Hong Kong & Macau: A View from the Top (and the Bottom)

Earlier this month, I attended the annual Fulbright China Research Form, held for a week in Hong Kong and Macau with Fulbright Fellows from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan in attendance.  I flew into Shenzhen, the  largely uninteresting but prosperous Special Economic Zone in Guangdong Province (Canton), across the river from Hong Kong.  I immediately hopped a bus to go through customs and enter Hong Kong.

International borders have become a routine for me over the past months-exit form: filled out next to my passport photo page, paper clip on my Chinese visa, waiting in line.  China makes you patient.  The woman's eyes darted between my passport photo and my face at least 7 times before she let me pass-a testament to how much I've changed.

Back on the bus, we crossed a bridge and rounded jagged hills climbing out of the sea.  A few floating villages hid themselves in poverty by the border.  Around one hill, and a wall of identical high-rise apartment buildings stood against our approach in the distance-my first view of Hong Kong, and an impressive one at that.  I was beginning to feel the excitement of exploring a new place.

The bus let me off in the middle of Kowloon (pronounced Gaolong), the highly developed peninsula pointing south to Hong Kong Island.  It was dark already, hot-the straps on my pack pressed the humidity hard against my back.  The conference would begin the next day, and in the meantime I had no plans and nowhere to sleep.

I have traveled all over Europe, North America, and Asia, spent long periods of time alone backpacking, navigated countless cities, but never have I been so overwhelmed by a place as I was upon first arriving in Hong Kong.  I walked to an intersection, pulled out a map, and tried to get my bearings.  Everywhere around me were people, lights, cars, smells.  Within 20 minutes or so, I'd made my way on foot south towards the tip of the peninsula, arriving at the infamous Chungking Mansions, a decrepit tenement of low-budget rooms, teeming with African and Indian immigrants.  It was hot, and there was a definite odor throughout the building.  I decided to try a place on the 7^th floor that had received alright reviews.  The line for the elevator pulled away from its door and around the corner, sweating en masse.  I asked for the stairs, and was told to just wait in line.  So, I did.

Thirty minutes later, I'd made it to the front of the line, when an Indian man approached me and asked if I was going to the Pay-Less Guesthouse, presenting me with a business card.  Indeed I was.  I was a little skeptical, but he asked me to follow him-I thought that there might have been a better way to get there than this elevator (the building is separated into a labyrinthine set of blocks), so I followed him, only to arrive at the back of the adjacent elevator line.    He told me we were going to the 8^th floor.  He let out a slight grin to another man, and I realized what was going on.  I told him that the sign had said it was on the 7^th floor.  He told me it was a typo.  I asked to see his card again.  It said "7/F".  I told him I was going to the 7^th floor.  He finally realized his ruse was up, and demanded that I go with him, that the 7^th floor was fully booked.  I politely declined.  I'd lost my place in line, and waited again to avoid any conflicts.

The elevator he'd switched me into only went to even numbered floors, so I took the stairs down a level.  He hadn't lied.  Pay-Less Guesthouse was fully booked.  I spent an hour climbing the stairs up and down, floor by floor, checking each lodging.  This one was full, that one wouldn't go any less than 300 HKD-I was not happy.  I finally found a place with a free room, and managed to haggle with the manager until I was satisfied, paying more than I had originally intended.  He told me I couldn't check in for an hour, so I left my bags with him (locked), and went to get water and find an internet café.  Somewhere in the maze of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian stores and restaurants jammed within the first few floors of the building, I found an internet café, and joined the multi-ethnic group of customers.  In the corner, an African man was using VoIP to call his home country, almost in tears that they wouldn't send him payment for the 4 out of 14 crates of some unnamed product he'd brought with him and managed to sell.  An Indian woman next to me was tending to her "Happy Farm" on Facebook.  I checked my e-mail, and looked up a place to get food.

After checking in to my room, I went for a walk.  Down Nathan Road, past the grandiose Peninsula Hotel, and to the Harbor at the tip of the peninsula, facing the stunning nightscape of Hong Kong Island.  The stress of the previous hours melted away, and I remembered why I love traveling.  I spent some time sitting, taking in arguably the best and most breathtaking skyline in the world, and then continued my walk.

I am very thankful that I have the opportunity to travel now.  Not necessarily because I don't think I'll have the opportunity again later in my life, but because I have a suspicion (and I say this as humbly as possible) that in the not too distant future I will have too much money, too many responsibilities, and too little patience to effectively experience the underbelly of a city; to arrive with no accommodations or plans, and to wander aimlessly through back alleys for hours.  For Hong Kong, these alleys, the decrepit and infested chambers of Chungking Mansions are as much a part of the city as the extravagant shopping plazas and world-class hotels, the trade conferences and business meetings.

The next morning, I made my way to the Grand Hyatt Hotel to check in for the Research Forum, and had apparently gone from rags to riches in the period of a night.  My room had a great view, and a waterfall shower, which made me quickly forget the heat and humidity of the previous night.  I went downstairs and lay in the hot tub for a bit before hitting the steam room, and then adorning my suit for the opening dinner.  The conference was a place for us all to discuss our difficulties and frustrations in performing our research, to learn from each other's experiences, and to see China and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau in a new light.

On the second day we were joined by respected Hong Kong journalists and political analysts Willy Lam, Frank Ching, and Mark Sheldon to help us better understand Hong Kong's past, present, and future.  That night, we were invited to a reception at the US Consular General of Hong Kong's residence on the peak of Hong Kong Island.  There was good food, interesting conversations, and some great views.  On the third day, we had lunch with some leaders of groups invested in Hong Kong's development, and then made our way to the ferry port for a jet-foil to Macau.

Macau is a cultural anomaly.  Once a small fishing island, Macau was colonized by the Portuguese in the 16^th century, giving modern Macau interesting melds of languages, architecture, cuisines, and people.  The political clashes between the Portuguese and the Macanese were more violent than many Macau officials would like to admit, and the Portuguese tried to give Macau back to the Chinese during the 1970s.  The Chinese politely refused, fearing how it would affect people's impressions of China's intentions for still British-controlled Hong Kong, and the Portuguese remained in control of the island until the Chinese regained control of both regions in the historical 1997 handover.  In 1962, promising to promote tourism, Stanley Ho, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who'd fled from the Japanese to Macau during WWII gained an official government-sanctioned monopoly over the gambling industry in Macau.  He established several casinos, and maintained his control until 2002, when many Vegas casino entrepreneurs joined in the fun.  The result has been a massive boom in tourism and gambling, bringing in revenues that topple those of Las Vegas.  The casinos overshadow the Portuguese-influenced lanes and alleys throughout the island, and it seems that there's only more growth in sight, with some developers discussing filling in the water between the island and mainland China with land in an attempt to increase tourism and provide more land for casinos.

After sightseeing and listening to presentations during the day, a few friends and I met up with one of my friends' friends, a card shark who's currently living in Macau.  He took us around to several of the free shows in the casinos, and then to a quite infamous room in the Grand Lisboa, one of the older casinos.  As I'd heard previously, the circular room promises one-stop shopping for Chinese prostitutes.  You walk into the room, and the prostitutes strut around the circular wall, waiting to be picked out.  (We, of course, were only curious--not in the market.)  Unfortunately, upon our arrival the girls were lined up outside the room in a shakedown by Macanese police.  We took a few glances before being waved away, and heading over to the Venetian, one of the largest buildings (by floor space) in the entire world.  What better place than one of the biggest buildings in the world to build the Guinness Record-winning world's largest house of cards.  We wandered around for a bit, and then bid farewell to our card shark guide at his office, the high stakes poker area, for another night at work.

Back to Hong Kong the next day by jet-foil, I said goodbye to many of my friends and contacts, and got ready for my over-land trip back to Kunming.  I've posted photos from Hong Kong and Macau, and I'll write more about the rest of my trip and post more photos soon!

Southeast Asia Trip Part IV: Au Cambodge, Vietnam, and Back!

The Thai-Cambodian border seemed to be a gateway into poverty.  Ariane and I were both a bit tired and irritable after our difficulties getting on the bus earlier that day, and we were only more frustrated by the problems the other tourists on our bus had.  Since Bangkok is such a popular international travel destination, the assortment of travelers leaving from there to other places (especially on tourist buses) is probably on average less seasoned and travel-smart than at the other places we’d been thus far.  Three middle-aged Israelis held up our group asking question after question about the border crossing, and eventually having their visas cancelled by the border patrol and being denied immediate entry into Cambodia.  A group of Aussies refused to hand over their passports, and a Japanese man had printed out the wrong copy of his “e-Visa”.  In between the Thai and Cambodian entry/exit points, Thai companies have built faux-impressive casinos towering over the trash, hand-pulled fruit carts, and pickpockets, accessible only to Thai and international visitors—Cambodians are forbidden to gamble.

The roads from the border to Siem Reap had been recently paved.  For years the Thai airlines had had a deal with the Cambodian contractors responsible for constructing the roads.  The roads stayed bumpy and rough, the bus ride from Thailand to Bangkok remained long and uncomfortable, and more people continued to fly to the tourist destination of Siem Reap than to take buses.  Fortunately, the contract had ended, and the Cambodian government took advantage of the opportunity to find contractors willing to do the job.

We got into Siem Reap at around 7:30pm.  Siem Reap, located in central northwest Cambodia, just north of Tonle Sap Lake, is the jumping off point for exploring the famous temples of Angkor (usually called by their most recognizable member—Angkor Wat).  As such, the tourist industry there is booming.  High-end resorts and hotels line the roads into town, and a team of tuk-tuk drivers with excellent English await cranky tourists to disembark buses, shuttling them off to a cheaper selection of guesthouses in the Old Market area.  We hopped one of these tuk-tuks, which took us down a side alley to the Aroma Daily Hotel, where we obtained the last available room for $6/night.  The national currency is the Riel, but most places we visited, especially in touristy areas, preferred to receive and asked prices in US dollars.

After dumping our luggage in our lockless, sinkless room, we went out to explore Siem Reap.  We got a late dinner at Socheata 2 Restaurant, including a delicious pomelo salad, then returned to our room, where we watched the movie Blades of Glory on Cambodian television before passing out.

The next morning, we arranged a tuk-tuk driver for the day to take us around to all the temples in the area, and then got a quick breakfast:  banana pancakes, fried egg, spring rolls, and iced coffee.  Our driver was a young-looking Cambodian guy name Thom.  He showed us a map of which temples we’d be going to, and then stopped to fill up his bike with gas from a roadside stand, pouring the gasoline into his tank from old Johnnie Walker Red Label bottles.  At the entrance to the temple area, we purchased multi-day passes for $40USD each, and started off to the temples.  There are many temples in the area, most crowded with tourists, and some certainly more interesting than others.  Some temples are set in the open, bounded by water or grass, while others have been overrun by spung trees, strangling the stone walls of the temples with their great roots, adding to the adventurous feeling of exploring the ruins.  Sanskrit inscriptions and bas-relief can be found on many of the walls, and the sun sends its beams through the trees in just the right way as to make some of the more remote scenes all the more magical.  Here, it is easy to forget that you are one of millions of tourists visiting each year, and to feel like a true explorer, making your way cautiously and awestruck through the ruins of an ancient society.  It is also easy to see why the ruins have been depicted in such films as Tomb Raider, and why they are a symbol of Cambodian pride (even gracing the Cambodian flag).

We spent the day, peering through stone doorways and climbing steep stairs.  We gave our driver $3 for lunch (which he said was enough), and ignored the swarms of Cambodian children hawking goods outside each of the temples.  At the end of the day, we climbed to the top of Phnom Bakhang, a hill-top temple, accompanied by hundreds of other tourists to watch the sunset.  After taking far too many photos of the sun (sunsets are always somewhat anticlimactic), we headed back to town and showered before getting dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Amok.  Amok is down a rather busy alley, and is neighbored by equally as impressive-looking restaurants.  [[Amok|Amok (dish)]], both the name of the restaurant and a Cambodian dish made by steaming curry in banana leaves, is one of the signature dishes offered at Amok.  We ordered an Amok [[degustation]], grapefruit salad, fried morning glory with water lilies and bokchoy, spicy Khmer soup, and for desert fried fruit on sticks with honey and a sorbet degustation.  Having a mix of US and Cambodian currencies, it took me a significant amount of time (with the use of Ariane’s blackberry as a calculator) to figure out the bill, and then headed out for a walk before heading in for an early sleep.

At 4:30am, our driver woke us up for day two of our temple exploration.  Cold and tired, we piled onto Thom’s tuk-tuk (which had trouble starting) to head to Angkor Wat, the jewel of the temples of Angkor, to watch the sun rise.  With another hundred or so tourists, we stood in the dark waiting for the sun to rise.  It really makes you wonder how many people take photos of the same sun every day.  We were standing next to a man and wife who reminded me of people I’d know from Cherry Hill.  I can’t claim to be a photography maven, but I do find it rather amusing that so many people have such nice cameras and have no idea how to use them.  This couple was trying to take photos of the temple in dusk and were obviously only getting blurry shots and having other problems.  Watching us take photos, they started questioning each other, “they can do it, why can’t we—just put it in manual mode—it’s the camera—I don’t get it—it’s because the colors are too far away, and we can’t zoom that far”.  I love hearing other people’s bullshit.

To make the sunrise all the more dramatic, a white horse had been placed just beyond the lake and in front of the temple.  Anyway, after the sun rose (which it did do), Ariane and I sat by the temple at a small, outdoor food stand.  We got banana and mixed fruit pancakes and coffee, waiting for the temple to actually open.  After breakfast, we took our time walking around the magnificent temple.  A group of Korean men ran by at one point, yelling at each other, and followed by a camera crew—it was obviously for some sort of Korean drama.  Heading back to the tuk-tuk, a papaya suddenly hit us in the legs from behind.  We turned to find a very much stoned German couple, giggling.  They apologized for throwing a papaya at us, and we went on our way.

We spent the rest of the day visiting random temples, and then headed back to town early, tired from our pre-sunrise start.  After some much needed rest, we went for a walk, worked out some travel arrangements, and examined menus at a lot of restaurants, eventually ending up for dinner at a place called Champey’s, right next door to Amok.  When the waitress walked over to Amok for some of the food, we questioned her if the owner was the same.  It turns out that a very smart Frenchman owns 6 of the most popular restaurants in town, and is working on his 7th!

Later that night, in the market, two Cambodian women got into a real fight, pulling hair and wrestling each other to the ground.  We watched for a few moments, then went to get some ice cream.  Later, we went shopping in the night market, and Ariane bought a very cool bag made from recycled fish food sacks.

The next morning, we woke up at 5:30am for a boat south on the Tonle Sap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  On our way out, we saw that Thom, our driver, sleeps on the pool table outside in the lobby of our hostel with another guy, and is woken up every morning by one of the hostel workers knocking on the wood around them.  He told us that he is saving up all his money to afford to buy his own tuk-tuk.  He and I are the same age, and his situation really puts things in perspective.

Our transportation was a long, low-floating boat down the river.  It was really cramped, and even uncomfortable outside on the curved top.  We’d spent extra money to take the boat instead of a bus, and it was certainly not worth it.  The boat ride started out past floating villages, with children who had long gotten tired of waving to foreigners.  When we finally arrived in Phnom Penh, I was very uncomfortable and irritated.  Tuk-tuk drivers had boarded the boat even before we could get off, trying to get us to go with them to our hotels.  Distracted by one of them, I slammed my head very hard against the doorway on the way out (I had a bump for about a week after).

On the dock, we were pushed and shoved trying to grab our packs, and I was even more pissed off.  I’d read in our travel guide that tuk-tuks anywhere in town should cost 50 US cents.  When a driver tried to grab our bags, and told us it would cost $2.  Irritated, sore, pissed off, and all the more wary after getting ripped off for a tuk-tuk in Laos, I told him we’d only pay 50 cents.  The driver said, “fine, $1,” and I, stubborn as always, said “no, 50 cents!”.  A little pissed off himself, the driver said, “ok, ok, man, 75 cents”.  At this point all the other tourists and drivers were watching our scene.  When I refused to pay the extra 25 cents, the tuk-tuk driver said, “why you so cheap, man!  50 cents.  Can’t even buy a bottle of water!”.  I said, “if you don’t like it, I’ll find someone else”.  Then, I turned around offered 50 cents to another driver and we were on our way.  I’d won.  As we were driving off, however, we pulled around past the first driver, who yelled at us “I don’t know where you from, but I never met someone so cheap as you.  Why you so cheap!  Go Home!”.  I thought about joking with him that I’m Jewish, but he wouldn’t have gotten it, and I didn’t feel like bringing that stereotype to Cambodia.  As it turned out, we changed our destination mid tuk-tuk ride, and ended up paying a dollar anyway.

We hadn’t intended to spend much time in Phnom Penh, just a stop on our way to Saigon, and eventually Hanoi, and our first day was a reminder why.  The main attraction in Phnom Penh are the killing fields, left over from the all-too-recent days of Pol Pot, sending the educated and unneeded to their torturous deaths in his attempt to create an ultra-Maoist society.  While we’d opted to skip the fields, walking through the rainy alleys of Phnom Penh was reminder enough of the fear and devastation that had loomed over the city just over 30 years ago.  Legless mine victims hobbled by and uniformed officers patrolled the streets.  Still, I can see how the city could be a bit more appealing on a sunny day and in a better mood.

Down by the river, countless restaurants offer “happy” pizza, also tellingly listed as “special herb pizza”.  We opted for some Khmer cuisine, which was a bit disappointing, and then spent the rest of the night looking for toothpaste and contact solution.  Somewhere in the jumble of a day that was Phnom Penh, my cell phone was either misplaced or stolen.  We’d arranged a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) earlier in the day, and went to bed to wake up for a 6am pickup.

We took 5 minutes too long to get ready, and went downstairs at 6:05.  Afraid we’d missed our pickup, I woke one of the hotel staff, and asked them to call. He told us to wait another 10 minutes.  We waited, and a man finally showed up, asking us to follow him through some back alleys to a van.  Then, he headed off to find more patrons headed to the bus for Saigon.  While we were waiting, we realized we’d never received any tickets from the hotel, and without them there’d be no way we’d be allowed on the bus.  So, I ran back through the alleyways, and re-woke up the man (who’d already fallen back asleep).  He tiredly shuffled through some papers and found our tickets, and then I ran back to the van, panting.

Relieved, we made it to the bus station and were seated in the last row of the bus.  The driver came around and handed us entry forms to Vietnam, and then asked to see our Vietnamese Visa.  Very confused, I quickly opened up our travel book, which clearly said visas could be obtained at the border, and then looked to some of the other tourists on the bus, who confirmed that we did indeed need to get visas ahead of time.  They kicked us off the bus, and we were a bit concerned, especially since we’d already booked plane tickets from Saigon to Hanoi for that night.  (The travel book, it seems, was 3 years old, BUT I’ve since been told that you can in fact get visas at the border—it just takes more time, and the buses don’t like to wait).

The staff at the bus station were fairly helpful, however, and they offered to have our visas processed for us, and get us on a bus that afternoon.  In the meantime, we tried to figure out what to do.  We called the airline, failing to move our flight.  We checked at a travel agency for other flights directly to Hanoi, and then we found an internet café (sitting next to a Cambodian man, who was doing his best to look at porn without us noticing) to research our options.  We decided to book another flight for the next day instead of having to worry the entire day about whether we were gonna make it in time, and then having to rush like hell through crowded Saigon.  We chalked the extra flight up to the nature of such traveling, and then went to a really nice French café to relax.  The food was delicious:  a Panini, a crumpet with ham and fried egg, a true éclair, and a brownie, plus great coffee.

After the café, we headed back to the bus station, where we retrieved our packs, our passports (fixed with nice new Vietnamese visas), and tickets to the next bus.  It was a comfortable ride out of Phnom Penh.  At one point, the bus headed down towards a river and boarded a ferry.  We arrived in Saigon after nightfall, and were stuck in traffic for eons.  By the time we finally made it to our destination, I’d already found where we were going on the map, asking the driver for confirmation.  We disembarked, and grabbed our packs.  While we were standing there, another backpacker from our bus, who obviously thought that I knew the area (for some reason), asked where he could find a guesthouse.  I told him I wasn’t sure, but pointed down a street that looked promising.  Then, another man, seeing me point the first guy away came up, asking directions to a specific street.  I told him I had no idea, and was very confused at why everyone kept asking me for directions in this city that I’d just stepped foot in a moment ago, in a country that I had never been to before.

We headed down the street I’d guessed would have guesthouses, which it did.  Unfortunately, one after another had no vacancies, until the last one.  We got our room, requested a wake-up for our early flight to Hanoi, and then went out for a quick walk and a late dinner.

I don’t have much more to say about the trip.  We flew to rainy Hanoi, where we were scammed into a different hotel, and then walked the streets and planned a tour to Halong Bay.  Somewhere along the way Ariane and I both got food poisoning—Ariane worse than I—and we spent a rainy and sick night on a junk out on Halong Bay.  On the way back from Halong Bay, the tire on our bus burst, and we all stood looking at it for a while before deciding to drive on it anyway.  Our stomach troubles and doldrums followed us north to the Vietnam-China border, where we crossed back into China and ended up stuck for a day in the uninteresting border town of Hekou.  Still sick, we watched some Chinese movies and taught ourselves to play a card game called Schnapsen (which is a lot of fun).  From there we headed up to the rice terraces of Yuanyang, where it was too foggy to really see the spectacular terraces.  Then, after a very long and uncomfortable bus ride, we made it back to Kunming in the pouring rain, and were very very happy to be home.

Well, there you have it, my trip to Southeast Asia.  Every country we visited deserves another visit, and I’m sure I’ll make it back at some point in my life.  I could spend a month in each country alone.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve had a suit made, been working on my research, joined a gym, thrown a dinner party, baked hamentashen for Purim, started running, and caused a car accident with a very large box of fireworks on Chinese New Year’s Eve.  This weekend I’m heading to Hong Kong for the annual Fulbright China Research Forum, and I’ll be there and in Macau all next week (I’ll try not to lose too much of my stipend at the casinos—joking).  Then I’ll be spending a week traveling with a friend by land across southern China and back to Kunming.  I have another field research trip planned for the end of the month, and a lot of planning and work to do in that regard.  But, overall, no complaints from me.