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It started at 8.10 pm by making a move to the Bengaluru international airport. I reckon it was slightly late considering the situation. It was a long weekend (Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and hence this possibility of people going for small vacations. There was heavy traffic and I reached the airport by 9.50 pm. The flight was fully booked and most of the passengers took the boarding pass earlier than me. The result was no window seat available (I really love watching those sights we get during take off and landing; plus the magnificent clouds during the journey.
It gives a feeling to give a hug to God). OK, fine, after all, it’s a night journey.
I boarded the plane (Thai Airways International) at midnight and it zoomed into the sky at 12.35 am (00.35 hrs). May be that is the reason, the day became 10th April. The food served onboard was nice
(yep, vegetarian meal). I couldn’t sleep properly.
10-April-2009, Friday
Reached Bangkok ( Suvarnabhumi International Airport) at 5.35 am (local time, which is one and a half hours ahead of my time).
The connection flight to Hong Kong was only at 10.40 am and hence there was more than enough time. I had been to this Airport twice before and I like it. So, I walked around to recollect memories and stuffs. I boarded around 10.15 and it took off at 10.45 am. This time too I did not get window seat. But the American lady who was sitting next to me (enjoying the window seat) was nice and hence when we are about to land, she sat in such a way as to not to obstruct the view I was getting.
The aerial view of Hong Kong was fantastic. Sea, islands and boats, just like the ones I had seen in pics and movies. It made me soooo happy. I became bit excited too.
I reached Hong Kong airport at 2.30 pm local time (which again is one hour ahead of Thailand time).
I was taken for a surprise when a bunch of people comprising both men and women suddenly appeared and one guy told me ‘Immigration’. I thought those were guys who are trying to help me for a fee. So I said ‘NO’ to them and tried to evade. They covered me and said ‘Passport checking’. Then I said sorry. He smiled and he was friendly. Usually we queue up near a counter to meet the immigration people plus they wear uniform. These guys were in jeans and with different type of shirts and coats. He asked what the relationship between me and the lady who was travelling with me (my wife...it was a 'we two' trip). They just checked the passport and let me go. There was a long queue to get the Visa stamped. After a couple of questions, including ‘what is the relationship between you....’, the officer gave the typical 14 days Tourist Visa.
I had collected some basic info about Hong Kong. So, first thing I did after converting some USD into HKD was to buy an Octopus card.
Octopus card is a smartcard used in Hong Kong mainly for transport. This card is also accepted in many restaurants. The minimum amount was HK$150. Out of which we can spend $100 and 50 remains as deposit and will be refunded when we return the card (to avoid inconvenience and make things more friendly, it goes to minus amount with a warning beep, when it falls below Hk$ 50). This card can be recharged at all the railway stations and 7 Eleven stores.
There was assistance in getting a taxi. They wrote the destination address in Chinese to show it to the taxi driver and asked me to take a Red Taxi (there was this Green one too). Luckily, my taxi driver understood English.
Sky scrapers. There were lots of high raise buildings and I saw many constructions going on.
There are over 100 such buildings here. The tallest one, which will have over 100 floors, is under construction. As of now, it is the International Finance Centre or IFC standing tallest with its 88 floors (10th tallest building in the world, as on this date). I passed the big HSBC building. There wasn’t much rush till I entered the heart of the city.
Drivers strictly followed traffic rules (a BIG surprise for me who comes from Bangalore). They were driving at good speeds within the city. Bikers were zooming. There were lots of Double Deckers and trams too. Hong Kong is the ONLY place in the world where all the trams are Double Decker trams.
Though Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, it is truly capitalistic and is world’s one of the top financial centres (in fact, there is an agreement with China that it wont impose its socialism for the next 50 years starting from 1984). It is like another free country except that the foreign policy and defense is handled by China itself. There are over 250 islands here but the major ones are Hong Kong, Lantau Island, New Territories and the Kowloon peninsula. I had booked my room in Mong Kok (Kowloon)
I reached there by 4.30. The owner, Jacky Chan, speaks English. He is not a soft guy. Or better put, he is a ‘you mind your business and I mind my business guy’. He showed me my room, which was on 9th floor and asked me to handover my passport to him. He said he will return it once I make the full payment (in advance). By doing that, he was giving me time to freshen myself by taking a shower and changing my dress. The room had many notices (one said if we forget to switch off the A/C while going out, he will fine HK$100) which indirectly tells us that Mr. Chan is very strict. But it was a safe place with CCTV placed at many common areas including lift. The room was tiny, but the rent was reasonable compared to the prevailing rates in HK (Hong Kong’s GDP mainly depends on service sector which includes hotel industry).
And local calls were free for us (may be this clever guy was sure that we wont make much local calls). The cot/bed looked like it was made for a 5 feet tall person. So was the quilt. Well, I am not tall (as per Indian standard) and hence it wasn’t an issue.
When I made the full payment, he returned my passport and gave the receipt. Mr. Chan owns a cute dog, which was friendly to me and wagged its cute little tail looking at me with its big eyes.
Went to McDonalds with a hope that they will have something vegetarian but resulted in practically learning the meaning of ‘high hopes’. Went to another local restaurant and they did not even understand the word vegetarian. There was an eatery just down the corner of my building which sells local food. The smell was really awful for me. I saw even some western tourists closing their nose and go. But since I felt it insulting, I just held my breath whenever I passed that shop (me and my wife never talked during that ‘take a deeeeeeeeep breath and hold it’ time).
There is a saying in Malayalam, my mother tongue, ‘ onnil pizhachal moonnu’ which means ‘if first one fails, the third (will be a success)’. So, tried KFC and I was lucky. They had some potato stuff and Veg salad. After this incident, I met Mr. Chan and requested him to write the required thing in Chinese to get vegetarian food and he wrote something which he himself translated ‘ I am a vegetarian, no meat’. He said there are no vegetarian restaurants around (which was a wrong info. I found out a restaurant which serves ONLY Chinese vegetarian food). Anyway, then on, breakfast was bread and bun related stuffs coz of one more reason – food is very expensive here and thus food started eating the budget I had kept for other things.
For a 500 ml Coke, we need to pay four times the amount we pay in India. Soap, brush, paste, cosmetic, gift items, Tshirts, Jeans... for most of these items we need to pay almost 7 times more compared to my city (when converted into my money). A Nokia E-71 mobile was costing 22000-23000, that too on sale. The same is available here in my city for 19000. Gatorade costs double. To put it in a nutshell, for anything which was available both at Hong Kong and in India, we need to pay more there in Hong Kong.
The day’s plan was to visit ‘A Symphony of Lights’ at Avenue of Stars.
It’s located along the Victoria Harbor waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui. (Like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Avenue of Stars is autographed by the hand prints of Stars and personalities from Hong Kong film industry. There is a sculpture of the one and only Bruce Lee too).
This holds a world record as world’s largest permanent light and sound show. 44 tall buildings across the Victoria harbor participate in this show, every day, exactly at 8 pm. The show uses laser beams (cost of implementing this technology was over 40 million HK$). This was a superb show.
I had a strange experience at this place. I was walking along the Avenue of Stars and I heard a “Namaste Ji” (a form of greeting by Hindi speaking Indians) from behind. I stopped walking and two Sikh men appeared. One guy was smiling at me and one guy, who was the elder one, was staring at me. I greeted him back. The smiling one introduced himself as a resident of Hong Kong (HK has a minority of Indian residents from Hindu, Sindhi and Sikh community) and told me that the other guy is a ‘baba’ (kind of religious teacher) from India who is visiting him. Then the other guy looked at me and told something about me, my luck and a comment on my past life. He said how many kids I have got, asked me to pray in the morning and finally, took a piece of paper and scribbled something and made it a ball and gave it to me. Then he said:
“Tell me the name of a color”
Two colors came into my mind. White and blue and I was confused which one to tell and finally I said:
“Blue”
“Now open that paper and read it. If what is written is blue, what I said is right…”
I opened it and, yes, he had written blue. It was a real surprise to me and I looked at him. But he was standing like nothing special has happened….I discouraged him from further talks and walked away.
I was moving around mostly using the Mass Transit Railway (MTR), the metro rail system. And couple of other times, I used the bus. The public transport system in Hong Kong is excellent and this is the only place in the world where over 90% of the population depends on public transport for their daily movement. There is this notice to wear a mask if one is suffering from cold and cough and I saw people following it ( yes, a real surprise for any Indian). Hong Kong looked disabled friendly, even for those who needed a wheel chair. There was a mechanism at the metro exits which when operated becomes kind of escalator for wheel chair people. When it rained, there was this “Floor is wet, please be careful” warning at MTR stations.
The place I stayed was very convenient.
Bus, Metro, Taxi, Shops, 7 Eleven, KFC, McDonalds….everything was near. Found out an eatery which serves excellent and exotic dishes based ONLY on fruits. I had something which contained mango, strawberry, papaya and some other fruits. It was sooooo yummy.
Went to bed bit early and zzzzzzzz purrrrrrrrrr
11-April-2009-Saturday
I slept without waking up in the middle, which was unusual. I was damn tired yesterday. Lack of sleep. I did not sleep while I was onboard on my way to HK plus I did not sleep well the night just before that. Thus two night’s sleep was due and my body’s water level was very low. Overall effect was a headache. I felt like I just woke up from my grave, completely drained. But I couldn’t afford to rest. So, after having a pumpkin bread and coffee breakfast, I had a pain killer and started the day. Off to Ngong Ping 360 (yep, we get a 360 degree view), which was in Lantau Island and I had to cross Hong Kong Island to reach here (I was staying in Kowloon Island).
The aim is to reach at the top of a hill, where there is this Big Buddha. There are three ways one can reach there – hiking, bus and then cable car. The attraction is cable car.
The difficult part was the queue and waiting to get the ticket. I waited for two hours and in that, one hour was under sun. Since many years, I wished to ride a cable car and finally Lord Buddha decided to grant my wish. It was a nice and cool ride. Sometimes luck comes in a strange way. The car got stopped (and then came the announcement saying we are safe and there is nothing to worry about) in the middle and thus we got a chance to have a great view. We can clearly see the airport while sitting in the cable car. This was about 5 km ride.
The Po Lin Buddhist monastery is located here.Here we get very good vegetarian food. We can see the Big Buddha from the cable car. There were many shops, restaurants, tea house etc. which were other attractions for a tourist apart from some major ones like ‘Walking with Buddha’ and ‘Monkey’s Tale Theatre’ which I did not visit.
I went to a restaurant and showed that ‘I am a vegetarian’ slip written in Chinese. And they suggested some noodles. No offence meant, but I felt like vomiting coz of some sea weeds that was part of this noodle soup. It smelled like fish. I could not eat it fully. Lord Buddha’s blessings came in the form of Starbucks Coffee. I had a Cappuccino and some muffin. A blueberry cheese cake smiled at me and I said ‘No No, I am stuffed’.
There was a shop which had many souvenirs, which included some Buddhist stuffs too. I checked in that shop. I asked a lady in that shop to suggest an audio CD. She asked me what kind of song I am looking for. But I was unable to express it. Anyway, at the end, she suggested 4 CDs. There was a song (or I better say tune) in my mind since long time which I wanted to hear. I had spent hours and days in search of that in the internet but in vain. All of a sudden I heard it. And I told that lady "This is the one I was looking for".( Am sooo happy to have that CD. Love you, Lord Buddha !)
I came back by bus. It was a ‘beautiful’ travel. Lush forest, beaches, boats, hills and man made tall buildings too. it was a mixture of nature’s gift and man’s crafty work. The roads in Hong Kong Island were more sloppy/steeply compared to Kowloon.
When I reached my room, I rested for a while and had coconut bun for dinner. Then went out and had an awesome mango, strawberry, rice ball thing. WOW. It was soooo niceeee. Then I checked out the ‘Ladies Market’ which was just a street away from ‘my apartment’. Well well, we need to bargain a lot. For one Chinese fan, from 60 HK$, it came down till 30. So, I decided to play safe and did not buy much from there. If we don’t have some idea about the price, we might easily get cheated.
Most of the people here were wearing Jeans. And black was the most common color for Tshirts and jackets. I had this impression that I can buy Chinese make mobile phones at cheap rate from Hong Kong. But that proved wrong. Most of the people use Nokia or Sony Ericson (or Motorola). And I observed that many people carry two mobiles. Majority of them were seen with the (hands free) earphones plugged into their ears (white color was the most common). Playing PSP while in the metro was a common thing. I saw free internet kiosks in some metro stations (may be its there in every station and I just did not observe it) For the first time, I saw a girl with a very colorful shoe which had different colored shoelace for each shoe.
The zebra crossings were assisted with light and sound for making the life easy. That is, we hear a kind of beep when the pedestrian crossing light is red and the beats become faster when it’s green. Then again for the last 10 counts, the beat is different. I found it very convenient. Most of the pedestrians follow traffic rules.
Went to bed at 11.30
12-April-2009 – Sunday.
After breakfast went to Times Square which is located in Causeway Bay, in Hong Kong island.
This is a huge building consisting of shopping centers and office complex. Most of the (or all?) shops were exclusive ones for international brands. There is no bargain. I did not buy anything but had coffee and blue berry cheese cake from Starbucks.
Off to Stanley market, in a Double Decker, this is the right place in Hong Kong for purchase, if anyone is interested in shopping. The rates for same items in most of the shops were same (for fan, Tshirt, umbrella, torch, pen etc). There were lots of shops. An interesting thing I saw was one shop selling food products from India (MTR brand heat and serve items). So far, the only thing I found cheap (in Hong Kong) was Chinese apples.
Hong Kong is a very neat and clean place. Fines are heavy for littering at public places (HK$ 1500) and smoking at public places (HK$5000) and eating food onboard a bus or train and paid areas of metro (HK$2000).
But once I saw some girls breaking this eating and drinking rule and nobody fined them.
I had pizza for dinner.
13-April-2009 – Monday
It was Victoria Peak (or The Peak) for today, which was in HK Island. Just like any other tourist, I too decided to try the Peak Tram.
This is a special tram which climbs the mountain. At some places it moves at 45 degree or more and we can feel the strain in our neck. It was a nice experience. At the top, there is wax museum (Madame Tussauds), shops, restaurants, coffee shops etc.
If we want to go to the top of the peak tower, we need to pay. And if we want to use the BIG binoculars, we need to pay again (we can pay using Octopus card). We can see Hong Kong, Victoria harbor and Kowloon from here and it’s a wonderful panoramic view.
Who can afford to miss the star cruise at Victoria harbor, during a Hong Kong visit? So I too tried it. I sat in the upper deck. It was a short trip.
Just hung around the Nathan Street and Jordan Street and found time for a blue berry cheese cake.
I had burger from Burger King for lunch. After taking a little rest, I visited Golden Computer Arcade, which is the place for electronic and computer goods. It wasn’t that cheap and CDs and DVDs were costlier than my city. Hence I did not buy anything.
It was time to have my last dinner at Hong Kong for this trip. There was an exclusive vegetarian restaurant in Yau Ma Tei. They had lots of Cantonese dishes including ‘vegetarian chicken and fish’. But I had noodles, spring roll and Chinese tea, all authentic Chinese dishes. This was a nice experience.
I became a little sad when the thought ‘oh, I have to leave tomorrow early morning’ came into my mind. So was the case with my wife, coz we really started liking Hong Kong.
Met Mr. Chan and told him that I will leave in the early morning and asked him about the check out formality (and about the availability of taxi at that wee hour).
“Just leave the keys in the room and go…taxis will be waiting down”
So, ‘trust’ is still alive. Nice to see that.
14-April-2009, Tuesday.
Did not sleep well the other night, but woke up at 3.30 in the morning. Left the room at 4.20 and as Mr. Chan said, there were taxis. The driver did not understand ‘Airport’. He called up somebody who can speak English and gave us the phone. Done… He was a very careful and cautious driver who never crossed the speed limits.
Reached Bangkok airport around 9.45 am local time. My next flight was only at night. I booked it that way coz I had a plan to get a transit or regular visa and go out. This was to meet a friend of mine and spent some time with her. And then, I can do some shopping at MBK, if I get time. But she was busy and hence I could not meet her. So I ditched the plan to go out for shopping too.
Bangkok was on the verge of a civil war. There were these anti-government protests going on which even became violent. One person died coz of police firing. So, anyway, it wasn’t a good idea to get out of the airport, especially for a tourist.
So, I spent the whole day at the airport. It never was/is boring to spend some time at this airport. It’s a big and beautiful airport with so many shops around. And since it was Songkran festival time, there were live shows which were connected to the art, culture and music of Thailand. Enjoyed a Thai meal for lunch...later, snacked at Starbucks and Burger king . Did some purchase from Duty Free shops and there I go off to Bangalore, with a ‘not so happy but soo happy’ mind.
15-April
Reached home at wee hours.
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