Hong Kong recollections.

The plan for the first stage of the trip was to experience rich Asia in Hong Kong, in contrast with Cambodia, where many live on under $2 a day. The modern coal and nuclear fueled views across Kowloon bay versus the timeless majesty of Angkor Wat.

On a personal level, to explore the contrast between the trails of Hong Kong, and the city by sleeping in my hammock, gazing over the skyline – photos coming soon I promise.

Individual independent travel compared with moving about with a companion I know really well, and the contrast with my last long adventure. Taking stock of these reflections has taken time, but now, with a working laptop, and some time I thought I'd post up some of my handwritten notes.

Hong Kong – despite being a very safe city, I was highly aware, and a little on guard, which is tiring in itself, but especially so, given the pace and festival of colours. That damp dishcloth smell of the East, and the ducks in the windows of the numerous noodle bars are yellow, not the analine red of those in Bangkok, or San Fran's Chinatown.

The hardest thing to get around is trying to understand the expressions of people going by. Like big cities the world over, smiles are not returned. Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Shui has diamond dealers at one end, but a few minutes along, the tenements rise. Accessed by cage like lifts or grubby, rat filled stairways Chunking and newer Mirador Mansions are notorious.

Not wanting to get stuck in the lifts I used the stairs, and glad of the excercise I used them almost exclusively. A private world, a door might open onto an exclusive (by price) spa, a restaurant, brothel, or private home. The English road names still caused a smile, wondering why the colonisers chose those names: - laziness, or an attempt to map out the unfamiliar terrain with a homely abstraction?

There is something I continually find unfathamable about the oriental mind, I have been meaning to read “Orientalism” by Edward Said, since India. Though I am not one to show great emotion to others, though often wishing my feelings were less powerful, I cannot get past the feeling that there is something strangely lifeless that though probably unjustified, can still imagine allows a certain brutality and disregardfs for life.

The people who offer copied watches for sale are almost entirely of Indian, Pakistani or Egyptian extraction. Though less persistent, I was reminded of my first few days in India. The fear of being asked questions by someone, bringing up guild, exposing ones own insecurities. “Why are you here?” It is my sport to ask them if they are married, a question as common in India, as the weather to most Brits.

Seeing Westerners when alone for the first time, there is a tendency to nod, people who would have been ignored at home, come to represent something familiar and shared. I am almost tempted to put out a hand in greeting “drizzly sundays and luke warm beef”, expecting by return “Flat beer and soggy chips to you!”. It was a moment past this reflection, a Londoner past, half cut, and with barely disguised aggression asking a stranger where his unpronounceable hotel with strong cockney patois. I adopted the thousand mile stare and walked on.

I breakfasted at Mc Donalds, the thought of doing this a few years ago would have been unfathomable. It is not a refuge, not because it is familiar, but because it is nowhere. A baseline if you will to compare new experiences to, and though I hate to admit it, the coffee was good.