Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s abundant, affordable public transportation network presents Rube Goldberg-esque challenges in moving around the city. The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) (i.e. subway) is the lifeblood of Hong Kong’s transportation system. The smoking ban and lack of bathrooms doesn’t seem to dissuade an average of 2.8 million people (about 36% of the total population) from using the MTR each day!

Often, a 3 minute wait in the surgery room clean MTR stations, which come complete with white gloved workers escorting people into crowded cars, borders on disturbing.

If an MTR station isn’t near, raise your hand and a red taxi will often fly across lanes of traffic to collect you. If you venture into the New Territories or Lantau Island, the taxis turn green and blue, respectively. And you can lower your hand because taxis are quite scarce.

When venturing off the island, a map or the destination written in Chinese will save the trouble of playing charades because most people off Hong Kong Island only speak Cantonese.

The clean, safe double-decker buses provide regular, but not always frequent, service along most major roads. Schedules are available on road signs near the bus stops and fares are considerably cheaper than the taxis that drive the same roads. Unlike the double-decker buses, privately owned green/yellow mini-buses have no regular stops and are driven by men who have yet to discover the break pedal. They follow regular routes but will stop whenever they see a raised hand.

Only a strictly enforced regulation that everyone must sit keeps the capacity at 16 passengers. Just make sure to say “lee-doh” (Cantonese for ‘here’) when your stop approaches.

If a bit short on coin, hop aboard the Hong Kong Island Tram that slowly bounces along the entire length of the urban-cum-light industrial north side. Since any ride, no matter the distance, costs only 2HKD (25 US cents) sitting on the top deck provides cheap panoramic views of how Hong Kong Island, seemingly with no planning, effectively fuses together shiny, glass offices with weathered, peeling grey apartments.

The iconic and historic (read old and uncomfortable) Star Ferry provides inexpensive (2.2HKD one-way) and quick (7 minutes) rides across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon. Adjacent the Star Ferry, cleaner and faster ferries and hydrofoils carry people to the outlying islands, Macau and China.

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