APRIL FOOL! APRIL FOOLS!
Hong Kong, 1/4/85
Ah! China before Tienammen Square, those were the days! Right? But wait, we’re in HK. It’s seven in the morning and I have to find a hotel. First, I’ll get: 1. an International Hostel Card(Always have one, you never know.) 2. A visa for Red China from the HK consulate.
I leave the beautiful sight of HK Bay and hail a taxi. He drops me in the middle of rush-hour old town. The streets are packed with pedestrians and traffic. I go to the World Youth Hostel Association and get a temp card to have access to the cheapo hostels. Then, I find the Chinese Consulate and buy a visa I shall get in three days.
Next, a long stroll across this splendid town. I quickly retreat from the main avenues by the Bay and climb up the hills, to the smaller alleys of old Hong Kong. It’s a charmer, just like the Bruce Lee movies. Everywhere they have stalls that sell steaming calamari and Octopus. I purchase and munch away. The food is sober but delicious. They don’t have coffee around here. Once in a while I settle at a street restaurant: basic tables and benches set under a large tent, and guzzle jasmin tea. The natives ignore me. I’m glad. I haven’t slept in two days and I’m not up to any more socializing, not after my evening with Mike from Vancouver!
I’ll just wander around those streets all day, and comes dusk, catch a bus to the southern edge of town. There is a hostel there, but up a huge hill. The guide warns me that you have to hike two miles up before you get there, unless you insist on a cab. We’ll see. I walk along a narrow street full of High Fi stores. Boxes of pirated cassettes. perfect. I snoop around and find "Around The World In A Day", by Prince! Buy it. Play it. Ram it in your ears! And I continue my stroll to the sounds of "Pop Life". End of day. Bus. Suburb. A two mile road up the hostel. It's nice and fenced in like a minimum security jail. mama san is at reception. rent is cheap, cheap: $5 a night. Mama san adds; "You have to do your duty." My duty? After wake up and breakfast, I must take on a cleaning shore before I step out of the property. No problem. The hostel is made of two separate houses, one for the girls and one for me. I collapase on my bunk. I'll take a boat around the surrounding islands for a couple of days, eat a lot of octopus. Then, red China! A good day for a Fool.
Hello, I'm a chronic backpacker from NYC. After college at UCLA, I work in computer science for a while back in NY and began doing brief but deep Asian forays as a courier: back then (the 80s) the cheapest way to get to extreme destinations. I'm mostly familiar with Asian countries and since I'm working on a travel novel, I feel like voicing my own memories about the few adventures I've had. It all started in China, and up until last year, I was in Cambodia.
Hope you enjoy!
Herzog... full info
Herzog
Chas Mayfield
1985?
Why do you recount a trip so old? Haven't you been back since? It's changed an awful lot.