My world walk blog China Part Two/ Hong Kong #38

My world walk blog China Part Two/ Hong Kong #38

Monday 29th night I arrived in Hong Kong a bit late so I decided to sleep in the ferry terminal on my air mattress. Well, only a half nights sleep as one of the other sleepers snored his head off.

In the morning after a fast food breakfast, I made my way over to a cafe where a couple of local lads made me so welcome and I was able to park Karma there so as I could shop for a couple of things. Hong Kong is a pretty difficult place to get around when walking with a cart. So many steep steps and flyovers, thankfully the ones I crossed over had elevators and walk over ramps. Due to a lack of space, most homes are high rises and are God damn expensive. Many of these high rises have hilly streets and steps that circle around the tall structures and in some cases almost half way up. So its fair to say, it was a tough place for me to navigate my way around. 

The two lads I spoke to in the cafe were almost in resignation as to the future of the local people. "Everything is too expensive, we are in a catch 22 situation, we have to keep working and can't afford to buy a house, renting is also prohibitive." They also wonder what life is going to be like once China takes full control after the fifty-year democracy promise ends in 2047. That was part of the hand back agreement when the British returned the province. And what about the new bridge linking Hong Kong, Macau and China I asked. That makes it easier for the Chinese to take control any time they want, was the reply. And it was pointed out to me that it was the Hong Kong people and not China who stumped up the lion's share of the US$20 billion 55-kilometre bridge construction costs.

Later I met Lizette for a coffee. She is a lovely, photo shy South African woman with a great sense of humour. She works as a teacher here. She kindly took delivery of a new bank card which my sister Ann sent on to me. Thanks also to Andrew Lloyd who arranged this for me. 

After checking out some of the reviews of the local backpacker hostels I was a bit concerned, not really for my own safety, more for Karmas. This has been on my mind since reading about an eighteen-year-old British cyclist who had his bike stolen from a hostel in Townsville, Australia. He was hoping to become the youngest around-the-world cyclist. One would imagine there would be decent surveillance and security there? 

Many of the Hong Kong hostel reviews reported poor security, and broken elevators - a problem for me with Karma - and tiny rooms with barely enough room to store luggage

Anyway, to cut a long story short I decided to book a lovely place called Moja Nomad Aberdeen Harbour Hostel that was about eight kilometres away. It didn't seem a problem as it was early afternoon when I departed. Once again I was walking up more steep climbs, almost Alpine-like in nature and rarely was there any respite. With serious effort, I got about halfway and I was looking forward to walking through a nice Park called Aberdeen park and the Hong Kong trail as it's called. It was a shock to discover that this park had huge steep steps up and down and just too many. It would have been foolhardy to continue on so I backtracked onto the highway route which was an extra seven km. A little later the footpath was history and I was walking on a dangerous mountainous road with so many bends. Who said that Hong Kong is just a city I discovered some beautiful countryside. Then somehow I got lost on Peak Road and ended up in a tourist theme park resort. I have no idea what it is about, to be honest, I couldn't be arsed! On the way, I stopped and asked if I could pitch my tent at a fire station and was refused. The boss man suggested a shopping centre and I was also refused there. There was no decent place to camp along the highway as there were too many steep cliffs and private roads. By this stage I was ravenous and as luck would have it there was a Burger King at the resort called the Victoria Peak . That was much appreciated even if it was much smaller and three times as expensive as McDonald's in the ferry terminal. So by this stage, I had forfeited my accommodation as I had to pay the equivalent of twenty euro in advance. I hoped to find a place to camp there.  But for all of that, I was thankful for a beautiful sunset and astonishing views of Hong Kongs highrise skyscrapers which glowed and flickered in the clear night sky.