Hong Kong
27th – 31st December 1977
Twenty of us, all living in Dhahran and Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia at that time decided that we would spend Christmas and New Year in South East and East Asia. We arranged a trip through the Al-Gosaibi Travel Agency, although we did not realise, we were in fact part of a total group of 90, until we arrived in Bahrain on the first leg of our journey. Our trip took in three cities – Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore – between 23rd December 1977 and 4th January 1978. This article is an amalgam of the recollections of the author, and some of the travellers who penned their own thoughts at the time. Although we were all part of the same group the chaotic travel arrangements surrounding our trip ensured that at times we split into different groups and parties, such that we saw different things or things differently.
Tuesday, December 27th
Bangkok to Hong Kong
Our departure schedule had been changed the day before by our travel agents. There must have been some serious overbooking as we had been split into three groups – the first group in the morning, the second midday and the last in the afternoon. This affected the whole Group of 90, not just us 20 from Saudi! Those who had been originally delayed were included in the last group, so that they could make up for the half-day lost due to their late arrival, and some of those had been too tired to take the revised morning tour took a river trip to see a few more temples and a floating market.
My flight left around 11.30, instead of 16.15. With a flight time of 2.55hr, and a 1-hour difference between Thailand and Hong Kong we arrived around 3.30pm at Kai Tak Airport.
In the 1970s Hong Kong’s international airport was Kai Tak, on the Kowloon side. It was infamous to both pilots and passengers alike. Three sides of the runway extended into the waters of Victoria Harbour, with residential apartment complexes to the northwest and 2,000+ ft mountains to the northeast of the airport. Pilots had to fly above the harbour and Kowloon, and then execute a low-altitude (below 600ft) 47-degree right-hand turn, ending with a short final approach and touchdown. This had all to be done visually because of the right-hand turn required. For the passengers, the residential apartments seemed dangerously near, especially those within Kowloon Walled City. Kai Tak closed in 1998 and Chek Lap Kok, its replacement built on reclaimed land between the islands of Chek Lap Kok and Lam Chau became operational. Due to restrictive planning considerations, it was only in the early 2010s that a cruise terminal, an MTR station, public and private housing, a children’s hospital and a Sports Park managed to be built on the former Kai Tak land.
It took about 1½hrs to disembark and arrive at our Hotel, which no surprise, given the delays and changes to our flights, was not the hotel on our itinerary.
27 – 31 December 1977
Destination Hong Kong
Hotel: Miramar Hotel
118-130 Nathan Road
Tsimshatsui, Kowloon
We had been expecting the Excelsior on Hong Kong Island, but for some reason our accommodation had been changed and we were dropped off at the Miramar Hotel on the Nathan Road in Kowloon. The Miramar was one of Hong Kong’s oldest hotels built on the site of the former Club de Recreio, a recreation centre for the Macanese and Portuguese community, which had moved in 1925 to King’s Park on the Gascoigne Road. The Hotel Miramar, as it was called then, had opened in 1948, with 32 rooms, as Hong Kong’s first post-war hotel. Subsequent expansions in 1953 and 1973 increased the number of rooms to 380, so it was definitely big enough for our large group. It became famous in the late 2000s for hosting Edward Snowdon who had leaked thousands of classified NSA documents. Sadly, the hotel looked a bit like Hong Kong’s oldest!
As it had been a long day, we decamped to the bar in the basement to wait for the last party to arrive. It was well after midnight when they did, as although they had been due to get to the hotel around 9pm, they had again been delayed by 2-3 hours. It was during this first evening that we christened the bar “Rat Bar” because we had seen a rat scuttling across the floor and over the counter!
Wednesday, December 28th
Morning: Kowloon and New Territories Tour
The Qing dynasty had ceded Hong Kong Island in 1841–1842 to the British as a consequence of losing the First Opium War and it became a British Colony expanding to include the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and the New Territories in 1898. These three regions - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories– formed the Crown Colony of Hong Kong. In 1997 following the expiry of the 99-year lease on the New Territories, Hong Kong was handed back as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China under the principle of one country, two systems.
It was a crowded territory, with a mixed population but predominately Chinese many of whom had come across the border after WWII and the Chinese Civil War. Expatriates and the richer locals lived on Hong Kong Island, often on the Peak where both the Governor's and the most important Taipans’ mansions were located. Hong Kong was as much a fiefdom of the old English trading houses - Jardine Matheson & Co, Hutcheson & Co, Swire Group, Dodwell & Co – as it was an outpost of Britain.
Our first scheduled trip was around Kowloon and up to the New Territories, the former being the smallest area but the most populated, while the latter the largest and least populated.
Our city tour took us through Kowloon and up to the New Territories. The Tai Po Road (formerly the Frontier Road) which had been built in 1902 as the main road connecting the New Territories with Kowloon joined the Nathan Road where our hotel was. Our journey took us on a detour past the Walled City, through the Lion Rock Tunnel to Sha Tin and Tai Po on our way to Lai Chi Wo, located near Sha Tau Kok in the northeastern North District of the New Territories.
The reason for visiting Lai Chi Wo was twofold - it was one of the last well-preserved walled Hakka villages; and the area offered a vantage point looking over the then-Chinese border towards Xin’an (Shenzhen) county and the Sham Chun River.
Kowloon comprises the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon, and within the latter is Kowloon City where the Kowloon Walled City used to be located. The Walled City which lay just north of the old airport, and which we had flown over to land at Kai Tak, was a densely packed area of less than 7 acres with 33,000 residents living in 300 buildings! Its population, along with the rest of Kowloon, had increased dramatically with the flood of refugees after the cessation of WWII following the renewed Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The Walled City had always been under Chinese jurisdiction, but they had agreed not to exercise that jurisdiction in practice. In the late 70’s when there was an uptick in local triads controlling prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse the former colonial administrators finally became more interested in dealing with the problem of overcrowding, poverty and criminality, but it was only after the Sino-British Treaty of 1984 that settled the handover in 1997, that it was agreed to pull down the Walled City.
The Crown Colony’s solution to the flood of refugees had been to build large public and private housing estates, mixed with private residential, commercial, and industrial areas. The public housing estates were mainly built by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society and while some older estates were built in the 1950s in central urban areas, such as Kwun Tong in East Kowloon and Tsuen Wan in the south-west New Territories, the majority were built in the new towns of the New Territories.
The New Territories was, and to a limited extent still is, made up of rural areas. Attempts at modernising the area did not happen until the late 1970s when new-town developments in the west of the territory (Tsuen Wan and Tuen Mun) and the east (Sha Tin) were built to accommodate the population growth in the urbanised areas of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Today these new towns accommodate a population of over 3 million, confined to relatively few areas, as large parts of the NT remain parkland; however, even by 1978, there were over 70 tower blocks with 33,000 apartments in public housing estates, while the Mei Foo Sun Chuen private housing estate in Sham Shui Po boasted 99 blocks and 13,500 apartments.
Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China. They tended to occupy marginal lands and remote hilly areas that distinguished them from other southern groups, reclaiming land from marshland using dykes and levees. They had moved into HK around the C17th when the Qing cleared the southern coastal regions, including Hong Kong, of its population. The Hakka settled around present-day Lai Chi Wo, Tai Po, Sheung Shui, Sai Kung, and Yuen Long in the NT as the Punti had previously staked their claim to much of the area’s fertile plains. Lai Chi Wo became part of the “Alliance of Ten” Hakka village districts in the Sha Tau Kok area which had been formed to provide protection and economic resilience. As HK grew and education became available to all children, the rural Hakka population began to decline as many moved to the new towns and worked in the urban areas or joined the diaspora moving abroad. So, their villages and the remaining inhabitants are now tourist attractions.
We couldn’t go much further north than Lai Chi Wo as Sha Tau Kok was part of the Frontier Closed Area as it had been a major conduit for refugees fleeing the mainland.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to take photos of the urban sprawl as we didn’t stop until we got to the vantage point. Nevertheless, we were able to see Lai Chi Wo, the Sham Chun River and paddy fields, peered into China and met a few Hakka in their traditional clothes.
On the way back the driver stopped at the inevitable shopping arcade where we were expected to buy curios. Of course, the guide and driver were on commission. It had been an exhausting trip driving around the city and we were glad to be on our way back, and so we weren’t having any of this, and asked him to take us back to the hotel.
Afternoon: Shopping
My father had had a suit made by Sam's Tailor, one of Hong Kong's longest-standing bespoke tailors, when he had visited in the 60s and had recommended it. I told my fellow companions and a whole host of us decided to visit. Sam’s was 2 minutes’ walk away from the hotel at Burlington Arcade, 90-94C Nathan Rd. I was measured for a suit and some shirts, and with one or two more fittings they would be ready to pick up before we left. Sam’s is now run by the fourth generation.
Two minutes in the other direction was the Temple Street Night Market. A slight misnomer as the market opens at 2pm but of course stays open after dusk and the road is closed. We walked around for a while, and bought some LPs and cassettes. We also had a look at the Thieves Market where we bought some T-shirts.
Evening: As we had all gone off in opposite directions, we agreed to meet up in the Rat Bar before heading off for something to eat. Unfortunately, it was a pretty awful restaurant; well, the decor was tired, but the food was pretty good. I think that is the story of Chinese restaurants wherever you are. It’s the food that counts, although in today’s world, it’s also the surroundings.
Thursday, December 29th
Morning: Aberdeen Floating Market
The next day there was an organised tour to Hong Kong Island but we weren’t very happy with the arrangements, because like the day before, we would have been on a bus all day. So, eight of us decided to explore Hong Kong Island ourselves. The Cross Harbour tunnel linking Kowloon and Hong Kong Island had opened in 1972 for vehicular traffic which the bus would have taken, but foot passengers still depended on the Star Ferry. This was in the days before the Mass Transit Railway (MTR), which opened a year after our visit.
The Kowloon Ferry Company had been founded in 1888 but changed its name in 1898 to Star Ferry Co Ltd as all the cross-harbour ferries of the company had the word ‘Star’ at the end of their names. In 1977 there were eleven ferries - Celestial Star, Meridian Star, Northern Star, Solar Star, Night Star, Day Star, Shining Star, Twinkling Star, Lady Star, Silver Star and Morning Star.
The Tsim Shat Tsui Terminus was only a 12-minute walk away from the hotel, and we took the Star Ferry across to Central. We sat on the upper deck which cost approximately 30c (20c for the lower); nowadays HK$5 and HK$4, respectively. At Central, we found a local bus to take us to Aberdeen Harbour, famous for its floating village, restaurants, markets and junks. The boat-dwellers are mainly derived from two groups, the Tanka and Hoklo. On our arrival, we were assailed with offers to take us around the harbour on a sampan, which we accepted.
Back on shore, there were plenty of Chinese curio shops selling oil paintings of junks, sampans, mountains, sunsets and typical Chinese scenes. Some of us snapped them up!
Afternoon: Shopping
By this time it was the middle of the afternoon, and we had a rendezvous at Sam’s in Kowloon for our second fitting. After our second fitting Graham, Margaret and I went off to a furniture shop called Tai Hing Arts and Crafts to look at carved camphor chests. We all bought one each which they shipped home to Saudi Arabia for us. They cost HK$900 (about £88) each and it was only two years ago I gave mine to my niece after 40 years of service!
Evening: Friends of Margaret kindly arranged a meal for 18 of us in a private room in a Chinese restaurant near the Excelsior, on Hong Kong Island. We had a 10-course meal ranging from shark’s fin soup to Peking duck and so on. I think for many of us it was the first experience of a revolving Chinese table. It was possibly our best meal on the trip. After the meal, our host took us to Dicken’s, which was a pastiche of an English pub but very popular and with familiar beer names.
Friday, December 30th
Nothing had been planned for the 30th except that we had to move hotels from the Miramar on Kowloon side to the Excelsior on Hong Kong Island. This was the one on our original schedule. No reasonable explanation was given or remembered! The morning was spent packing, and our luggage was taken to the new hotel.
Hotel: Excelsior Hotel
281 Gloucester Road
Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
The hotel was completely different from and superior to the Miramar. It had been built on the site of the original Jardine Mattheson warehouse. A landmark 1,000-room 34-storey hotel on the Causeway Bay waterfront attracting celebrities to its doors when it first opened in 1973. Unlike the Miramar whose view was Nathan Road, our last night afforded us panoramic views of Victoria Harbour and Kowloon. Within its doors was the Dickens Bar, wood-panelled and designed as a traditional British pub, which as luck had had it, we had visited the night before!
It was closed and demolished in 2019.
Morning: The Peak
Four of us took the Star Ferry across to Central, from where we took a rickshaw ride (HK$5 – 10 a ride) to the Peak Tram as we thought we would take the funicular up the Peak despite it being very overcast. It is known locally as The Peak although it is also known as Victoria Peak and Mount Austin. At 1,811 ft it is the tallest hill on HK Island, but only the 29th tallest in the territory. A funicular railway has operated since 1888 and carries both tourists and residents from Garden Road Admiralty up to Mid-Levels and then the Peak. On a clear day, there are spectacular views over the harbour, the New Territories and the surrounding islands.
Afternoon: Shopping
I had to go back to Sam’s in Kowloon to make sure everything fitted, and if it did, to pack and take it back. Everything fitted. Phew. I learnt later that Graham had gone back and his shirts had been a bit too tight and had to be let out. By this time, we knew the Star Ferry pretty well, as of course, we had to cross back again because our hotel was now on the island. I got a taxi back to the hotel and checked in.
Evening: On what was our last night some of us went off to Lockhart Road in Wan Chai, which ran parallel to Jaffe Road and Gloucester Road, very close to the Excelsior. It was well known for its famous nightlife, pubs and dining, and in the 60s Americans had taken advantage of its charms as an R&R stop from Vietnam. We ignored the entreaties of some of the women but had a rather disgusting meal in one of the restaurants before going off to some of the bars at the western end of Lockhart Road.
Two anecdotes I recall: Tricia spent half an hour on our second day asking various staff in the Miramar where the Rat Bar was. She had gone to bed before the discovery of the rat and our nickname for the Bar and thought that was its real name! Lots of cameras were bought on this trip and I think I may have even bought my Pentax then, but to be honest I can’t remember, as well as clothes, audio equipment, and paintings. A glorified shopping trip.
Saturday, December 31st
Hong Kong to Singapore
Our flight to Singapore was at 14:00 so we had to be at Kai Tak at 11am. Margaret, Graham and John had to whisk over to Sam’s to collect their tailoring, and we were all set. Margaret remembers that as we were travelling to the airport Graham had gone very quiet. “He left his oil painting (of Hong Kong harbour at sunset with a couple of junks in the front) in the hotel room” and he had decided to take a taxi from the airport back to the Excelsior to try and find it. As Margaret was explaining, "Ray and I remembered that a bell boy had asked about the roll and taken it down with all the other luggage." So Margaret went off to find our travel agent who was checking in all our baggage. She found it! Graham was delighted that it had been rescued when he returned after his fruitless journey.
We were due to arrive in Singapore at 17:45, the flight time was 3hr 50, but it was, as the whole trip had demonstrated, delayed and we eventually got to our hotel around 9.00pm, having arrived at Paya Lebar, Singapore’s international airport around 9; but at least everybody in the group was on the same plane. Changi, its successor, didn’t start operations until 1981.
The travellers :
Judy Enright, John Hough, Margaret Renwick, John McNally, Damian Mitchell, Edda Brunelli, Graham Vizor, Sandy Birkett, Robert Huisman, Yvonne Miles, Ray Woods, Susan Sharman, Brian Miles, Chris Makin, Graham Edgson, Martin Rawlings, Richard Thom, Carole Johnson, Nasr Husseini, and Tricia Ryan. Many airport waits.
Images:
With permission:
Sam’s Tailor logo © www.samstailor.com
Under CC BY-SA 3.0:
Meridian Star - 颐园新居
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meridian_Star_20110730_1817.jpg)
Under CC BY-SA 2.5:
Excelsior Hotel - Baycrest
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Excelsior_Hotel_Hong_Kong.jpg)
All others: Richard Thom
Credits:
John Hough and Margaret Renwick for their recollections.
About the Author
Richard Thom worked in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia between 1976 and 1980 for Aramco’s Internal Audit and Contract Cost Compliance departments, and then in Tokyo, Japan between 1980 and 1983 for Dodwell, a member of the Inchcape Group of companies. During this time, he took a number of trips and has written these articles about them:
Letter from India and Sri Lanka 1976
Letter from India and Nepal 1978
Letter from India and Sikkim 1982
Jimmy Abdul McGregor, and other Stories: Tales from the Yemen
Dhahran to London 1978, a journey in 10 parts
Other articles for AramcoExpats include a review of Not the May Ball 3 in September 2022; a 10-part serialization of the unofficial history of the Dhahran Rugby Union Football Club,
And a look back on life after Aramco “Dance in the Desert”,
Richard has also published Dance into Business A how-to guide for dance students, teachers and professionals wishing to start up a dance studio or go freelance. It is based on his experience as Finance Director for the Royal Academy of Dance where he worked between 1985 – 2015. It contains helpful tips, practical examples, and points to consider whether just starting out or already in business.
It is available from Amazon websites as a printed book, or an e-book priced locally.
