4th April, 8am HKT, Hong Kong airport express.

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Disembarking from the plane the covered tunnelway has windows, showing off the spectacular backdrop to Hong Kong’s new airport. We approach over the sea, which neatly resolves the issue of people living below the flight path and, although the approach to the runway is somewhat less dramatic since the airport ‘moved’ to Chek Lap Kok, the mountain backdrop from the terminal building is surprising and breathtaking. From the airconditioned plane, through tunnels to Norman Foster’s modernist terminal building (which does all it should, I’m pleased to say) and straight on to an air-conditioned express train, I still have no idea of the temperature outside.

The view from the train is no less spectacular than the airport, when I can see it. I’m sad to report that the concrete channel which carries the railway below the road deck on the Tsing Ma bridge, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world at 2.2km, is as remarkably similar to the concrete channels on the land either side. When the sides fall away to reveal the view I’m teased by glimpses of brain-jarring slopes with concrete landslip barriers and elevated roads running in concrete channels, and the largest flat expanse of concrete I’ve ever seen, littered with seagoing containers scattered like Lego. However, most of the time the railway itself runs in a concrete tray and I can’t see out. I spend some time wondering what all this concrete will look like after fifty years of weatherbeating; I have a horrible image of a cross between the Jetsons and Bath University before my wondering is interrupted by another glimpse of an impossibly-steep slope with a concrete tunnel bored through the hill behind.

I did catch a glimpse of a Bentley Continental on the motorway, with luggage leaning precariously from the boot and an orange strap restraining the whole affair. It seems Hong Kong’s decadence doesn’t detract from the ingenuity that can only be borne of a third-world country. The train is clean, quiet and fast though, carrying me to Central Station in HK in less than half an hour.

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