My first Hong Kong encounter embodies all of the reasons I love to travel. I travel to meet interesting people, to experience culture and above all to keep me on my toes.
Upon arrival in Hong Kong, I cleared customs, grabbed some cash and made my way down to the taxi stand for a cab. Just outside the door there was a sea of red cabs all lined up to take arriving passengers to Kowloon. I was waved over to the second cab in the line, and hopped in. I told the driver the hotel where I was meeting up with my friend, and he repeated it a couple times but it didn’t seem to ring a bell for him. Having my phone in my bag, I quickly pulled up the hotel info from my email to show him.
He took my phone (which I fully expected him to do), but then he reached down beside him and picked up a huge magnifying glass. I’m talking novelty prop, the kind you would use in a cartoon or see in a comedy sketch. He peered through the ridiculously large glass, read the hotel name a couple of times and then finally came the ‘aha’ moment when he remembered where it was.
Victoria Harbour at night. Photo: Mike Fallone
The fun didn’t stop there. Once in the cab and on the road, I took a look at his dash setup. Not unlike some other countries I’ve travelled to (Ghana or India being prime examples of pimped out transit), his dash was fully accessorized. Not for fashion, but for function. He had a fishing tackle box latched with bungee cords to the top of the dash to hold his change so that it was easily accessible for tolls. There was a paper-tube taped up at the bottom to hold his pens (it looked as though it was glued to the dash). A clipboard was suction cupped to the inside of the windshield, and he also had an ipod and two cell phone all zip-tied to the air vents.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when one of the cell phones beeped, and he immediately reached for the cartoon magnifying glass to read the text message. I’m not sure whether that counts as hands free with the handheld magnifying glass.
Encounters like this always make me laugh and are one of the big reasons I love to travel. Just from this quick cab ride to the hotel, I knew that Hong Kong was going to be my kind of place.
Keaner Travels 