Many of Hong Kong’s pavements run elevated above the road in labyrinthine tunnels that, in certain parts of town, as often as not end in a clatter of construction work, leaving you no choice but to turn back and take another shot at another path if you are ever to reach your destination. This cruel joke of urban planning led me after just a few days to abandon walking altogether and begin to hail the brilliantly deep-red taxi cabs that cost something like HK$30 (the approximate equivalent of £3) to go pretty much anywhere you’d like. Besides, there’s a particular rapturous contemplation available only to those looking out of the back window of a car onto an unfamiliar cityscape, and I wanted in on some of that action.
I am alone in Hong Kong to attend Art Basel. A first-time visitor who neglected to do basic weather research before departing my belovedly temperate UK, I am forced for the week’s duration to sport distressingly warm knitwear. It is a beautiful 21°C, humidity level 98%. When I meet photographer Enzo Barracco, he tells me that the city is “hot and heavy”. I can sure feel that. We nab a free glass of champagne from the fringes of a laboured panel discussion and trade impressions of Hong Kong—a place that for him is an old acquaintance, filled with friends and punctuated by memories of previous visits. Unusually, my unfamiliarity with the city hasn’t yet morphed into a suspicion of its hostility. A frank friendliness characterises many of the interactions I observe and, when talking with locals or walking in the wet markets next to my hotel, I feel both invisible and welcome.
Enzo and I catch a cab that has a box of plastic pineapples lying on its back seat and travel several miles west from the fair to Lan Kwai Fong, the party district that in the evening is filled with shouts of “happy hour!” and “free shots!”, but for us, as we loaf around late-afternoon, remains relatively well-behaved. Over the evening, we walk east amongst the pleasantly clashing neons and the disarray of the market streets until we find ourselves back at the exhibition centre, which after such a trip seems sinisterly sanitised in comparison but, if you find the right spot by the window, does afford a spectacular view of the sun bursting on the horizon just before it settles beneath it.
Nearby, the rickety Star Ferry takes passengers on a 15 minute journey across the harbour–a passage described by the National Geographic Traveller as one of “50 Trips of a Lifetime”–so inevitably one you spend considering how cool it will be when you remember that time you took the Star Ferry and saw the famous 8pm light show. We alight on the other side and nestle ourselves amongst an army of tourists thrusting selfie sticks into the air, capturing the moment that they too saw the lights from the north side of the water.
Images © Enzo Barracco
