport. I was horrified by two of the passengers – a Dutch businessman who simply shoved his way past people with an unbelievably crass sense of entitlement, a Frenchman who shoved an airport employee out of the way so that he could get to the front of the queue. He truly did shove her, almost knocking her over. All who saw it were astounded. He was reprimanded, but let go without too much fuss. They seemed to be happy to see the backside of him and would do nothing to delay his departure.

Within a few hours, I was in Kaohsiung.

Author: Christopher-Dorset

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