Below Belief

The reason for such a uncharacteristically early rise is that Llew and I have to collect our visas today. Once again our timing at the Visa office is impeccable. Whereas last time we came wanting to apply for visas and the queue for “Collection” was enormous, this time the situation is reversed and despite hundreds of people applying for visas, we are able to dive straight in to collect ours. Two visas, all present and correct within twenty minutes. A remarkable achievement in our battle to outsmart bureaucracy and red tape.
Today, our last day in Hong Kong, we are to brave Ocean World despite the heavy rain. We wave Graham and Riemie and family off as they leave for Britain and then take a cab to the theme park. The rain means no queues but it also means some of the attractions are not open. We spend the afternoon traipsing round the extraordinary mixture of educational and thrills ‘n spills attractions. The cable car ride over the penisular and the log flume are easily the best.
We retire to Dim Sum in the Middle Kingdom (a Brief History of China) which reveals remarkable facts about Chinese culture. We trace our horoscopes. Chris and Llew are 1976-born ‘Year of the Dragon’. I am, unsurprisingly it seems, 1975-born ‘Year of the Rabbit’. The qualities are fitting but just wait till those back home find out.
Later we collect our belongings and pack while watching Return of the Jedi and eating pancakes. I can’t sleep. We have to get up at 5.30am to catch our flight and I am woken just as I’ve dozed off by a farewell call from home at 2.30am. I feel a bit like I’m on a rollercoaster, chug-chug-chugging upwards to a point tomorrow where China begins and our train goes over the edge. There can be no going back.
I am desperately excited but also nervous. The next four weeks could hold surprises both good and bad. Whatever, that stomach plummetting feeling as we plunge over the vertical drop will be a challenge in itself.
Friday 4th July 5.30am.
Last minute dash to get dressed and scoff a bacon and egg sandwich before the taxi arrives. Somewhere in that mad half hour we both manage to shave for the very last time in four weeks but I’m rushing about too much to note the significant or savour it. We leave Chris behind this morning on his travels to New Zealand and onward around the world. Somehow we also manage to leave him our dirty dishes and duties to clean up the house… Flight KA 802 is remarkably prompt and efficient. The pilots are Australian, the food – shrimp omelette with croissant – definitely cross-cultural. Shanghai is clear, hot and incredibly flat and spacious compared to Hong Kong. Outside the airport we are suddenly immersed in a frightening world where there is no English. At least in Hong Kong every sign is bilingual and there is at least a recognisable strain of English character to the place. China is totally alien. Here we are alone in a “deaf-and-dumb” existence with our sign language, our phrase book and our intuition. And intuition is sadly lacking in our first move which is to accept the advice of a tout at the airport who tells us the hotel we are looking for has been closed but that he can take us to a good cheap hotel very close to the centre.
I have my doubts about the idea as we get into his car but not enough to decline the offer. In the end we get stiffed for a very expensive taxi ride and a ludicrously far out-of-town and overly priced hotel. The trouble is no one speaks English and we are so thoroughly tired and confused that finding somewhere else seems impossible to our minds. At least we are starting high, even if we cannot sustain this level of luxury all the way through. The taxi-driver claims we are placed 5 minutes from the railway station but he turns out to have been a blatant liar and we later discover the hotel we really wanted wasn’t closed after all.
Anyway, after two hours of sleep we venture out into the burning sun and walk to the station. It is a walk which takes us 45 minutes along a busy motorway using a combination of maps and a local man who walks with us dutifully most of the way, surprising both of us by not trying to rip us off. At least our faith in the Chinese people, so nearly shattered at such an early stage, is almost restored. We definitely won’t be trusting the touts again. Our journey takes us through back-street Shanghai, which although more spacious than the high-rise tenements of Hong Kong, is equally less sophisticated. No more of the mobile phones and pagers of Hong Kong. It is a bit like how I might imagine Victorian London to have been – with petrol fumes and mad rickshaws thrown in for good measure.
Just walking through is a fascinating and sometimes shocking insight into the way some people live. From what I see I cannot believe that this country ever actually achieves anything. They may be hard working but how do they all know to pull in the same direction? Round here, selling something seems to involve a lot of lazing round in the shade, staring intently at foreigners like us walking by. Our aim is to get to the ferry office to book our onward tickets to Nanjing tomorrow and had our hotel been anywhere like reasonably placed we might have stood a chance. Unfortunately despite our long walk and expert navigation of the limited tube network we arrive at 5.15pm, too late to do business. We resolve to return early tomorrow and spend the rest of the evening sampling the delights of Shanghai. We find a delicious, if greasy, canteen of the communist ilk serving excellent dumplings and cheap delicacies.
Then, satisfied, we take a remarkably civilised stroll along the Bund, a promenade along the river front which smacks of Shanghai’s European influence. From the style of the architecture along the front you could imagine for an instant you were in London or Prague or anywhere but China. When contrasted to the anarchic whirl of life on the streets leading up to it, life on the Bund is a most relaxing experience. There are many people out enjoying it for this reason and as the setting sun plays its last rays across the stone fronted town hall it is difficult to ignore that there is a certain magic to Shanghai. We decide to find a cheap bar to celebrate our arrival in China and locate a suitable one described in Lonely Planet. Nice idea, but actually finding this bar, supposedly in the University area, proves to be almost a life-consuming task. Shanghai is a well spread-out city and our walk, while it may be interesting, takes us on a 7-mile hike out into the suburbs. We don’t really mind because we are walking through parts of the city we’d never see otherwise and parts which give a real feel for what Shanghai is but it seems a ridiculous distance to walk even for a beer. I feel sure that if we’d been seeking a famous sight or temple we would have given up much sooner than we did.
As it turns out, despite practicing our Chinese directions on passing policemen, we never actually find the bar we’re searching for. At 9.30pm we eventually come across a small bar which turns out to be worth the walk since it is ice-cold and has a great atmosphere. The relief to get out of the heat and the fumes of the street, even at this hour, is incredible. So we wash some fumes down our throats with Tsingtao, discuss the merits of China, raise our glasses to our trip and eventually catch a cab back to the hotel to correct whatever navigational errors we made. Despite its stress and bustle, this city feels lived in and fun and I like it very much.

Later, much later, Llew tells us that the path which eventually led him to be discovered, slumped outside the apartment door at 8am was a torturous one involving bars: Joe Bananas and Carnegies, girls he can’t remember and a stripper dancing on the bar.
The headaches and the pain from drinking Carlsberg leads me to decide never to drink it again. The 28 chemical preservatives used to supposedly keep it fresh in the hot climate make me feel very unpleasant the morning after and contribute to one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever experienced. To our shame it is 3pm before we are even moving and our day is almost completely wasted, just like us last night really.
We make a trip to the ‘Football Club’ to which Graham and Riemie belong and which serves as a kind of pseudo high-class country club for expatriates. It has the marbled lifts and bow-tied bell hops and, more importantly for us, an inexhaustible supply of ice-cold lemonade to soothe pounding heads. With a view over the Happy Valley Races, a million bars and restaurants and numerous lawns, pitches and pools this is one every expensive piece of real estate, plonked as it is between nestling tower blocks in the middle of Hong Kong. Apparently the Jockey Club, one of the most profitable businesses in Hong Kong, desperately wanted some development land from the Football Club and, in return, paid for the new clubhouse and facilities to be built. They didn’t skimp on their designs.
I spend a shivering night on the floor under a single sheet in the air conditioned bedroom but never seem to develop the concious state required to do anything about it until I wake up five minutes before the alarm goes off annoyingly at 8am.

Late to bed means late to rise. Sloth-like Llew stays in bed after being woken by Andy and his mates in the middle of the night. It takes a huge cooked breakfast wafted under his nose just to get him to open his eyes. We leave at a shameful 3pm to go to Stanley Market. It is raining. In the bus queue there are some Chinese who seem to think that “SAR Day”, as today is being called (Special Administrative Region), and the end of the British rule means that Brits stay at the back of the queue.
We eventually get on the fifth bus which comes along after some forceful pushing. Stanley Market is touristy and tacky but quite cheap, but we’re not really looking for souvenirs this early on in the holiday and besides most of stuff is made in China anyway and will be significantly cheaper bought at source. After a quick bite to eat we return to the flat to get changed for our “Big Night Out”. Llew is eager to relive his rookie Lawyer days, which seem to have consisted largely of doing very little work and drinking inordinate amounts of beer.
The Chinese firework extravaganza is at 9pm tonight and something not to be missed. We head out to Kowloon to eat at the first place we can find – Spaghetti House. The streets are so crowded tonight it reminds me of Edinburgh at New Year. We have an hour before the fireworks are due to start outside and the feeling in the queue as we wait to be seated is one of polite but aggressive impatience to eat as quickly as possible. It turns out that the Chinese couldn’t organise a piss up in a Tsingtao factory. Supposedly experts at firework displays, they don’t do very well in making them easily accessible. Our view of the proceedings, packed as we are into the end of Nathan Road with a million other Chinese and their families and cameras and mobile phones and extra helpings of small children, is further obscured by large buildings in front of us. So much obscured in fact, that for us, the “Fire-and-Lighto experience they promised with claims like “three times as expensive as the British fireworks” ends up being something that happens to other people.
Needless to say the more cost efficient British fireworks last night were a resounding success. We are left with the small pleasure of trying to whip up the expectant Chinese crowd into a frenzy. By cheering loudly and pointing at the sky excitedly we discover we can start a wave of cheering and activity as everyone around us thinks something is happening. The ten minutes of fireworks we actually see would be quite impressive if they weren’t hidden diffusely by all the smoke produced and the low cloud. At the end of the day $100 million is pretty much wasted on a damp squib. Later we have the misfortune of being enticed into the Beer Castle – another of Llew’s old-time haunts. But inside in the refreshingly cool bar we satisfy ourselves with cold Carlsbergs and enjoy the entertainingly active clientele – a German girl sat in the corner with her mother and two older men throwing beer mats at a fat man stood at the bar.
When the evening grows old we try to stimulate our flagging conversation by sending a red rose to the German girl. She laughs shyly and later, when she leaves, comes to thank us. She has to go home to her hotel now but would we like to meet her tomorrow? In a hazy world we shake hands and agree to meet her at 11pm tomorrow back here. Llew rubs his hands in the most distressing of manners. Two girls sitting behind us turn out to be a good laugh although it is long past quality conversation time. ‘Liz and Bryony’ are Brits who live out here but are at university in England. They are rich, spoilt and obviously spend their holidays boozing on Daddy’s money, part of the lively ex-pat youth scene upon which Hong Kong bars thrive.
Chris and I, with too much Carlsberg inside us and thoughts of girls back home decide at 3am it is time to call it a day. After all it is 12 hours since we got up. Llew is still going strong (well, still going anyway) so we leave the man to his rabid death at the hands of Liz and Bryony and grab a taxi home.

Perhaps it is the lack of sleep but I feel distinctly homesick this morning, a feeling I haven’t had for years. It is that uneasy travellers’ malaise caused by having to settle into a new and often unsettling place where all normal routines have been thrown out and instead everything around you is confusing, strange and alien. It usually passes with time.
We make an attempt at an early start and I think even Graham and Riemie are impressed with us leaving the apartment before 11.30am. To be honest so far they haven’t seen much of us when we’ve not been sleeping. We head for Central and the MTR (Mass Transport Railway), Hong Kong’s curiously spacious underground system. Compared to the street above, the freedom and space down on the airy, wide platforms of the MTR is relieving. It seems to have a comforting breezy climate system all of its own. Of course the relief is only temporary. It lasts just about until the next train arrives, when the platform becomes much like anywhere else in Hong Kong: a sprawling, hurrying rush of people moving in every direction, fighting for themselves.
The MTR carries us over to Kowloon, another world again. Here is older, less well developed and some would say more run down than the Island itself. There are no skyscrapers, no banks or investment houses, only shabby-looking tenement blocks atop densely crowded shopping streets. I have never seen so many shops beckoning for attention in one street. Nathan Road, the main street, is just mile upon mile of material extravaganza. A digital phone store squeezes between a hardware store selling junk and a fragrant food shop with glistening whole-roasted ducks hanging outside, beady eyes still staring. Kowloon surely satisfies over and over the Chinese’ love-affair with tat, gimmicks and bric-a-brac.
The heat is oppressive and the smells varied. Every step brings a different odour. Some, fragrant, put me curiously in mind of old ladies’ wardrobes. Other supposedly fresh food odours make my stomach turn in protest. I can only hope the food on sale in China is more edible than the smell seems to portray. The stink of MSG-tainted delicacies is enough to make me feel unwell. We wander for what seems like miles and end up in the bird market. Seeing ‘Bird Market’ advertised we are instantly reminded of Cambridge’s nightclubs back home but fortunately this bird market is of the millions of tiny tweeting creatures, tweeting from equally tiny cages, variety. Offering not much sympathy – the Chinese don’t give a damn – we head for Dim Sum and satisfy our hunger that way. Outside the restaurant as we go in a man drops part of the fish delivery in the filthy gutter, then proceeds to pick all of it up and put in into the display tanks. Shocked but putting this minor incident out of our heads and not supposing for a minute that it is in any way representative of the hygiene standards of this place, we get on with our Dim Sum which is actually very good and reasonably free from unidentifiable offal which seems to haunt many of the dishes we’ve seen. Disregarding this, Chris manages to get offal anyway with his dish, which seems to be largely comprised of lumps of chicken lung.
Next we decide to confess our sins (for not helping to free the birds and cracking poorly suggestive jokes) and go to a monastery. At Tseun Wan – the furthest stop on the underground – we are told there is a Taoist temple complex called the Yuen Yuen Institute. Obviously Taoists like living in complete isolation because they have hidden their monastery very carefully. Following cryptic clues in three guide books we eventually find bus 81 which takes us there. Unfortunately we don’t realise until it’s too late that we’ve found the 81M which stops short and lands us stranded in a housing estate where we are the subject of much interest by the locals. After deliberations we decide to walk the rest of the way, uphill. It is hot and humid and the route takes us through what appears to be a kind of official shanty town where once again we are the centre of attention as we dodge open sewers running down the street. Surprisingly quickly we come across the temple and spend a peaceful ten minutes there in the ornate surroundings before closing time. It has great views across all of Kowloon and over to the peak.
So it is that, dripping wet once more, we board the deliciously cool bus and grab the MTR back to Kowloon harbour. Llew’s memory serves us well once again in finding first Delaney’s Irish pub and then Harry’s bar – a kind of Chinese-Western hybrid bar. So we quickly knock back the San Miguels and feed on pork and beef noodles. Later and quite bizarrely, Llew rings up an old friend who just happens to be having a party. Would we like to go? Well…
Travelling to this guy’s apartment is an experience itself. Chris gets his left trouser leg soaked in a hilarious roadside tap incident – just what you need when turning up to a sophisticated party – and we all make ourselves a few enemies with our now rather ragged walking abilities. Upon arrival we feel slightly uncomfortable to gate-crash the party at 9a Mosque Junction where everyone else is dressed up for the evening, we’re in scruffy travelling kit and Chris has an unfortunate damp patch. But there’s free food and drink so we soon fit right in. In fact, most of the guests seem under the impression that we’re there to operate the bar. This is a misunderstanding which suits us just fine.
We are very grateful to our hosts, Mark Lomaz and Bernie, his bubbly Chinese-English wife, who don’t seem to mind having three friendly gate-crashers.

Today we take a long hot walk to the ‘Peak’, on the hills rising high behind the apartments and dominating the skyline of Hong Kong. By the time we get to the top in the almost tropical heat I look and feel like I’ve had a shower with all my clothes on. To the million or so Chinese already at the top who chose, wisely, to come up by tram we must look like intrepid Amazon explorers. Either that or crazed exercise freaks.
The views are very impressive even if somewhat spoiled by the number of people to be waded through before being able to seeing anything. From the peak you can watch over the whole of toy-town Hong Kong – much as the Gods might. A whole metropolis packed into one small eyeful. Tiny aeroplanes take off one a minute from the water-bounded runway and skyscrapers bask bright in the reflected sunlight from all the other skyscrapers.
So we sit on the top eating our lunch, admiring the views and cursing the crowds before taking the steep tram down the hill to Central once more. The heat is exhausting for a walk around and anyway most of the big buildings, like the Bank Of China we’d hoped to get inside, are closed for the holidays. So we troop back to the flat for another dose of air conditioning and a home cooked garlic monster for dinner.
My night’s sleep – my turn on the ‘short-straw’ living room floor – is punctuated by Andrew returning at 3am to watch loud American soaps on TV and shortly afterwards (or so it seems) by Robert and his cartoons at 8am.

Our first proper day in Hong Kong (after a day recovering from jet-lag) is spent running around after Chinese visas, Hong Kong dollars and airline tickets to Shanghai in a race against the clock before offices all over Hong Kong shut down for the 5 day handover holiday starting tomorrow. We manage to achieve everything reasonably easily though – visas and flights, our gateway to China, for under £150. Later we decide to head back into town by the remarkably efficient ‘Public Bus’ – a never-ending chain of minibuses which herd people around the city – to sample the night time delights of Hong Kong’s ex-pat party district and back-alley intoxication centre – “Lan Kwai Fong”.
We choose to eat first at a restaurant whose name is as memorable as the latter part of the evening. We choose it mostly because its menu is conveniently in English and seems to be remarkably lacking in either living or tentacled creatures. We are soon digging into savoury and conventional sounding dishes like ‘Beef in Oyster sauce’, ‘Roasted Pigeon’ and ‘Duck in Ginger’, filled out with bowls of steamed rice and washed down with tea. To eat with there are only chopsticks and Chris seems to have altogether more difficulty with this dexterous concept than either Llew or I. We have already refilled our bowls twice before Chris has succeeded in picking up his first peanut. He claims indignantly that the waiter has greased his sticks for sheer comedy value but we are not convinced.
Particularly bemusing are the white jelly-like items accompanying the duck. Thinking it to be squid or other such seafood, I have already eaten one and Chris is halfway through his – with it dangling unceremoniously from his chin – when Llew suddenly works it all out. ‘They’re ducks feet!’ he declares proudly, almost failing to disguise the almost sadistic pleasure from watching Chris’s expression rush through disgust and out the other side into horror.
By 11pm, onceLlew has sucked every bone completely dry at least twice, we decide to venture outside. Some Chinese men are erecting a huge inflatable doll of some kind in the gap between two apartment blocks and since everyone else seems to be enjoying the spectacle, we decide to stop and watch too. The huge mass of silk is causing some difficulty for the men, flustered by their audience, because it is twisted and can’t inflate properly. However it is not long before they succeed and the significance becomes all too apparent. The doll turns out to be a huge red woman (symbolising China) dragging along by the hand, rather reluctantly it seems to me, a gangling pink child (Hong Kong). The amassed crowd of lagered ex-pats and young fashionable Chinese seem to be loving this Chinese propaganda stunt but we resolve to come back later with a kitchen knife and watch her rocket. We end up in ‘Mad Dogs’ English pub where they are celebrating ‘The Last Days of The Empire’ and despite beers being more than £3 a pint we settle in and stay until 3am.
By this time we’ve had enough and head for the ubiquitous kebab shop to get our rationed lumps of microwaved chicken in pittas which actually taste very good to beered-up tastebuds despite costing an extortionate amount of money. Then we spend half an hour trying to persuade a taxi-driver that he actually would like to take three staggering Westerners dressed in shorts and drenched in kebab sauce on the twenty minute trip home. Unsurprisingly, none of them seem too keen. Nevertheless by 4am we are back at ‘Baguio Wan’. It is still burning hot and sticky outside but air-con and beds are calling. Our first night in Hong Kong spent in an English pub. Shocking.

Hong Kong, that wonderfully civilised and characteristically British island seemed the perfect place to make an entrance into China. During our stay in Hong Kong we are joined by Chris, on his way to work on a Geography dissertation in New Zealand.
Hong Kong is an incredible place. Nothing is as you would expect it and everything seems to be a jumble of different cultures, styles and designs all living together seemingly in harmony and certainly in close proximity. Hong Kong’s success is a tribute to the nature of the Chinese – they are slave drivers to themselves – never ceasing to be busy or to bustle with whatever they are doing. The futuristic marbled walkways of the banks and skyscrapers, providing for the ceaseless trade of stocks, shares, futures and options, huge production lines fabricating money from time, tower over a world beneath which is about trading of a different kind. At street level there is a wild, ever-changing world of tiny backstreet alleys filled with closely packed shops, barbers, tailors, supermarkets and restaurants. A million things to buy and a million people to sell them to you – all at once in noise and chaos. To the uninitiated it is confusing and daunting but at the same time exciting and colourful. I am frequently amazed, not that this world exists, but that it actually works at all.
My first impressions are of a hot, poorly maintained and over-crowded city. People said Hong Kong would grow on me, but the only thing I find growing on me when I first arrive is profuse sweat followed by a kind of nervous exhaustion at being assaulted and overwhelmed by so much life at once. We stay with a family in Hong Kong, Graham and Riemie Coulson, who are brilliant in making us feel at home. Their apartment is quite large by Hong Kong standards although adding three six-footers to the three children already in residence hardly leaves much room for living. The view from the balcony over the world’s busiest waterway is exciting as well as impressive and helps to give a feeling of space which, one day into our trip, I still find hard to be without. The natives seem to thrive on the lack of it.