Southeast Asia Vacation – Hong Kong – February 3 – 7/2018

Well good, Our Captain Alex has found Hong Kong and we are glad. The Celebrity Millenium has been our home for two weeks now and has been quite comfortable. The meals for the most part have been good and plenty of wine to keep us happy. Lots of Tours and a deck to run on so no big weight gain, phew! The one day that the upper deck was closed and I ran in the gym, there was a hacker beside me on the treadmill so I picked up a bug which I passed on to Marg. Not happy wife. The ship had an acupuncturist on board from Nepal that was able to give me some good treatment for my knee. On the first appointment, he sticks the first needle in the top of my head, ouch. I asked him if he remembered me saying knee? The seas were generally quite calm with only a couple of days of slightly swaying ship or could have been the wine, not sure.

Anyways, we slept on the ship for the first night in Hong Kong after a daytime City tour which I missed because of the hacker. The evening involved a trip up the funicular to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong.Victoria Peak or The Peak is 1850 feet above the harbour and was where the wealthy lived in times past because of the views. The residents were transported up there by sedan chairs until the governor Richard MacDonnell built the funicular in 1868. The road to The Peak is switchback all the way up and the buses drive crazily up and down. A couple of weeks after we were there, a bus did not make a corner and resulted in multiple injuries. Accident was probably due to driving on the wrong side of the road!

Our cruise ended on the morning of the 4th, so we have booked a hotel in downtown Hong Kong, The Metropark. Nice hotel but no heat and the daytime temp is in the low teens and evening temp is single digits. We are told that it never gets that cold. Anyways, we are freezing after temps of low thirties on some of our other stops. Hong Kong is home to 7.4 million people and is now an autonomous territory of China. The population is 92% Chinese with Chinese and English as the official languages. The City is very cosmopolitan with more skyscrapers than any other city in the world, a very efficient underground light rail system and a very efficient road system to move traffic. The City is home to a lot of International banking and the GDP is one of the world leaders.

We spent the day exploring the downtown. Lots of shopping malls and lots of mainland Chinese there with there rolling suitcases to scoop up the bargains to take back home but as we are told, are duped into believing this when in fact there are no bargains here in the malls. This day is Sunday, but all establishments are busy and thriving. We noticed hundreds, maybe thousands of women sitting on their mats in all corners of the sidewalks making sidewalk traffic very congested. Many were in burkas and many had little heating stoves to cook on and all had a picnic spread. The story, apparently is that these people, pretty much all women, are from Malaysia and the Philippines and work as housekeepers, cooks and nannies to the families of Hong Kong and as it was Sunday, and their day off, were picnicking. Again most people live in high rises so the density is very high in the core of the city.

Our tour guide was Jackie Wong who was very knowledgeable of the city and this evening was a night tour of some of the local markets in the city. The people of Hong Kong eat all day and evening long so there are thousands of small vendors, restaurants and food stalls to choose from. The first stop was a local market to buy parkas and neck warmers. The local vendors sell this stuff cheap. A nice bubble parka for $20. The people are smaller so an adjustment to their sizing is required. Terry took a xxxl, which I told him was a result of 2 weeks of eating on the ship.The upper photo gives you an idea of Street life in the evening. Apartments are all small and expensive so locals meet on the street to shop, eat and mingle until bedtime. The other two photos are some of the local food choices. We found out the good food had long lineups. In the Viet Nam post, I told you that they ate pigeon.A raw octopus stick, yum. Did not try that one.

Off to Macao by ferry the next day, a half hour ferry ride, packed boat for a 64 km ride by hydrofoil. Macao is termed a special administrative area of China and is population to 650,000 Chinese. It is the most densely populated area in the world and a former Portuguese colony. There is much Portuguese influence there yet and has Chinese and Portuguese as official languages. This is a resort city and famous for it’s casinos and resorts.

According to the World Bank, Macao the GDP per capital is higher by far than any other region in the world. And, the 4th highest life expectancy in the world. It is known as the pre-eminent gambling capital of the world, dwarfing other gambling centres, including Las Vegas.

We spent the morning visiting sites in the old town.The upper photo is of a 16th Century Portuguese church in old town. The middle photo is of a typical street and depicts what a typical street looked like, c/w cobblestone in the 16th Century. This City was a very viable trading port, and as such, was well situated for riches. The Dutch knew this and tried to take the City many times but the Portuguese prevailed. The lower photo is outside a popular bar, Mr. Beer, and to our delight, Mr. Beer himself posed for a photo. He is the white haired gent and has much experience in beer.

The top photo is the interior of the Lisboa Hotel and Casino. Gambling has been legal here since 1850 when the Portuguese government legalized it. In 2007 it overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues. The mainland Chinese travel here by ferry to gamble and make up the majority of the clientele. As you can see from the middle picture Wynn Casinos from Vegas fame is here as well. The Chinese billionaire Stanley Ho had a monopoly on the casinos until 2001 when foreign casinos were allowed in. He operated his casinos (19 of) here for 40years and obviously accumulated considerable wealth. He houses his vas collection of Chinese artifacts in the Grand Lisboa with accumulated value of $20 to $30 million.

The bottom photo is a young lady hitting on Napoleon. I always thought that he was excited to Elba but Macao would have been a lot more fun.

 

On our final day , February 6th, our tour guide Jacky, brought his van and we were off to Lantau, which is the largest island in Hong Kong and located at the mouth of the Pearl River. The Hong Kong airport is located here as well as Hong Kong Disneyland as well as Tungland Chung New Town that has multiple residential towers to house all of the workers here. Lantau has nice beaches but were deserted due to the cooler temps but scenery was beautiful. We are see the Giant Buddha, which is hard to get excited about at this stage of our trip, seeing many hundreds of Buddha’s by now. However, the Tian Tan Buddha was completed in 1993 near the Po Lin Monastery. It is 112 feet high, of bronze construction and weighs 280 tons.

Our real goal today is to visit the Tai O fishing village which is an ancient and still operative fishing village and home to 1200 residents. The inlet of the river was home to piracy operations in the 16th century and also was a primary entry point for immigrants escaping Mainland China. The town also has a history, due to its location, of smuggling of guns, tobacco and guns. The town still has fishing as a lifestyle but is being replaced by tourism.Unfortunately, the Black Pearl was not open yet, otherwise would have been fun to hoist a tankard at that place.The upper two photos depict village life here with their stilt houses. The lower picture is atypical kitchen within one of these stilt houses.

 

Back to Hong Kong and off, that evening to a restaurant in downtown Hong Kong for a full feat of local dishes.This photo is inside the restaurant and you can see how we are dressed as no heat in the restaurant. All of this South East Asia food has my eyes looking a little different as that is me on the left. We polished off most of it though!

 

February 7th has us off to the airport for a 12 hour flight back to San Francisco and another hour to Palm Springs and home. The three week vacation was very good, saw lots of wonderful sites and as usual with our good friends, Terry and Catherine Chevalier, the company was outstanding. Catherine spent countless hours in planning three weeks worth of tours and hotels in Singapore and Hong Kong, and as a result made our trip into a foreign culture seamless and basically without issue, thank you Catherine. She may be for hire, maybe, but worth it! Home is always good and somehow has more appeal as the years pass but seeing more of our world is priceless and provides memories for a lifetime

Ken & Marg