Hong Kong: Mar 8 - 20

Hong Kong(plane)

The Glam, the Grime and the Waiting

It turns out people fly to Hong Kong just to shop. Apparently that's a thing.

It was hard not to feel a little out of place as the unlicensed taxi made its way past the looming steel and glass facades of Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.

When we pulled up in front of Chungking Mansion, it could almost have been just another glammed-up shopping centre. The first three levels shone neon advertisements over the street where locals and foreigners alike were dressed to the nines and laden with bags, but it was the hawkers lounging at the entrance who set the true vibe as we entered; they lowered their voices and asked 'Anything else?' or 'Something special?' before we could even finish declining the original offer of a likely nonexistent Rolex.

Inside there were no pretensions. The hawkers were the gatekeepers that stopped pomp at the door. Inside hit like a fresh breath of unsweetened commerce, a sprawling bazaar's-worth of nearly-new, nearly-authentic electronics, clothes, miscellanea and imported food crammed into two levels of neon-lit alcoves and sold by people from all over: slick-haired Punjabis with potbellies and heavy gold chains, deep-voiced Malians standing doubly tall under the low ceilings, a chain-smoking Han salesman with teeth like wet-rot house stumps. No-one wore real Versace here.

Chungking Mansion has five pairs of elevators, each rising beyond the bottom three levels into one of the residential towers. These towers cannot be confused with a shiny storefront. The exteriors are worn and pockmarked by the litter of a thousand lives; clothes, rubbish and more drape over piping, hang from windows and rest on the rust of irregularly-placed airconditioners.

Inside are the choices for accommodation you're left with when you bring a budget to a dense, expensive city. We dragged our gear up the elevator to one such tiny room in a scaled-down hostel on the 16th floor. It took all our Jenga skill and when I slept I dreamt of handlebars, but we fit.

We were in high spirits when we first caught the Star Ferry across the soapy jade water of Victoria Harbour to apply for our Chinese visas. A famous skyline approached us. Behind us, Kowloon was part of the very landmass we'd travel until the money ran out. To our side was a dock where enormous gantries plucked shipping containers, operating at a world-turning scale and hinting at China.

It felt like a crossroad, the beginning of our 'proper' trip. No more flights--though there would be trains. No more subcontinent detours or tropical sojourns. Even the lighting was different. After two sun-bleached months came an oversaturated contrast, where everything was cast in colours that were rich, almost wet with the promise of rain.

Secure in our plans, we walked about. We spent the waiting time slinking past the other Westerners who all seemed dressed as though they'd just stepped off a regatta sponsored by the sort of Italian design label I'd never pronounce, let alone wear. We stalked Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, gazed from the Peak and devoured claypot noodles, steamed buns and long-missed chai.

While we looked underdressed in our cargo pants and fleece pullovers when we drank next to cashed-up expats and locals in the lanes of Lan Kwai Fong, we forgot our budget long enough to sample the groove of conspicuous consumption; Dheiu bought an iPod touch and I huffed daily Starbucks' cappuccinos. If it was a shopping Mecca we'd always be non-believers, but we could still make it for a while.

We thought we'd be there only a week. For that long, even the weather--15 degrees cooler than we were used to, some rain and no sun--could be as enjoyable as any new setting.

For the first few days a tiny room is an anecdote enlarged by its novelty; after a week it shrinks back to stifling walls.

When visa hiccups and Hong Kong Post blackholes forced us to stay longer, it blunted some of our enthusiasm. Stupidity on the scale of our trip relies on a minimum level of momentum and we were slowing down.

At least that's what I told myself as, by then certain that fashion was just something people took up in colder climates to distract themselves from a suicidal lack of sun, I waited by the phone--for news on lost maps--in the hostel hallway in front of rolling BBC reports, listened to Nick Cave and read Cormac McCarthy.

We eventually got our visas and maps. We were on a morning ferry the next day. We had ended up staying nearly two weeks, the longest we’ve yet spent in one spot. By the end it had felt like a poor fit for cheap, repressed cyclists; after all, we hadn’t planned this trip because we like sitting still in overpriced clothes. Still, at least we didn't stay long enough that we sailed towards China Proper with designer threads.