Hong Kong – 7thto 13thMay
Wanchai
Fabulous, colourful, busy Hong Kong. We arrived and were swept into a world of the future – efficient, clean, and so many people marching about with a purpose. Our hotel was fun, no nonsense, right in the heart of Wanchai, on the 9thfloor. No big wide marble concourse with gigantic flower arrangements and piped Barry Manilow here; instead the receptionist was severe, sitting in what looked like a broom cupboard. She clip-clopped crossly, in her no-nonsense lace-up shoes, and showed us our room. Crisp and clean, with a glass-walled shower room with blinds to be pulled down for privacy.
Swollen ankles, jet lagged but feeling game, we ventured out to meet John’s son, James and Christine in The Pawn (once a famous pawn shop back in the colonial days). It was a beautiful sedate colonial-style building with graceful arches and colonnades and bits of greenery trailing out in a seductive way. We drank beer and cocktails and later ate dinner.
Christine leant over and pointed out of the window to her right, ‘ That was where the madman chopped up a girl and left her in a suitcase, did you not read about it in the newspapers? The case has been in the High Court all week.’ I looked up at the innocuous balcony and wondered. What possessed people?
Our week in Hong Kong was a whirlwind. From tentatively buying our Octopus cards we were suddenly part of the throng jumping on the Metro, whizzing out to Lantau Island and boarding a cable car that took us 5 km up the mountains to the biggest seated Bronze Buddha in the world. Of course it was raining, of course we couldn’t see him, but we climbed the 280 steps just in case he emerged from the cloud.
I remembered Christine’s words as we hovered above the virgin forest below, full of pythons, cobras and Taipans. She was telling us about the very first flight of the first cable car. The City Fathers decided it would be a wonderful treat for the old grannies and grandads in care homes to have the privilege to be the first passengers. Well, of course it broke down and the poor old folk were suspended up in the sky in the heat for over three hours. At least the cable didn’t snap.
We visited the palace of 1000 carved Buddhas – all exquisite and BIG and intricate. Unfortunately we couldn’t get up close: “No Entry to Temple, No Entry to Hall of 1000 Statues, No Entry”. Then we saw a box beside another sign: “Donations Please”.
Christine told us about the carver of the amazing carved Buddhas was Derek Bailie, and he was two years above her in school. She remembers him as an aesthetic looking , rather weedy boy, destined for a life of smoking dope in cafes. Instead he surprised everyone as he turned to Buddhism and found his calling. He created such a wonderful collection of exquisite art. Sadly he died last year. They think it may have been from an illness caused by the gold or chemicals he worked with, as his face and body had grown very puffy. Pity it was so cloudy for us to truly appreciate his masterpiece. Pity they kept us out of the room of the 1000 statues, as I would have loved to have seen them close up… still we did get to view them through the doorway.
I stood waiting for John to come out of the public toilets. I had to smile listening to tourists passing judgements as they emerged, ‘That one was quite good, not bad at all … very clean.’
Next day Christine dropped us off at the Pok Fu Lam National Park, beside the reservoir.
Our aim was to walk up the Victoria Peak (almost vertical) and then get the funicular railway down. The day was monsoony and humid. We saw incense trees and read that Hong Kong is actually the word for incense.
We saw lianas, giant fronds and beautiful flowers and butterflies. The peak cleared as we staggered to the top and there below was Hong Kong and across the water, Kowloon and the New Territories.
We saw James’s office building snuggled in the cluster of high rises in the business centre including the Jardine Matheson building, fondly called the ‘building of a 1000 arse-holes/bums/bottoms’ whichever vernacular you prefer! John tried to photograph crested larks and soaring kites and then we drank tea with some Nepalese visitors, one an ex-Gurkha who once patrolled the New Territories back in the 1980s.
The funicular was broken so we walked back down, and down and down. We met a family who were gaping over a wall into a river. There was a large green lizard, and then I heard the word “snake”. I just saw the last of the long body disappear into the water. It looked like a thick python. Hmmm. So they are about.
The rain came down and umbrellas went up. We tried to remember Christine’s instructions for when we hit the main road. Left, straight, right at the lights??? I showed her address to a customer who was also buying oranges at a road stall. It was so reminiscent of Glasgow. He read the paper, nodded and gestured for us to follow him! So we did and after about two kms he pointed us to the turning and we plodded on.
The next day, sore from climbing hills and Buddha steps, we sort of crab-walked our way to the number 6 bus and off we went to Stanley. The rain fell, the road was a zig zag of terrifying chicanes.
Stanley was situated in a pretty bay, and we read that it was the first village settled way back when, when the British took over Hong Kong in 1841. But before that it had been a village in its own right since emperor days. We bought T-shirts in the market, then got the bus to Repulse Bay and had tea in The Veranda, a beautiful old colonial building overlooking the water.
Here, Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham, James Clavell and Kipling all drank tea and contemplated their navels. There was a certain old world elegance about the wooden floors and lazy ceiling fan.
Behind the building now is a huge modern hotel, complete with Feng Shiu hole in order to let the evil spirits and dragons through.
To finish the day we went to the Happy Valley Race Course to the famous Jockey Club.
On the way James led us down through an underpass. It was odd, we had seen no beggars so far, but here we saw where the homeless people had made their beds. Odd collections of armchairs, even a tent and there were shirts neatly arranged on coat hangers. They were so tidy, so organised. Detritus taken from this city’s opulent cast offs.
The races were fun. We had a splendid buffet, overlooking the racetrack, surrounded by Hong Kong’s amazing backdrop.
It was beautiful, exciting and with the free-flowing wine and beer we all relaxed and joined in the mood of gay abandon.
We had a budget of £30 and bet 20 HK$ a race, for a place and we got all our investment back, except for £4, so not a bad evening. I felt a little like My Fair Lady at the races, but restrained my language! Christine noticed on one of the monitors that on race number 4, 84 million HK$ had been spent. Obscene money. Naturally it was pouring. Poor horses.
We had plans for a trip on a junk, but it broke down and we ended up at the ABC. An Italian chef has set up an amazing restaurant in a godown (NO frills) and we met up with James’ cycling friends.
Jules was well oiled when we met, he stood up and swayed socially, ‘I know you think I’m the sensible one, but … ‘ Quite.
They are all cyclists, Etape in the Tour de France, Iron Man competitors. James’s shelf in his flat is weighed down with trophies. Yet here they were, some of Hong Kong’s finest, bankers, lawyers, financial advisers, Louis Vuitton managers, all downing gin and passion fruit and gallons of beer. John and I felt a little bit old. It did conjure up a night long ago when I downed a lot of schnapps with some jolly Danes in Kota Kinabalu. We were once young!
The following day we took the ‘ding ding’ tram eastwards and got off near the Canal Road fly over.
There, sitting on small plastic chairs with velour red cloths over plastic tables were Hong Kong’s cursing grannies. Here is where you come if you have a grievance. If you want an enemy cursed they slap the photograph and utter oaths and get quite cross.
I had to ask a lady what it was all about.
She said it was quite therapeutic. You can also take an illness to them to curse for you. Of course it is just a belief, if you really believe in your heart that they can help the power of the mind sometimes does the trick. It is all superstition or voodoo. But – very colourful and entertaining. I don’t think I would like to be on the receiving end though!
Our last afternoon with Christine and James was at the Cirque du Soleil. Fabulous, death defying stunts and made all the nicer with a glass of Spritz Aperol at half time. Coming out I tried to copy the Chinese contortionist and bend backwards but my spine feels as though there is a steel rod down the centre. I proudly told Christine about my career in the Flying Veltemas on top of Penang Hill when I was nine. She looked at me a touch disbelieving, but once upon a time I was very supple and fearless. I flew out on a rope high above the jungle in a suitably balletic pose. Oh sigh.
We decided to take the Star Ferry to Kowloon. On the way, as we approached Central Pier we passed loads of cardboard boxes flattened to make a carpet for the scores of girls, sitting playing cards, gossiping, sleeping. We did wonder, was this a more open world of the Suzie Wong story? I asked a passing lady. ‘No, these are Filipino maids, it is Saturday and their day off, and they want to get away from their employers, they come here to meet their friends, keep cool and relax.’
Kowloon was so different from colourful homely Wanchai. Big fashion names, long hot Nathan Road,
Gorgeous Tin Hau Temple with amazing incense coils, and a disappointing Jade Street.
Maybe it all comes alive at night? We ate at the Congee Noodle house, avoiding looking at the snails and intestines and other unidentifiable things. Our meal was actually OK, sort of a runny, savoury rice pudding with slivers of fish. The other diners were quite bemused by us.
Returning to the ferry we saw the Hong Kong skyline, the Victoria Peak, the IFC building soaring into the sky where we ate last night.
The next day I ate a durian. I love it, but it is an acquired taste and its smell is quite pungent. When you eat a durian, you eat alone. (John walked away with a peg on his nose to buy a sandwich.)
On our last night in Hong Kong we drank Belgian beer and ate steak. When all was dark we walked past some bamboo scaffolding. I saw a young couple, she was in a hot pink dress and he leant over and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. I was entranced. Who were they? Where were they in their story – beginning, middle or end?
We walked across the road, and down ‘Suzie Wong’ Street, where thick velvet curtains hid from view the bars inside. We had been here before – so it was enough to see the neon and remember our last visit.
Fabulous downtown Wanchai. The markets had been swept, the day’s detritus gone, the barbequed ducks and chicken feet all put away for another day. I recognised the place where I had eaten my durian, watching people coming out of the hospital pressing cotton on to their punctured veins. Black nights, quiet streets, memories of dumplings and dim sum and colour.
Tomorrow the Airport Express will whisk us away. A new adventure awaits – China.
Tales from the Gael 