Hong Kong Island Transportation

STAR FERRY Star Ferry Pier, Edinburgh Place
Hong Kong


Phone: +852 2367 7065

Neighborhood : Central
Public Transport : Central MTR The glorious ferry: Hustle down to the Star Ferry and take the short ten minute trip across Victoria Harbour, either to the Kowloon or Central side. Gaze up at Hong Kong's majestic skyline, which is an erratic stretch of skyscrapers, hotels and apartment blocks. The nighttime views, when Hong Kong glitters like a diamond, are dramatic. As the cheapest therapy in town (currently HKD2.20 for an upper deck seat), few people disembark in anything but the lightest of moods.

Last time I was in Hong Kong was for the Chinese New Year in '97, prior to the much publicised take-over of the region by China. On that occasion, I was stopped several times in the street and asked by schoolchildren taking part in a project whether I thought the take-over would be good or bad for Hong Kong, and my immediate reaction was to say that I didn't think the region would change much. All in all, I think this has so far turned out to be a fairly sound prediction - China don't seem to be about to step on the feet of what must for them be an extremely prosperous area both in tourism and productivity, and as such have named the region as a special economic zone. This is basically the Chinese way of saying that an area is, to a large extent, outside of the normal strict rules laid down elsewhere by the communist government and that it can continue to be run almost as a separate entity for as long as it shows a return. For this reason, nothing much has changed here - Chinese citizens still can't just walk across the border at will, and although westerners are welcomed with open arms to Hong Kong we still have to roll through hoops to get into mainland China. Hong Kong was acquired by the then British Empire through a series of treaties. In 1842 the Treaty of Nanking handed over Hong Kong Island, while this was followed eighteen years later by the Treaty of Beijing which handed over Kowloon, the area of the mainland up to the border of the New Territories. It is little understood that both of these treaties gave the British Empire total control over these areas forever, with no possibility that the Chinese would be able to get them back later. However, a third treaty, signed in 1898, handed over the New Territories, the large area of countryside, hills and rural villages beyond Kowloon and up to the Chinese border. The problem was that, because the New Territories provided most of the natural resources to the rest of Hong Kong, handing them back in 1997 and holding on to the rest of the region would have caused more problems than it was worth, not least because the Chinese almost certainly would've made it difficult or costly to transfer resources across the new border - so the British government decided after much negotiation to hand the whole region back. These negotiations didn't go very smoothly, with Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher wanting assurances from the Peoples Republic of China that Britain would retain an administrative presence on Hong Kong after the handover to ensure the Chinese didn't just march in and impose communist values. China refused point blank, and pretty much threatened to make up the British governments mind for it, which would have meant that when the lease ran out in 1997 the PRC could have just walked in and chucked the British out anyway. Things came to a head after Black Saturday in 1983, when the stock market in Hong Kong plummeted overnight. The British government pointed the finger at China, saying that people were unnerved by the political climate, and China pointed their collective fingers right back, accusing Britain of taking advantage of the situation to bend the truth. Seeing that the people of Hong Kong were starting to lose confidence in their government, Thatcher conceded to China's demands on the understanding that China would turn Hong Kong into a special economic zone where the socialist system would not prevail and the current system of Capitalism would continue for at least 50 years. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people flocked out of Hong Kong for new homes around the world in response to the news that the PRC would be taking over, especially after the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The world waited with bated breath as July 1st 1997 approached, expecting anything from a total anticlimax to Chinese troops swarming over the horizon! As we now know, the events of that day were televised around the world and went off virtually trouble free, and in my humble opinion Hong Kong hasn't changed one iota. Of course, it'll all start again when the 50 year capitalist deadline runs out in 2047, but that's a few years off yet... I wanted to come back for a number of reasons, not least of which was the simple fact that I always enjoy the diversity of the islands which make up Hong Kong; from the hippy community of Lamma to the ex-pat settlements here in Discovery Bay. There are also, of course, shopping opportunities here beyond your wildest dreams, from the many colourful markets selling anything and everything to the packed high-rise multi-storey shopping blocks within which each floor is packed with tiny little cubical shops selling any type of technology known to man. When I was here before, it struck me that one of the great myths of our time is the notion that you can't move in Hong Kong for people. I mean to say, there certainly are a heck of a lot of people around, but most of them go to work like the rest of us. The popular misconception that you have to walk through the streets as though in a jammed lift full of people, sharpening the point of an opened umbrella and forcing people out of the way is simply untrue. So it came as a total shock to me to see the scenes at Bangkok airport this morning when I arrived for my flight. I've never seen so many Chinese people in my life - It was as though everybody who left Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s had all decided to come back at once! When our flight was called, it was as if a great dam had burst: Hundreds of people literally surged through the small door and along the passage to the plane as though it was going to leave in about 10 seconds. The crush was unbelievable - Like being at a concert. People found their luggage caught between other bodies and disappearing off in the direction of the cockpit. The Chinese aren't exactly known for their subtlety or patience, but I just couldn't believe this frantic rush to get on board!
It wasn't any different inside the plane, either.
Everybody seemed to be in everyone else's seat, and I thought that a number of fights were going to break out. The cabin crew certainly deserve medals of valour on China Airlines - and this, remember, was just a 3 and a half hour flight from Thailand to Hong Kong. I really can't imagine what it must be like on a major long-haul flight… Anyway, I fell asleep for the duration of the flight and missed whatever other unpleasantness went on. Awaking as we approached the shiny new International airport at Chep Lap Kok on Lantau Island, I looked out of the window expecting to see skyscrapers looming up around us but was pleasantly surprised. No longer do we have to hang on to our seats and pray as the plane makes it's famous low approach over the houses at the end of the runway and has to bank sharply through the valley - The approach to the new airport is totally different, giving panoramic views of one of the most incredible cities on Earth by night. Miles of twinkling neon lights tempt the passenger to the shopping delights awaiting him on the ground. Closing your eyes and praying for a safe landing is no longer written into the itinerary. The new Airport is impressive, to say the least. It sort of reminds me of Heathrow, and is a hell of a lot more modern that Kai Tak was before it. For a start, you come out of the arrival gates onto long corridors with moving sidewalks to whisk you to Customs and Immigration, whereas before it was an effort to locate where you were going at all. The whole thing looks shiny and new and actually feels like a real airport, a suitable addition to a modern Hong Kong. I was meeting a friend of mine who has been working out here for a couple of years on the Airport, and I was impressed with the speed in which we got through the airport and hopped onto a train in the Terminal building which connected us with the main subway system and went right into the heart of the city, a journey which used to take a long time through heavy traffic from the old Airport. In fact, it wasn't until we strolled off the platform at the other end that I suddenly knew exactly where I was. Hong Kong was exactly as I had left it, give or take a few touches. This was the familiar "Central" where all the buses, ferries and trains go from, and it somehow felt like home...

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

Hong Kong consists of three main areas - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and Lantau - and a number of smaller islands. I'm staying in Discovery Bay which is a high rise area of Lantau, the biggest of the islands, and is where you will find many ex pats living a reasonably western lifestyle full of McDonalds and pubs. A short ferry ride on the famous Star Ferry takes me across to Central which is the main hub of Hong Kong and from where buses, trains, taxis and rickshaws will happily take you wherever you want to go. The Star Ferry, in fact, is one of the highlights of the whole Hong Kong experience for me - not only can you get a ferry to any of the outlying islands to experience everything Hong Kong has to offer for next to nothing, but the fact is that my place of residence while I'm here in Discovery Bay means that I am actually forced to sit back and relax for the 30 minute ferry crossing to Central every morning before I can even think about going anywhere. An early morning ferry ride really sets you up for the day! Of the other two main areas of the region, Hong Kong Island itself contains all the markets, the zoological gardens, the Hong Kong Peak with it's almost vertical tram to the top and most of the nightlife. Hong Kong Island is where you will find Central, as well as a reasonable selection of shops and restaurants and the intriguingly out of place town of Aberdeen - where you can visit Ocean Park, a marine park not dissimilar to Sea World in Florida, and the Middle Kingdom which is a huge Theme Park full of Japanese Pagodas and water gardens. It is here that, on my last visit to the territory, I was sucked into a demonstration of local dance and forced to gyrate madly with beautiful Chinese girls in front of a laughing audience. Wan Chai, the nightlife district, gained notoriety as the red light district back in the days of Suzie Wong. Nowadays, however, there isn't very much about Wan Chai that could be considered seedy - it's full of McDonalds, Irish Bars and Nightclubs. The most popular bar at the moment (1998) is Carneigies, which is a rock and roll Bar and is packed to the hilt nightly by people dancing precariously on the bar and the balcony to rock from the Seventies and Eighties. The few "Girlie" bars that do exist in the area display their presence via huge neon signs but usually offer little more to the sleazy traveller than a woman in her seventies pretending to be in her twenties and a huge bar bill at the end of the night. The days of Suzie Wong are long gone. Getting around Hong Kong is easy. Kowloon, Hong Kong Island and Lantau are all joined by a clean and highly efficient subway train service called the MTR. The first challenge which greets new arrivals to Hong Kong is working out how to find their way around, and once the seemingly complex subway map has been mastered this becomes as easy as pie - as long as you don't set out in the rush hour, when slightly less than the population of North America all decide to swoop down on the system and try to board a train at the same time, getting around is a doddle and you can even switch to the overland railway and travel right up to the border with China as I will be doing later in the week. The ticketing system on the MTR also beats any I have seen elsewhere hands down. Using a system called Octopus, You buy a special train ticket with a microchip embedded in it and then keep it for as long as you like. The original Octopus ticket costs you a small deposit to cover the cost of the microchip technology should you lose it, but this is returned to you if you turn the ticket in later. Octopus is essentially a reloadable ticket, and you can add as much cash value to it as you like at any station by either going to the ticket office and handing it over or using the ticket machines you see everywhere you turn. When you walk through the turnstile onto the platform at the beginning of your journey, the system reads your Octopus automatically as you walk through without even requiring you to take it out of your bag, and then when you pass through the corresponding turnstile at your destination it deducts the cost of the journey and a little screen lights up telling you your balance. As an added bonus, you can make a journey of any length to use up whatever remains on the ticket - so if you only have a few cents left on your Octopus, you can use it to travel all the way across town which I think is a nice touch. Once again, Hong Kong is ahead of the pack on technology - why don't we have ideas like this back home (1)? Octopus can also be used just about anywhere - Taxis have a reader to swipe it, so do buses, you can even use it in McDonalds to buy a Big Mac! Today, I started my trip around the sights of Hong Kong by making my way up to the highest point on Hong Kong Island, known imaginatively as "The Peak". There are two ways to get up there, one of which is by using one of the most fascinating innovations I have ever come across, an escalator which runs right up the street from sea level to the peak. This moving staircase runs in stages between each street which crosses it all the way to the top, and you can make your way all the way to the top by jumping onto the lowest escalator and then just taking a few steps onto the next each time a road crosses your path and the current escalator is forced to stop. Each section is covered with a canopy in case it rains, and they have the system set up so that the stairs all move downward in the morning and upwards in the afternoon so that people can come down from the hillside to work and then return home later with the absolute minimum of effort. Only in Hong Kong would they think of something like this!
The other way to the Peak, and the one I took today, involves walking from Central for a few blocks until you arrive at the base station for The Peak Tram. The tram is pulled at a ridiculously steep angle up the hillside to the peak, stopping twice on the way to let people on and off at intermediate stations, and arrives, unlike the escalators, right in the heart of the Peak Tower. This is a combined shopping and entertainment complex full of both expensive boutiques and local souvenir shops, and there are fairground attractions and a lookout point from which you can obtain the famous view of the neon metropolis by night. A large restaurant also allows you to eat and look at the view at the same time, which I suspect brings a lot of romance-seekers up here late at night. There are the usual assortment of loud bars and pubs for those who just want to get drunk somewhere different. Right next door is the Peak Galleria, an even bigger shopping complex on three floors with altogether too many modern boutiques for it's own good, and outside the Galleria is an enormous fountain set into the pavement with jets which shoot water high into the air at just the right intervals so that you don't notice and scare the willies out of yourself walking across them and getting soaked to the skin. A return ticket on the Peak Tram will set you back about 28 Hong Kong Dollars, which is about £2.50 (2), but this often includes entrance to some of the attractions when you get to the top. The Peak also includes extensive gardens and walks, which a lot of people manage to totally miss as they aren't very well signposted. A visit to the Peak without taking a walk through the gardens and exploring the different nature trails laid out for you would almost be a sin and a pleasant afternoon can easily be spent just wandering aimlessly before getting hopelessly lost trying to find your way back to the Peak Tram and coming back down on the escalator instead! A trip to Hong Kong Island is never complete without at least one trip to a local street market, of which the best balance between ethnic and touristy are to be found by going on the MTR to Mong Kok or Sham Shui Po where the stall holders are happy to bargain with you as most of the prices are hugely inflated to start with. The best and most extensive market on the island for tourists is at Stanley, and this is where you can get hold of all those local handicrafts you're dying to pore over - A fairly long bus ride on Route 260 from Central takes you into Stanley and drops you off practically on the doorstep of the market, ensuring however that you have to walk past a couple of little coffee shops on the way which will try to entice you in for refreshments. Stanley market is far more than just tacky souvenirs, however; I managed to pick up a beautiful painting on fabric of boats on the harbour which I actually got to watch the artist putting the finishing touches to and which now takes pride of place on my living room wall... and let's face it, this is the only place in the world you can actually get genuine local crafts and not be remotely bothered about finding a "Made in Hong Kong" sticker on the bottom! If you're looking for a taste of the local markets, there are so many that you could spend all week wandering around them and still not come close to seeing everything. There are bird markets, fish markets, flower markets, clothes markets, fruit markets, the ladies market, the list goes on. There are markets selling nothing but Jade, markets selling nothing but candles or incense or Chinese medicines. Whatever you want, it's here. It really does sound like a get-out, but there are so many markets to be found in Hong Kong that there's little point in listing them all here - just grab a guidebook and explore and you'll be pleasantly surprised what you can find littering the tiny side streets, especially after dusk when the Temple Street night market opens and you find yourself surrounded by stall holders selling watches and men's clothing. In a grubby corner of Mong Kok, you'll find the Bird market, a fascinating but slightly worrying part of town where lonely old men come to buy and sell caged birds of every variety from mynahs to budgies, or just to show off their birds to each other (and not in the sense you're thinking, either!). Here, if you're not going deaf at the sound of a million shrill tweets from every direction, you're jumping a mile in the air because a small snake has escaped from the live bird food stalls and slithered up your trouser leg! Not being a huge fan of seeing animals caged up, the bird market doesn't exactly float my boat, and the same goes for the Goldfish market at which you will find nothing but endless varieties of fish hanging from tiny plastic bags as though they are at a fairground and with a life expectancy of about 5 minutes - unfortunately, the Chinese believe that goldfish add to the fung shui of a property so this isn't likely to stop anytime soon. At the Jade market in Yau Ma Tei, accessible from the MTR, you can bargain for Jade, Amber and Lapis carved into every shape imaginable until you realise just how much you're being ripped off compared to the locals. The only problem, in fact, with the infinite options for shopping in Hong Kong is that there is so much more space allocated to shopping centres and so little to actually getting inside. Builders here seem to build until they've created a shopping complex the size of a small town and then slap a small door onto one corner of it as an afterthought - you can literally walk around for hours looking for a way into a concrete monstrosity several blocks in size before finally discovering that you have to go down into an MTR station to get into it, or up a small flight of steps marked "Bakery - this way" One of the things that often gets mentioned about Hong Kong is the fact that many shopping centres in certain areas quite openly sell pirated computer software, something which constantly gets right up the noses of the software giants. This has always been a major problem, because as a communist country where the idea of individuals owning anything is totally unknown, China doesn't have any copyright laws as such and is not in a position to tell anybody off for making copies. From what I have been led to believe, it is alleged that the system has always involved the local Hong Kong police occasionally turning up at a well known pirate store, the owner handing over a large amount of money and them going away again - although, of course, this is purely hearsay. Recently it seems that the US government has finally thrown its dummy out of the pram and had something of a hissy fit with the Chinese stance on piracy - and whatever they've done, it seems to have worked as the local papers have been reporting a heavy downturn in the sale of pirated software in the region recently. My own experience of the situation doesn't quite tie up with the official line that piracy is going away. On my last visit to Hong Kong, I strolled into the large computer centre in Mong Kok - a shopping centre devoted entirely to computer equipment and software - and was immediately pounced upon by a man who had been waiting just inside the door. Clearly he had been put there to wait for any Westerners who looked as though they might have some money, and he didn't waste any time at all in getting to business. Upstairs, he told me, I would find hardware and PC accessories. Downstairs, there was everything I could possibly want for my PlayStation or Nintendo Console. Oh and if I wanted the "special" department then I should walk down the street for two blocks, go up a flight of dirty steps between a bakery and a Chinese Medicine Centre, and into a room where a queue of people would be lining up to ask a dodgy looking guy at a desk for copies of just about anything! I followed the directions he gave me and, although I wasn't about to partake myself (as a software designer myself, wouldn't that be just a bit hypocritical?), I observed the man at the desk sending a runner off to some secret location to collect orders as they were placed. As I walked back to the computer centre afterwards, I looked back and saw everybody leaving - which I took to mean that the police were on their way and the location would simply be casually moving somewhere else. If you want a real taste of China, you could do worse than pull up a stall and plonk yourself down at one of the gutter restaurants you'll find everywhere - and yes, gutter restaurants are exactly what it says on the box, restaurants in the gutter. If you're longing for local quaintness extends to eating something you can't quite identify on a rickety table perched under an umbrella in the gutter while a collection of soggy cats and flea infested rats stare up at you hungrily, this is the place to be! And if you go home without having contracted the plague, you can consider your holiday a success...

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

(1) Well, now we do - in London, at least. Sort of. Octopus has been almost totally "borrowed" by Transport for London and given a name so amazingly similar in thinking that you really do have to rub your chin and go "Hmmm". Oyster, as it is called in London, does suffer from the British tendency to want to make as much money as possible - not only does it not contain the option to make a journey of any length on the remaining balance, or even any remotely similar incentive, but it is actually more expensive to use an Oyster card than it is to buy a daily travelcard which allows a whole days worth of travel anywhere in London for 6 pounds. Every trip you take using Oyster is billed at the full single fare, meaning that compared to Octopus it is almost totally worthless. Another shining example of taking somebody else's idea and totally messing it up. Oyster, currently, cannot even be used anywhere other than on the train. Come on Mr Mayor of London, get your finger out! (2) Well, all things change. The current price, as of October 2007, is now 33 Hong Kong Dollars for Adults return or 22 if you don't fancy going back. For Children, it is 15 Return or 8 Single. If you fancy access to the Sky Terrace as part of your ticket, you now have to pay 48 HKD for an Adult or 23 for a child - this includes a return on the Peak Tram. Current attractions include Madame Tussauds and the EA Gaming Experience - for the latest information, check out http://www.thepeak.com.hk . This has been a public service announcement on behalf of nobody in particular.

The journey to Po Lin Monastery is something of an experience, driving as you do through Lantau National Park. The position of the Big Buddha is such that it appears teasingly between hills at various points along the route, and then when it suddenly appears in all it's glory on the horizon there is a combined intake of breath from all the tourists on the bus, and a simultaneous raising of eyes and tutting from locals who have seen it a million times and wonder what all the fuss is about. The bus stops in a circular area near the base of the monastery, at the edge of which is a turnstile leading to hundreds of steep steps up to the base of the statue. In the center of this circular area is a raised platform with seating for those too shattered to do anything other than fall over after climbing all the way up and then all the way back down again. Access to the Buddha itself is free of charge, but for sixty Hong Kong Dollars you can also access the exhibition halls at it's base and are supplied with a vegetarian meal during your visit.
The first thing which amazes people when they visit the Buddha is how old it is. Ask the average tourist who hasn't done too much research and they'll guess that it must be ancient, but in fact construction of the Tian Tan Buddha only started in 1990 and wasn't completed until 1993, something which never ceases to blow people's minds - somehow, the idea that construction could be undertaken on such a vast scale for no monetary gain seems alien to people today, so they automatically categorise it along with ancient construction projects such as the pyramids. Tell people when the Tian Tan Buddha was built and they probably won't believe you.
Two hundred and sixty-eight steps lead up to the base of the statue, several landings giving you a chance to catch your breath on the way up. At the top you can walk around the base of the statue where eight smaller statues depict the gods, and then if you have paid the entrance fee you are allowed inside the base to where I am told you can inspect an ornate carved bell designed to ring 108 times a day - but as sixty Hong Kong Dollars was a bit steep for me given the length of the trip ahead of me and my budget, I had to reluctantly give this a miss. Po Lin Monastery itself, should you still be alive to explore it having walked up and down the 268 steps of the Buddha, is just as spectacular as you might expect having read my description of Wat Tham in Phuket and the temples in Bangkok last week. This time, however, there were sour faced old ladies on hand to shriek at us incoherently should we look as though we might be contemplating producing a camera within the confines of the temple. Not allowed you see, no sir. Take as many photos outside as you like, but take a photo inside and it's shrieking banshee time - not a pleasant experience, especially as the signs which are supposed to tell you this are written in such bad English that you couldn't possibly know you were doing anything wrong prior to being wailed at. Oh, and plenty of finger wagging. I forgot about the finger wagging.
Outside the entrance to the monastery is a giant cauldron which is inscribed to mark the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997. Nearby, locals were lighting handfuls of incense sticks and planting them in smaller cauldrons, and inside the first building - Welto Temple - monastery tourists were shuffling respectfully past massive Buddhist statues protected behind glass. Beyond this first temple, a giant open courtyard was lined with trees in imminent danger of being set alight by more blazing cauldrons, and a pond and seats to one side offers a nice resting place to look up at the imposing form of the Big Buddha behind you. Steps lead up from the courtyard to the entrance to the much larger and far more elaborate Hall of the Great Hero, a much more imposing and beautifully crafted temple than Welto with the traditional double-roof design. Dragon statues adorn each side of the entrance, and you can walk around an external balcony before entering and admire the temple from all sides. Inside, the main room is dominated by statues of the past, present and future Buddhas, and this time there were many local people praying and sitting silently around the room. We all shuffled in silently through one side of the hall, made our way through looking the statues over with suitable amounts of awe, and shuffled out the other door. By the time I had looked around the temples and staggered up the steps of the Big Buddha and back down again, there was just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat from a vendor before getting back on the bus and heading home. I haven't quite sorted out what I want to do tomorrow, although I suspect I'm going to have to jump through hoops to get hold of a Visa to get into China later in the week.

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2

Today, I've spent the day in Kowloon trying to get myself a Visa to visit China over the next few days. Kowloon is the more businesslike area of Hong Kong, reachable by taking the ferry across from Central to the mainland. Here, the little backstreets are replaced by wide neon lit streets crowded with businesses being run from small offices above busy shops. Along the waterfront a modern walkway offers a relaxing morning stroll and a view across to the famous skyline of Hong Kong, and a second level contains seating where you can sit and watch the boats come and go. Morning in Tsim Sha Shui, by the waterfront, brings out children playing in the squares between the buildings and groups of people practicing Tai-Chi, a spectacle intriguing to watch as people take this opportunity to exercise on the way to work. I made my way to the Chinese embassy and crowded into the tiny room where Visas are issued. To be honest, my understanding of the local tongue certainly isn't good enough to understand half of what I was being asked, but by handing over my passport and nodding quite a lot I seemed to be getting somewhere and an English speaking local in the queue helped me out by telling me that I would have to return later in the afternoon to collect my Visa after it was issued. He also told me that they aren't supposed to hand out Visas to non Hong Kong citizens unless they are ordered in advance, so I guess I've been lucky. Nevertheless, I was happy upon my return in the evening after a day of browsing the shops to find that my passport was duly stamped and my visit to China approved - for a moment, I had rather thought I might have unknowingly signed up to the republican guard...

You can read my complete travel journals at www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer and www.offexploring.com/globalwanderer2