Hong Kong and China
28th July - 27th August 2000
Hong Kong Island from Kowloon
We flew from Bangkok to Hong Kong more or less uneventfully, although there were a few hairy moments when we hit some rather serious turbulence. A cabin-full of screaming passengers is not the best reassurance in the world that everything is going to work out fine. Still in the end it did, and despite the few shaky, nervous, vomiting passengers who disembarked with us, we were none the worse for wear. There were huge queues to go through immigration, although there were no problems once we got there. Veronika was given 14 days to stay in Hong Kong, while I received a whole six months, presumably a relic from the colonial days.
We got some money from an ATM and caught a bus into town. Having done our research in Lonely Planet, we decided that we were going to stay in the legendary or notorious Chungking Mansions. Perched on one of the main streets in Kowloon, Nathan Road, and slap-bang in the middle of Tsim Sha Tsui, the tourist ghetto of Hong Kong, Chungking Mansions consists of five tall (seventeen floors) tower blocks in various states of crumbling disrepair, and with utterly decrepit and chronically insufficient lifts that were so inadequate that most of the time it was easier to walk down from the eighth floor, and often enough it was also easier to climb the stairs to the eighth floor. Each of the five blocks were dominated by (for Hong Kong) cheap guesthouses, which were usually in a similar state of disrepair to the buildings themselves. On our first night, arriving in the twilight, we decided to go with a tout who picked us up on the street. We found a cubicle of a room with just enough room to fit a small double bed and our rucksacks; however, having heard that this was all we could expect of Chungking, and having been offered the ridiculously low price of HK$100 per night (about US$12), we decided to give it a go. The next morning we realised why it was so cheap - water had mysteriously appeared on the floor from no discernible source, and the sweaty clothes we'd hung up to dry the previous night were actually damper than before. We then went in search of another room and had scarcely set foot in the ground floor before we were approached and offered another room. We checked it out and it was much better, so we moved. We then went in search of tickets for the Trans-Siberian, but all the offices were closed because it was Sunday, so instead we wandered around Hong Kong in search of cheap food, a tall order at the best of times. In the end, we resorted to the old standby MacDonald's. It seemed a great shame to miss the opportunities for culinary indulgence offered by Hong Kong, but our extreme budget left us with no choice. We dropped down to the harbour as the twilight approached, and were rewarded with a stunning view of the lights of Hong Kong Island across the water.
Forbidden City
The next day we again went in search of tickets, first of all visiting Monkey Business, which had been recommended to us. To our dismay, we discovered that their prices were ridiculously high, so we had to find another option. This presented itself in the shape of Time Travel, whose prices were much more reasonable, and whose staff were more friendly to boot. We booked and paid for our tickets, and then emailed the hostel in Moscow that was going to help with our Russian visas. On returning later in the day to pick up our ticket vouchers, we discovered that the second-class tickets for the day we wanted to travel were fully booked, so we opted to indulge in first class, at a price still lower than the prices charged by Monkey Business.
Tuesday we received our faxed invitation which we needed to apply for our Russian visas, and so on Wednesday we went to the Intourist office to apply. We'd heard that getting tourist visas for Russia could be very difficult, but in the end it turned out to be a basically painless (although costly) procedure. We did however have to wait for a week, which meant many more visits to MacDonald's. Wednesday evening we went out for a fabulous dinner with David and Ann Hodson, followed by a drive up to the peak on Hong Kong Island. The rest of the time I worked hard trying to finish the translation I was doing before we went to China proper. The only other thing of note we did in Hong Kong was go out once again for dinner with Ann and David.
Having finally collected our Russian visas, we caught a train to Beijing. We shared a six-berth compartment with a friendly Chinese family - grandmother, parents and two daughters. The elder daughter spoke some English but was reluctant to speak, so she communicated with us through a little reusable pad similar to an etch-a-sketch toy. We had great fun with them, and slept very soundly indeed. The only hassle on the train came at the border crossing between Hong Kong and China. We had to cart all our luggage off the train and go through the customs and immigration proceedings along with the small townload of others on board, before getting back on the train.
We arrived in Beijing and hopped into a taxi to the Jinghua Hotel, the cheapest place in town where foreigners are allowed to stay. We were lucky, as we got the last two dorm beds in the whole place, for Yuan 35 each; five minutes later, and we would have had to take a double room at Y270, far more than we could really afford. Having dropped off our stuff, we went into the hotel restaurant and ordered a bowl of soup each and two main courses with rice. We had become used to the small portions of soup common elsewhere in Asia, so when the waiter brought back a tureen containing nearly two litres we were a little taken aback. We struggles gamely, but were unable to finish more than about half of the food in front of us. However, even so it cost less than a MacDonald's meal in HK.
After a good night's sleep, and after moving into a smaller dorm (four beds instead of eleven), we caught the bus into town to visit Tiananmen Square. The square is huge and ringed by an odd collection of buildings - an ancient city gate, the Great Hall of the People (China's rubber-stamp parliament), a Kentucky Fried Chicken to name but three. In the centre is the Mao Mausoleum, which was surrounded by an enormous queue of Chinese eager for a glimpse of the semi-deified former leader. We couldn't be bothered queuing, so we continued our exploration of the city. Beijing is another city which is laid out in grand style, and the walking distances are large, so wandering around becomes tiring, especially when it's either raining and cool or hot and muggy, as it was every day we were there. We reached the Forbidden City, but by this stage it was late in the day, so we decided to leave it until the next day.
On Monday we went to the Forbidden City, together with thousands and thousands of other tourists, almost all Chinese. The city itself was beautiful, and was only spoiled by the massive crowds who made it difficult to see any of the main sites. Instead we wandered off around the quieter parts, and enjoyed ourselves.
Some masonry at Shi Ma Tai
Tuesday we rested from the heat, and then on Wednesday we visited Shi Ma Tai, the steepest part of the Great Wall, and one of the quietest points around Beijing. This was definitely worth the trip - the scenery was spectacular, the wall truly astounding (at an angle of 70 degrees in place), and the difficulties involved in getting there meant that there were not many tourists around, a blessed relief after the Forbidden City and after seeing pictures of some of the more popular sections of the wall, where it seemed incredible that the ancient structure could support the swarms of tourists descending every day. We walked almost to the highest point before the rain started, so we came back down. The only slightly incongruous aspect of the visit was the music blaring out of the loudspeakers, apparently for the benefit of visitors.
The rest of the time in Beijing it was too hot and humid, and we were too tired and lazy, to do much, other than spend a day trying hard to find a bank that would advance me dollars on my credit card, so we killed time with a large group of Slovenes, students of Chinese, whom me met by chance in the hostel, playing cards, and drinking endless cups of tea. One night we bought some paintings from a lovely old man who sold his work in the hotel, and then it was time to catch the train to Moscow.