Grandfather goes visiting

Hong Kong has a population of over 7 million, crowded into a land-mass of little over a thousand square kilometres, making it one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

"Compact" is an understatement. Half the population lives in the New Territories which, as the map demonstrates, constitute 86% of the total area.

The other half live in Hong Kong and Kowloon, where any sort of accommodation is at a premium.

Soaring, close-packed tower blocks

The apartment buildings are so huge that it is difficult to find photographs that truly give he impression of the actual size. They are not merely high, they are also closely packed together which accentuates the feeling of being crowded-in-on.

Add narrow streets and laundry drying on poles sticking out from the windows and the atmosphere is truly claustrophobic.

A typical Hong Kong urban canyon

When I booked my trip, I asked my daughter if we could take a side-trip to Macao. Like Hong Kong, it's been a real eye-opener, with the affluence and living standards once again coming as a big surprise.
There are still some quaint pieces of Portuguese colonial architecture, but the bigger surprise are the gambling hotels.
All the big names from Las Vegas are in Macao: MGM, Sands, Venetian and so on, but on a scale that far outshines anything I saw in Vegas.

Old colonial Portuguese architecture

Part of the entrance lobby of The Venetian

A grand staircase to the gaming rooms

Everything is on a huge scale, creating a sort of Disneyworld for adults. The levels of service are very high, the food and drink are excellent and the clientele is 90% Chinese, affluent and out to spend money to enjoy their holiday. There are hundreds of them, shepherded around in crocodiles by their tour guides, who lead the way with a flag on a pole. They take thousands of photographs - Dad in front of the fountain; Mother by the statue, and so forth. The public areas get as crowded as Kings Cross London Underground station in the rush hour. They are unfazed by air of extravagance and sophistication and revel in the opportunity to sample another culture in the security of their own continent. That much, at least, they have in common with the American tourists in Las Vegas, who - I found when I visited - believed that Paris really is like The Paris Hotel on the Strip. 

Gondolas with singing gondoliers on a suitably cleaned-up canal - all indoors

Much of the time I was left speechless by the sheer scale of everything; much of it was hard to believe: Priceless antiques and works of art make one lobby look like a gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
My greatest emotion as we left to return on the high-speed catamaran to Kowloon was probably one of sadness. I was left feeling that Macao exists as a temple to consumerism, greed, affluence and just about everything that is wrong with 21st century society.

But it was an experience I would not have missed, and am extremely grateful to my daughter Samantha for planning and arranging the trip.