China - Hong Kong

Our sleeper bus from Yangshuo to Hong Kong turned out to be a big bus with bunk beds instead of seats. Initially, we thought it would be ok, considering we were on the floor level beds and we actually fit into them reasonably well. After a couple minutes of settling in, someone asked us to move to the top bunks in the front of the bus because some children needed to use the lower ones. We obliged, but soon discovered our new bunks were much shorter and had no area to stow your shoes or your belongings. So, neither of us fit in our beds and we had nowhere to put stuff, except on our laps. The bus got underway, and then the driver and his cronies started smoking right in front of us, which continued throughout the 11 hour journey. Compound this with the lack of a bathroom and the blaring loud samurai films playing out of speakers right above our beds, and we didn't really sleep at all. This was certainly the worst 11 hour leg of travel I have experienced to date, and I have taken some rough buses before.



In the morning, the bus dropped us off in Shenzhen, which is still in China, just on the other side of the border with Hong Kong. Both of us had to go to the bathroom really badly, and the driver was yelling at us in mandarin and pointing in all different directions. Only us two and another two guys got off the bus here, so we really had no idea what was going on. Eventually, we were told to follow a cab driver and waited outside what looked to be a shop. We asked the man behind the counter if he had a bathroom, and he pointed to some squat toilets down the hall. This bathroom rated around a 3 out of ten, and I will spare you any further details.

Our cab was then waiting for us, and the four of us crammed into the back and were dropped off at another bus, this one much nicer and right hand drive (Hong Kong drives on the other side than China). At this point, everything turned from being miserable to being quite nice. We were handed a cold bottle of water when entering the bus, nobody was spitting or smoking, and everything was clean (except us). The bus dropped us at the border and we went through immigration and customs, boarding another bus once we crossed the border. We were now officially out of China, and felt somewhat happy about that fact, after our last 12 hours.

Making our way downtown was easy, everything in Hong Kong is easy, compared to our travels in China. The transit system is amazing, efficient, and clean, and whisked us away to the southern end of the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. Here we checked into our room, which was small but clean and secure.



Being exhausted and filthy, I cleaned up and took a nice long nap. Afterwards, we woke up and met our friend Chris for some beers on Hong Kong island. The ferry ride over was gorgeous.



We bombed around town a bit, hitting up the expat bar district before calling it a night.



In the morning (ok more like early afternoon), we met up with Chris again at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant...I haven't been to one of these since Tokyo back in 2006. The sushi comes around on a conveyor and you just grab what looks good, paying for your stack of empty plates when you leave.



We piled into a tiny mini-bus to ride to the beach where we were meeting up with some of Chris's friends to play ultimate frisbee.



The weather was beautiful, if a little hot, but we ran around until we were tired and jumped in the ocean to cool off. Everyone playing frisbee was an expat, and I met people from all over the world drawn together in Hong Kong by their love of the sport. We finished off the day with a delicious meal at a Thai restaurant, washed down with a round of Chang beers.



Hong Kong is truly a melting pot, and is quite different from mainland China. There are only 150 Chinese immigrants allowed in per day, and they must have family ties in Hong Kong. Despite control being handed over to China by the British in 1997, Hong Kong has remained largely untouched, and is still a different country as far as I can tell. There are a lot of rich people here, with fancy cars and expensive designer clothes, and quite a few expats as well, but everyone has been very nice to us and getting around sure is a lot easier. English is spoken widely, and this feels like a place one could easily live without much trouble at all. While certainly vastly different from the other places we have been, I think this is a nice book ending to our trip. Tomorrow we are going to the Mai Po nature reserve, a marsh near the Chinese border to look at birds and hike.

This morning we woke up and rode the train for a long time to the end of the line. From here, we took a taxi to the entrance to the nature reserve. Upon trying to buy tickets, we were informed that we needed to be part of a recognized birdwatching organization or educational institution to be granted a permit to access the park. Somewhat confused, Noah pulled out his student ID from Wisconsin, and after the lady called her manager, she gave us a stack of permits and a map, along with some binoculars. Doing our best to look official, we started in.



This permit business seemed pretty serious, so we tried to be as low key as possible during the beginning of our hike.



Soon we discovered that the park was completely empty, save for us, and so we felt a bit more comfortable. Along the hike, there were bird watching blinds set up at points along the way, allowing you to view the wildlife with minimal disruption.



At the end of the path, we came to a really large fence with lots of barbed wire on top. A sign on the gate indicated we needed to have even more special permits to enter this special border area. Assuming the paperwork we had covered us, we went on in. Here is a view from the "other side".



Now the path turned to a boardwalk through a mangrove forest, with water and mud all around us.



This path came to an end at another hut for bird viewing, this one overlooking the bay that separates mainland China from Hong Kong.



In the mud flat right in front of the hut, there were tons of mudskippers splashing around. I tried to take pictures of them, but they are very fast creatures and difficult to get a good shot of (at least with my camera).





On the way back, we ran across this massive spider that was right at face level spanning the path. I made Noah go put his hand up next to it to give you a frame of reference for how big this guy is.



After hiking out of the marsh, we decided to eat a late lunch on the island of Lamma, this is a small one that has no cars. The ferry dropped us off and we hiked across the island, which takes around an hour or so. Soon we descended toward a fishing village, with fresh seafood restaurants lining the waterfront.



We ate a delicious meal of fried squid, some broiled scallops, and some sweet and sour fish.



The night ferry ride back to Kowloon gave us some beautiful views of downtown Hong Kong.





We headed to bed early to catch the first bus to the airport in the morning. We parted ways, Noah heading back to Madison, and me back to Minnesota.

Our time spent travelling through China was amazing, if a little challenging at times. I can't help but feel that we only scratched the surface of this vast country, while at the same time I am not sure I would have liked an extra week to explore more of it, at least on this trip.