Our road to Hong Kong was paved with disappointment.  We originally wanted to arrive by train, but the much-delayed Guangzhou-Hong Kong high-speed link was delayed again and the logistics of traveling from Lhasa to Guangzhou to HK without it didn’t look great, so in the end we opted to fly in directly via Chongqing.

Hong Kong 香港

It’s been 21 years since the handover, but after China, Hong Kong still felt remarkably British, with ubiquitous English, driving on the left, and (after China) remarkably polite people.  It rained pretty much non-stop for the first two days, which put a bit of a damper on tourism but did provide great soaked-neon Blade Runner streetscapes at night.

We went to Maxim’s Town Hall for the obligatory dim sum pilgrimage.  Since my last visit the place has clearly found its way into a few too many guidebooks, since it was heaving with people even on a weekday and we had to wait an hour to get in — next time I’ll need to find an alternative or at least book online.  At least egg waffles off the street were fast, cheap and cheerful.

Hong Kong is still very much a Chinese city at heart and much more that heritage seemed to remain than on the mainland.  The dull-sounding Hong Kong Museum of History was epic in size and ambition, covering the city from prehistory to today with floors of massive life-size recreations, and the temple of Wong Tai Sin showed that Taoism is alive as well.

Anorak bonus album: Transport in Hong Kong & Macau

Macau 澳門

Macau will soon be linked to Hong Kong by a shiny record-breaking bridge, which was scheduled to open two weeks before our arrival, but surprise surprise, that was delayed too.  So we ended up taking the Turbojet ferry, which plowed through the waters pretty much right next to this white elephant of a bridge for most of the way: the bridge has no provisions for trains, so the only way to use it will be buses.  Sigh.

To a first approximation, nothing had changed in Macau since I visited 10 years ago.  Senado Square was still there, looking like a chunk of Portugal airlifted into the South China Sea, as were the ruins of St. Paul’s, dense alleys much like Hong Kong’s, and tacky casinos on the outskirts.

To escape the muggy heat and sputtering rain, we followed a local tip and went for a surprisingly respectable Portuguese meal at Solmar, a restaurant too old-school to have a website.  Sopa de mariscos (seafood stew), galinha à africana (“African chicken”), bolinhos de bacalhau (cod balls), all washed down with vinho verde: not the stuff of culinary epiphany, but certainly a welcome change after a week in Tibet.  And for a snack we stopped off at Margaret’s, which as always was baking the best pasteis de nata (egg tarts) in the business by the trayload.

Lamma Island 南丫島

My personal Hong Kong highlight, though, was to an island quite unlike the rest of the ex-colony: Lamma.  Perched off the southwest coast of Hong Kong Island and only reachable by ferry, buildings taller than three stories and motorized transport (except for a few utility vehicles) are banned on the island , so the only ways to get around are bike or foot.  After a mercifully brief flirtation with the plastics industry fizzled out, plenty of hippies and other countercultural types escaping the rat race have found their way here, and the grubby village Yung Shue Wan now hides more than its fair share of organic vegetarian cafes and artisan gelato places.

Many daytrippers comes here for the beaches, which aren’t too shabby even by South-East Asian standards, but the island’s second major draw is seafood.   On local advice we parked ourselves at Andy’s Seafood, and hawt diggity dawg, everything we ate here was nothing short of incredible.   Razor clams steamed with noodles, scallops with veg, sizzling eggplant, a bottle of Yanjing Beer dripping with condensation and the sun setting over the South China Sea.  The perfect end to the trip…

And to this blog series.  Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!

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