The Chungking Mansions
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2007
1
4
92
Trip End
Dec 27, 2007
Hong Kong,
China
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Anyway, back to the Lonely Planet Book on Hong Kong ...................... we were enjoying our flight on Cathay Pacific (very good airlines) when we stumbled upon a little snippet in the book, quote :"Chungking Mansions, a place like no other in the world
Brave brave tourists
. This huge, ramshackle high-rise dump in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui caters to virtually all needs - from finding a bed and a curry lunch to changing your Burmese kyat and getting your hair cut - but you may be put off by the undercurrent of sleaze and the peculiar odour of cooking fat, incense and sewage. The building's infamy is fuelled by tales both tall and true of conflagrations, crimes and unclaimed bodies; everyone should come here once" So you can imagine how apprehensive we were by the time we smiled for the Immigration Officer and walked past customs onto bus A21 on route to the infamous ChungKing Mansions. We should have known something was up when the email from them said to be very careful not to go along with anyone on the street, but to wait until we actually spoke to someone from the Carlton Hotel. Yeah sure ............... the Carlton Hotel, not anything like it!!
Anyway we waded past all the "people" offering us accomdation, taxi's, massages etc. and proceeded to a line of people waiting to go up the lift, looking as if we knew excatly what we were doing. After squeezing into the lift with 300 other people we reached our floor and climbed out. Nope, couldn't find block C, only block A. A lady on the floor told us we were in the wrong block as there was a different block C
Market
. So down we went and up the lift for block C, to floor 13. Imagine our surprise when we climbed out the lift to see a big notice saying that the Carlton Hotel was being renovated and was closed. By this stage I was ready to start looking for a Holiday Inn and damn the budget, when we found our guest manager, Simon To, on the ground floor. Through another group of Nigerians we trooped and eventually got to floor 15 on block d and were shown to our room with a "beeeg bed". The "beeeg bed" was a 3/4 bed and the room was barely bigger than the bed, but more was still to come when we opened the door to our ensuite apartment to find a closet with a toilet. Upon closer inspection we found the shower to be above the toilet, what bliss ............. you could crap while showering, what a time saver!!Well we opened our sleeping bags and spread them over every inch of the bed .......... oh yes the bed ............ a piece of hard board covered with an inch high bit of material, to ensure no part of our exposed skin could touch the bed. We used the complementary towels on the floor as a carpet, so not to touch the carpet and all the while we were thanking our lucky stars for having had all those many many vaccinations! We were sure they would be called upon to protect us before long!
And then we went to sleep ......................................
Comments
hi
u two sound as if u r having the time of your lives! dad and i r enjoying every e-mail u send, with much laughter! so nice to c u had your ellie ride jules, looks like lots of fun. keep those fotos coming, so enjoying them. luca just loved that 'three dolllllllar' story, stef and him had us in stiches in the car as they were imitating. keep having fun, look after yourselves. lots of love mi