Travelogue - Hongkong
Almost 2 years of futile attempts at international travel got erased finally. 4 days got spent at the fragrant harbour, as the natives call it. We know it as Hongkong. 1 day got spent at the world's top gambling destination. Not Vegas, but the tiny ex Portuguese settlement with a very avian name Macau.
With my past international travel, I often had a day wise travelogue (read Saudi Arabia) however this time the approach to collect my thoughts shall be different. Since I am still a very less travelled man (6 countries out of 200 odd makes it less than 3% of global coverage) it would be presumptious to comment of how good, bad, ugly Hongkong is. What could be more warranted would be an apple to apple comparision with another destination I have had the fortune of knowing at close quarters. So two super cities of the world seen through the same lens.
Climate - Hongkong climate (and weather) is way, way better than Dubai (DXB). Although both are ports, the latter is a desert. Hongkong's (HKG) peaks and hills offer a fascinating landscape. Its an all year round destination. There really are no best-time-to visit constraints here unlike Dubai, which is best seen during the winter months only.
History & Tradition - Dubai is very bad on this parameter. Most foreigners can conveniently spend years living there without as much knowing anything about the emirate, its culture, its evolution etc. This is quite unlikely in Hongkong. A foreigner will invariably get entangled with the Hongkongness of Hongkong, wether she likes it or not. Also, I doubt whether whatever history Dubai has can be really called as history? The museum of Dubai only manages a faint squeel for attention in the din of malls and malls and more malls. Contrast this with HKG, and Hongkong museum of history is the top ten attractions among 140 odd listed on tripadvisor.
Food - My judgement on this parameter shall be carefully qualified. From an Indian alimentary canal perspective, Hongkong food is yucks, eeeks, grose and can't-even-enter-a-restaurant. This was indeed my experience as has been every Indian's. But if we zoom to see the big picture then I would be left incapable to judge whether the Arabian Shawarma beats the Pekingese roasted duck. Here I shall narrate a small anecdote. On one of Hongkong's bylanes I stood admiring a roadside aquarium. It had these huge glass tanks filled with water and was brilliantly lit up. In the water were swimming and floating acquatic creatures with or without spines whose names I would never know. As I admired this wonderful marine spectacle, I was shocked to be approached by the man on the shop's door. He offered me the menu card! Turned out I had mistaken a restaurant for an aquarium.
Global Outlook - Dubai is hands down the winner. Hongkong's economy may have capitalist foundations but they havent managed to de Chinatize themselves at all. There is no Wal Mart or Carrefour. English is an official language but is understood by few and spoken by even fewer. I would guess globalization of Hongkong has been limited to Japanization and a little Koreanization.
Public Transport - The best way to opine on this would be alloting scores on a scale of 0 to 10. The rest will be clear. Bangalore - 0.5 Mumbai - 3 Dubai 4 Hongkong 9. The Mass Transit Rail (MTR) of Hongkong just took my breath away. Truly, truly awesome. I havent seen the New York Subway or the London Tube but using Hongkong's public transport was the best experience of my commuting life so far. On this note I must shower encomiums on Hongkong to have mass adopted the cashless way of travel. They have an Octopus card there which is basically a smart card. Within just 5-6 years of introduction, every single individual has one of her own. Right from school children to retired gentlemen, one card which they use for the railways, the buses, the trams, the mini buses and the ferries. But what left me amazed was they have now extended its use as an card for entry into schools, residential societies and even offices!! Seeing the mass adoption, retail chains like McDonalds, 7/11 installed Octopus Card Readers. Incredible isnt it. Imagine you get into the tram near your house by tapping your card, alight at the rail station and use the same card to complete your journey. After you alight from the train at your destination you feel the need for a snack. You go to McDonald's and buy your grub using the same card, then drop into a 7/11 and buy mineral water with the same card. Enter office with the same card. Movie with girlfriend at night.. book tickets using the same card and get back home in time to change by tapping the same card at your residential security entrance. Do it to know it, really. One last thing. I walked up the counter at the airport and asked for what docs I need to submit to buy a Octopus card. He said nothing, just give HKD 100. After the trip when I went to cancel the card, it took less than 2 mins to get my entire refund back. Efficiency in civil service has found a new benchmark for me after all this.
Shopping - Well, well an area which I deeply abhor :-) but have some insights to share nevertheless. If you are the mall shopper then Dubai is THE place on earth. If you prefer a balanced mix of street markets and malls then Hongkong is better though crazily expensive. Hongkong is arguably the second costliest city in the world after Tokyo. So mind the wallet!! The street markets though allow huge scope for haggling. Those who derive great satisfaction in this convergence to the arithmetic mean art of haggling would love Hongkong's streets. Dubai also has its bland share of flea markets like the gold market and Meena Bazaar area, however you cannot bargain too much. So the 'joy' of shopping is absent.
Night Life - Hongkong wins over Dubai. Dubai does have a decent night life or rather after day life but still I am a little biased over Hongkong because of its superior public transport which runs till early morning 1-2 AM. This makes night life there more exciting. Plus stuff like drinking, bars, night clubs, casinos would all be absent due to Dubai's cultural censure.
Entertainment - As far as my prejudiced opinion is considered. Dubai - 0.5, Hongkong 9. Its that big a chasm. Skiing down artificial snow covered slopes in a concrete and steel air conditioned mall just does not register as true entertainment to me. Thats Dubai for you. A fake, artifical concrete, glass and metal jungle which is straight out of George Lucas' film. Contrast this with Hongkong thousands of miles away. The cable car climbing noiselessly into the clouds giving its inmates a breathtaking view of land, sea and sky is real. The rising smoke swirls of incense sticks from temples on the sea shore is very much earthen. I have a great dislike for Dubai due to this. A desert should act like one, creating artificial islands mimicing the world would only call for the befitting debt crises like the one it has landed up in.
Loved Hongkong, but would struggle to live for an extended time frame due to food & Cantonese incapacitance.
With my past international travel, I often had a day wise travelogue (read Saudi Arabia) however this time the approach to collect my thoughts shall be different. Since I am still a very less travelled man (6 countries out of 200 odd makes it less than 3% of global coverage) it would be presumptious to comment of how good, bad, ugly Hongkong is. What could be more warranted would be an apple to apple comparision with another destination I have had the fortune of knowing at close quarters. So two super cities of the world seen through the same lens.
Climate - Hongkong climate (and weather) is way, way better than Dubai (DXB). Although both are ports, the latter is a desert. Hongkong's (HKG) peaks and hills offer a fascinating landscape. Its an all year round destination. There really are no best-time-to visit constraints here unlike Dubai, which is best seen during the winter months only.
History & Tradition - Dubai is very bad on this parameter. Most foreigners can conveniently spend years living there without as much knowing anything about the emirate, its culture, its evolution etc. This is quite unlikely in Hongkong. A foreigner will invariably get entangled with the Hongkongness of Hongkong, wether she likes it or not. Also, I doubt whether whatever history Dubai has can be really called as history? The museum of Dubai only manages a faint squeel for attention in the din of malls and malls and more malls. Contrast this with HKG, and Hongkong museum of history is the top ten attractions among 140 odd listed on tripadvisor.
Food - My judgement on this parameter shall be carefully qualified. From an Indian alimentary canal perspective, Hongkong food is yucks, eeeks, grose and can't-even-enter-a-restaurant. This was indeed my experience as has been every Indian's. But if we zoom to see the big picture then I would be left incapable to judge whether the Arabian Shawarma beats the Pekingese roasted duck. Here I shall narrate a small anecdote. On one of Hongkong's bylanes I stood admiring a roadside aquarium. It had these huge glass tanks filled with water and was brilliantly lit up. In the water were swimming and floating acquatic creatures with or without spines whose names I would never know. As I admired this wonderful marine spectacle, I was shocked to be approached by the man on the shop's door. He offered me the menu card! Turned out I had mistaken a restaurant for an aquarium.
Global Outlook - Dubai is hands down the winner. Hongkong's economy may have capitalist foundations but they havent managed to de Chinatize themselves at all. There is no Wal Mart or Carrefour. English is an official language but is understood by few and spoken by even fewer. I would guess globalization of Hongkong has been limited to Japanization and a little Koreanization.
Public Transport - The best way to opine on this would be alloting scores on a scale of 0 to 10. The rest will be clear. Bangalore - 0.5 Mumbai - 3 Dubai 4 Hongkong 9. The Mass Transit Rail (MTR) of Hongkong just took my breath away. Truly, truly awesome. I havent seen the New York Subway or the London Tube but using Hongkong's public transport was the best experience of my commuting life so far. On this note I must shower encomiums on Hongkong to have mass adopted the cashless way of travel. They have an Octopus card there which is basically a smart card. Within just 5-6 years of introduction, every single individual has one of her own. Right from school children to retired gentlemen, one card which they use for the railways, the buses, the trams, the mini buses and the ferries. But what left me amazed was they have now extended its use as an card for entry into schools, residential societies and even offices!! Seeing the mass adoption, retail chains like McDonalds, 7/11 installed Octopus Card Readers. Incredible isnt it. Imagine you get into the tram near your house by tapping your card, alight at the rail station and use the same card to complete your journey. After you alight from the train at your destination you feel the need for a snack. You go to McDonald's and buy your grub using the same card, then drop into a 7/11 and buy mineral water with the same card. Enter office with the same card. Movie with girlfriend at night.. book tickets using the same card and get back home in time to change by tapping the same card at your residential security entrance. Do it to know it, really. One last thing. I walked up the counter at the airport and asked for what docs I need to submit to buy a Octopus card. He said nothing, just give HKD 100. After the trip when I went to cancel the card, it took less than 2 mins to get my entire refund back. Efficiency in civil service has found a new benchmark for me after all this.
Shopping - Well, well an area which I deeply abhor :-) but have some insights to share nevertheless. If you are the mall shopper then Dubai is THE place on earth. If you prefer a balanced mix of street markets and malls then Hongkong is better though crazily expensive. Hongkong is arguably the second costliest city in the world after Tokyo. So mind the wallet!! The street markets though allow huge scope for haggling. Those who derive great satisfaction in this convergence to the arithmetic mean art of haggling would love Hongkong's streets. Dubai also has its bland share of flea markets like the gold market and Meena Bazaar area, however you cannot bargain too much. So the 'joy' of shopping is absent.
Night Life - Hongkong wins over Dubai. Dubai does have a decent night life or rather after day life but still I am a little biased over Hongkong because of its superior public transport which runs till early morning 1-2 AM. This makes night life there more exciting. Plus stuff like drinking, bars, night clubs, casinos would all be absent due to Dubai's cultural censure.
Entertainment - As far as my prejudiced opinion is considered. Dubai - 0.5, Hongkong 9. Its that big a chasm. Skiing down artificial snow covered slopes in a concrete and steel air conditioned mall just does not register as true entertainment to me. Thats Dubai for you. A fake, artifical concrete, glass and metal jungle which is straight out of George Lucas' film. Contrast this with Hongkong thousands of miles away. The cable car climbing noiselessly into the clouds giving its inmates a breathtaking view of land, sea and sky is real. The rising smoke swirls of incense sticks from temples on the sea shore is very much earthen. I have a great dislike for Dubai due to this. A desert should act like one, creating artificial islands mimicing the world would only call for the befitting debt crises like the one it has landed up in.
Loved Hongkong, but would struggle to live for an extended time frame due to food & Cantonese incapacitance.
Labels: Travel
5 comments
quite entertaining and informative!And that steert side 'aquarium' ..opps....restraunt ..ohh my god...and do they prepare the dish in front of you...as i have heard,so that you can enjoy it :)
And I completly agree with you on Dubai,inspite of all it malls and glitz,it remains a concrete jungle,devoid of history/culture.
I have not been to Hong Kong, but I have experience of NY, London and Paris. I would say all of them are pretty good overall. I have heard from someone that Moscow is also pretty good. I am sure anywhere in Japan and possibly Seol, Singapore and Bejing must be good as well. India is pathetic when it comes to public transport. I have heard that Delhi metro is pretty good... hope to check out personally one day.
As far as the Octopus card is concerned, I have used a similar one in London few years ago. It was called an Oyster card if I remember it correctly. There is a similar card in most top metros of the world including some tourist centers like Amsterdam, San Francisco etc, but I admit that it is not acceptable much beyond transport except in London where I do remember it had much wider usage than a bus, train, tram, tube etc.
Regarding customer friendliness of public service ,I am sure there are many examples of these around the world.
Photos bhi to share kijiye Bhai!!
I haven't been to HKG but have heard from people who have and they absolutely love it. Wish I could make a trip there in this lifetime.
Lol@ FJ's "aquarium...aka...restaurant"
ooh, i loved HK....its so much like mumbai in some ways ....very chaotic (and unplanned) and vibrant and pulsating...Did you go to Lan Kai Fong???
i found some great local food in HK actually...you should've told me before!!! But then again my taste palette was already Singaporeanized when I visited HK.
Share some snaps too dear... :)
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