Rolling In Rollers

This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from November 2003.

Basing myself in Kowloon, I couldn't wait to get across the strait to Hong Kong proper.

The ferry crossing was great. Having been in low-rise Sri Lanka and the desertified states of India for 5 weeks, all of a sudden here I was in the middle of a city, splashing through waves towards skyscrapers, which loomed towards us as the boat pulled nearer to Hong Kong Island.

The water looked clean and the air smelled fresh. To swim in the sea in Mumbai is officially described as life-threatening (Chowpatty Bay might be a good backdrop for fireworks, but it’s never going to be fit to stage a swimming contest!), and I’d had a sore throat and runny nose the whole time I was in Delhi from the air pollution. It finally sank in that I had made a big culture change now that I was in East Asia and first impressions were fantastic.

As I wandered around Central, I was increasingly struck by the fact that wherever you are in Hong Kong, there are two things that you are never far from. One is a view of water and the other is a Mercedes Benz.

There were a lot of Mercs in South Africa actually, though mostly 70s models. The ones in Hong Kong all looked to be brand new.

On the second day, I was so convinced that I was imagining the volume of Mercs that I counted them and other ‘top marque’ cars! One has to be scientific about these things. I was on a bus ride from Central to Stanley Market and there weren’t so many cars that I couldn’t look at the view too… multi-tasking you see!

Out of 300 cars that passed the bus, 155 were Mercs, BMWs, Range Rovers, Porsches or Bentleys… Over 50%! This is a city rolling in cash… rolling in Rollers!