1 Euro = 9 HKD more or less.
Never trust the hotels brochures. They multiply distances beyond measure, a short walk is at least a marathon, unless, like Carl Lewis, you have been surnamed “son of the wind” as well. Sweating like a sumo wrestler, with 1/4 of my weight hanging on the back, I stand in front of a a bus stand. There is no way to pass, people, people, and more people, are going out of a coach, it looks like a fire hydrant splashing water everywhere. Welcome to Hong Kong. 🙂 An hour and a half before this, in a morning of the year 2003, 6.30, July 21st, our Cathay Pacific plane landed on this magnificent bay, on the green island of Lantau. We will stay here two full days and one night, waiting for the next connection flight to Cairns, Australia. Australia was not in our plans, at first, as we were undecided between Kenya and Guatemala, but a fabulous 580 Eu + tax promotion made us willingly put aside the initial projects.
The airline, unlike others, does not give us free accommodation, but allows us to sleep in a sumptuous 4-star at reduced prices. Discarded therefore the Chungking Mansions option, the backpackers ghetto. A 1992 Lonely Planet, found at the library, sentences as follows “be grateful to stray cats for their work.” Given that a whopping 18 Euro per head have already been paid out in advance for accommodation, here we must immediately think of recovering money from elsewhere, that’s to say the transport. The city of Hong Kong is served by an efficient network of buses, trams, railway and metro, plus taxis, of course. The railway, which would seem the most obvious and easy thing, is clearly also the most expensive, 150 HKD. Sifting through the various Lonely Planet forum, I discovered that the alternative is to take a taxi to the nearest metro station, Tung Chung. The taxi costs about 30-40 HKD, to be divided among the occupants, plus 17 HKD subway to get downtown
And that’s what we will try to do. But we have to get there, before. Immense queue at passport control. Only one open counter. It seems to be at the post office in one of those month ends where the astral conjuncture of bad luck leads to the simultaneous expiry of house tax, car tax, bills, pensions, and so on. I foresee an hour wait, if we’re lucky. Like magic, the situation suddenly comes alive, reinforcement employees arrive, the undisciplined crowd grumbles and paws impatiently. Two more employees arrive to direct human traffic, and rebuke the idiots who jump continuously from queue to queue to get the fastest one. Five minutes and we’re on the other side, another five, and our backpacks triumphantly cross the conveyor belt line. Sigh of relief: the faster landing in history. Outside the airport, a wave of warm, moist air winds on us. Taxi of 2 different colors are stationed nearby. Green for Lantau, red for Kowloon. No one wants to take us to Tung Chung, since it’s a too short ride, so I call an airport police officer : three nanoseconds, and our butts are on board. The ride costs us 36 HKD.
Buying tickets at Tung Chung vending machines and getting to destination is a breeze, as there are English signboards everywhere. A little less easy is to orientate once you go up on the road, among a crowd of people, crazy ants that go in every direction, the deafening noise of the traffic, and the dark and threatening silhouette of the tall buildings. The climate does not help to concentrate. I’m exhausted. Twelve sleepless hours in a Boing 747 pinched in the middle between Hannu and a nice Chinese lady, are the worthy end of an odyssey began two days ago, including a grueling Turin-Rome intercity train ride without aircon, plus a night in the capital in a room without even a small fan. Detail of no small importance, apparently we are the only tourists around. Are we the only one who dared to defy the SARS psychosis?
The WHO had removed Hong Kong from its blacklist some time before my flight reservation expired, so I said to myself “why not”? To further reassure us was the information heard shortly before departure that the disease seemed to have suffered a decisive stop. At the airport we have to sign a kind of self-certification on our good health condition, after having been “scanned” with a device that measures body temperature. In two days, we will see around only 4 or 5 people with the mask on the nose. That said, however, the fact is that the only westerners we meet around are dressed in working clothes, and then must necessarily not be tourists. Our hotel, once we have spotted it on the Prince Edward Road in Kowloon, is a fabulous. And it’s clear that, at normal rates, it would not be stuff for guys like us. In perfect backpacker look, thongs and 10 Euro black linen frayed skirt for her, torn surf shorts and gym shoes for him, in the appropriate place, that’s to say the hostel, we might be considered elegant. Here, instead, fresh ironed suits and leather Italian moccasin reign 
Not caring at all for our non-compliance, we cross the lobby, arm in arm, all strutting and proud, as if we were the Dukes of Windsor .. We are in a hurry, but take profit of the comfort and silence of our room. Short nap and then outside again, ready for new adventures .. oh my God, that big word. The inhabitants of Hong Kong are among the most helpful people on the planet. I read the story of a traveler who told of some people who offered to help him carry his luggage. Now that I’m here I’m not surprised at all. I just stop a second to look at the map, and someone immediately stops and asks if everything is OK, a really pleasant surprise. Well, we’re tourists and we do things as tourist! What do the tourists do in Hong Kong? Simple, they go shopping !!! The only thing that really deserves are the electronic goods. I do not like much the big shopping centers, and they do not differ so much from the European ones, so why bother? Very interesting the Mongkok and Tsim Sha Tsui shops, and markets. I had big expectations on clothing (fake or not) and typical craft, but here obviously things are different from other countries and there is only trash, and clothes and shoes are definitely obscene 
What impresses me, in the markets, are real sex shops in open air. Some stalls sell only underwear; dozens of panties and bras of all colors and all kinds of material, velvet, silk, organza, rubber, feathers, sequins, metal, plastic. And not to mention the men’s lingerie … eh eh 🙂 At Temple Street, however, various tools, handcuffs, whips, vibrators, dildoes, cassettes, magazines, manuals like “The Kama Sutra for non-contortionists which makes crazy both him and her”. This makes me think. Everywhere I noticed signs of prohibition. On the subway you must not eat, drink and smoke because it is an offence, you must now throw any garbage in the street because it’s an offence, you must not spit on the street because it’s an offence, if you don’t pay the bus ticket it’s an offence. But … aren’t all these cocks (pardon) an offence?
Pornography aside, my attention is all for electronic gadgets, here they cost almost half that in Italy.
There are two possibilities: the department store like Fortress or Broadway, which offer higher prices, but keep you safe from rips off.
A Nikon F55, including the 28-80 mm lens is offered at 1690 HKD in a store which has been defined “serious” by a Lonely Planet source; a few meters away, in another store, a guy offers 1700, then says “let’s bargain”. In Italy the same item costs about 290 euros. Despite the prices, I decide not to buy anything, Hannu instead buys a Nikon Coolpix 2100 for 1800 HKD at Broadway’s. Be careful, though. There is no international warranty, the only one included is valid for HK. Between cameras and inflatable dolls we spend cheerfully our only evening in Chinese land.
And now let’s talk about sighseeings, Victoria Peak for first.
Premise: what is commonly defined HK actually groups some islands, Hong Kong, Lantau, Lamma, Chang Chau, plus a part of the mainland, whose end is Kowloon Peninsula, and the area behind is called New Territories. To go from Kowloon to Hong Kong island there is subway, but it’s just as quick, and cheaper and rewarding for the view to use the ferry. Example of economy: the ride from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central HK costs 5 HKD via underground. The Star Ferry costs HKD 1.7 HKD on the lower deck and 2.2 on the upper one. Once in HK Central, to go to Victoria Peak there are two alternatives, the bus and the cable car. We opt for the latter (30 HKD round trip). Around the lookout, there are paths where to make short walks. It’s worth. The main view is of course offered by the sight of the skyscrapers of Kowloon and HK facing each other, but it is not to be missed, while strolling in the opposite direction, a stop at the terrace that overlooks the Causaway Bay, much wilder, little cemented, and very green. I always thought that the rainy season, even if less sunny, on the other hand gives the sky a vitality and a brightness which are unimaginable during dry periods. The humidity makes the clouds more beautiful, and highlights the contrasts with the slashes of light. I feel as suspended, balanced between two completely opposite hemispheres perfectly adapted one to each other. If I look at one side I can imagine the confusion, the frenetic teeming among those cubes of concrete and glass 
On the other side of the terrace I breathe chlorophyll, I imagine the songs of birds and the cries of monkeys 
It rains at times. Real deluges. As a matter of fact, getting rain with this heat is a real godsend. The bad thing comes when I must go inside the buildings, where, unfortunately, the air conditioning is blowing at full power. Back down from Victoria Peak, and now awoken from the spell, we take a double-decker bus, one at random, to Aberdeen harbour, to see the typical fisherman junks. Here, again, the same story, the same contrast, first skyscrapers, a barge-restaurant full of lights, noise, and then the slow, repetitive gestures, always the same for a thousand years, of fishermen 
They ask us 100 HKD for a tour of the bay. The price is ok, but the sun is going down, soon it will be dark and perhaps it’s not worth it, since we have already captured the poetry of the place on the shores. We give up and return to Kowloon. During the ferry crossing a downpour of biblical proportions, a real typhoon, suddendly arrives. For dinner we would like to spend little money, and simultaneously avoid Mc Donald’s. We find a restaurant with cheap prices and full of people. Good sign. Happy Garden Noodles, 76 Canton Road, Kowloon. Average price 35-40 HKD. The next morning I leave Hannu in hotel and I literally materialize at 10.00 sharp in Mongkok to see the women’s market, where expressly women clothing is sold 
Some passers-by are kind enough to inform me the market is open only in the afternoon. I decide to go on the Eastern Promenade, which offers a beautiful view on the skyscrapers of Hong Kong island. Today the sun is very strong. Before re-sinking into underground, sapped by the heat already in the early morning, I go for the purchase of the century, a plastic bottle, visibly recycled, containing orange juice. The kiosk certainly does not shine for cleaning but the juice is so appealing that I forget the most elementary rules of hygiene. I will be fine, however, no diarrhea. The orange juice is good, 100% fruit and no water, and makes me feel better. Later in the day, I will visit again that kiosk, for the delight of the owner and her wallet. Along Nathan Road, I pass close the infamous Chungking Mansions, just close to the Tsim Sha Tsui subway stop. It ‘a kind of ugly tower block, dirty, old and in complete disrepair. It is said that pensions have rooms like closets, at least most of them, the traffic does not give any peace at sleep, but what really worries are not the cockroaches or mice but the fires. Lonely Planet recommends to stay only in guesthouses that have a sign outside. The others are illegal, and do not meet any safety standards. So much crap is worth a visit. The entrance, perpendicular to Nathan Road, is located in an atrium tiled and filthy, where there are several shops, alternating with the elevators which are those to be taken to get to the above mentioned pensions, if you do not want to climb 17 floors of stairs.
People in line waiting for the elevators are mainly Indian.. Then there are several African people, like Nigerian ethnic type. They must be immigrants, I suppose.
After a while I am completely surrounded by Indians who try to propose any kind of merchandise. They are very insistent, and even begin to quarrel among themselves. A simple “no thanks” is not enough to get rid of them, I have to use a decisive “piss off”.
Arrived near the promenade, I find some works on Salisbury Road, which is parallel to it, and after some wandering under the pitiless sun, I finally reach the coveted walk, I lie in the shade together with the fishermen, I relax and I enjoy the landscape, skyscrapers silhouetted in a blue sky without clouds and reflecting in the water of the bay.
In the afternoon, I meet Hannu at the orange juice kiosk, with subsequent inspection at the women’s market. Nothing special. What a disappointment, all those beautiful bucks in my wallet which shouted impatiently “spend me, spend me!”, now intended to a sad conversion into Australian currency in some dreary airport exchange office … We re-direct to the sea, with sumptuous dinner in front of the sunset, chips and chicken nuggets. We remain a long time sitting on the dock, and when it gets dark we understand that unfortunately is now time to go back to the hotel, collect our stuff, and head to the airport 
We then say “goodbye” to Hong Kong, the first destination of our holiday, in a sense almost a “forced” stay, which subtracts precious days of the trip in the enormous Australia, but we are glad to be gone here. Honestly, I hope in the future to stop here again, waiting for other flights and other coincidences….