Hong Kong for the first time

In all my years of travel, I have very few regrets. I’ve made the most of so many business trips and explored the wider world. However, two regrets always stand out. One occurred while visiting London on business in 2002. At the time, British Airways was offering a special deal flying Concorde to New York. You could book a ticket on the supersonic jet in one direction and return on a regular Jumbo Jet for a remarkably affordable price.

I debated the merits of booking myself an indulgent weekend but decided it wasn’t a great look professionally. At the time, our tech industry-centric company had just spent a year closing offices and cutting jobs worldwide following the dot.com bust. While it was the right move politically, to this day I rue the day I turned down an opportunity to fly Concorde. A year later, the supersonic airliner was permanently grounded, and the opportunity was gone for good.

My second regret was one of sheer inertia. For several years in the late 1990s, I had several friends living in Hong Kong, including my longest-standing friendship in Australia with Michele Olsen. I’d always wanted to experience the hair-raising landing at Kai Tak Airport, the city’s primary airport until July 1998.

The airport’s geography meant that pilots were forced to fly down Victoria Harbour, plot their location using a giant checkerboard pattern on the aptly named Checkboard Hill, where upon they’d make a low-altitude (below 180 metres), 47-degree right-hand turn, ending with a short final approach and touchdown on a runway extending into the harbour. For pilots, this airport was technically demanding, as the approach could not be flown by instruments. It had to be flown visually, thanks to that notorious last-minute right-hand turn.

Sadly, I never did get my act together. As a result, when I finally booked my first trip to Hong Kong in 2000, the airport had long since relocated to its current location at Chek Lap Kok. Ironically, after so many years of procrastination, I ultimately visited the city twice that year. My first trip was a brief four-night vacation. I landed on the evening of 16 March and departed again on 20 March 2000. Three months later, I flew back to Hong Kong courtesy of a company called Network Asia, a regional tech start-up, to conduct media training for its top executives.

Michele went all out for my first visit. At the time, she was employed as an au pair for a wealthy expat family. The family had given her a convertible to drive as part of her employment. One evening, after meeting up for dinner, she decided to drive me over the recently opened Tsing Ma Bridge. This 1377-metre-long suspension bridge was part of a new highway built to link the city with its new airport on Lantau Island.

Michele knew I was a civil engineering fanatic and thus decided I’d enjoy driving the entire Lantau Link that included a new cross-harbour tunnel, freeway system and the new suspension bridge. We made our way to Tsing Ma Bridge with the roof down in her employer’s convertible, enjoying the sea breeze and city lights at night.

The bridge itself was brilliantly lit with an impressive floodlit display soaring overhead as we drove. About halfway over the span, the floodlights suddenly turned off, as they did every night at 10:00pm. Decades later, I still recall the moment. Remember, we were in a convertible with lighting visible in every direction, including the suspension cables directly overhead. Hence, the sudden switch to near-complete darkness was truly dramatic.

On another occasion, Michele picked me up from my hotel, drove us up Victoria Peak to enjoy its iconic harbour view, and then across Hong Kong Island to spend an afternoon wandering through the eclectic markets in Stanley, a beachside town on the island’s rugged southern coast. I also remember this being the first time I met her future husband, David, who was enjoying a wild time in Wanchai celebrating St. Patrick's Day (on 17 March) with other expats. 

As you can see from the images above, I took time out to explore the bustling street markets in Mong Kok, including its famous bird, fish and flower markets. As a first-time visitor, I also did the classic tourist thing and watched the Noonday Gun being fired in Causeway Bay. 

On my penultimate day in town, I booked myself a day trip to the former Portuguese colony of Macau. I caught the high-speed ferry to Macau, and then on a whim, caught a helicopter back to Hong Kong. You can read about my day in Macau here. On Monday, 21 March, I caught an overnight flight with Ansett Australia back to Sydney, flying via Brisbane.

As I noted earlier, a few months later, I unexpectedly returned to Hong Kong on business. At the time, I was managing the account of a new regional internet service provider start-up company called Network Asia. Michael Dunn, the regional marketing manager, was an expat Brit who’d spent many years living in Hong Kong. He took a shine to me and asked me to fly up from Sydney and spend a day media training their senior executives. I flew into Hong Kong on Saturday 17 June and back out again on Wednesday 21 June.

At the time, the dot.com boom was peaking, and like all well-financed start-ups, Network Asia was splashing cash like nobody’s business. I was flown business class to Hong Kong and put up in the uber-lux five-star Mandarin Hotel in Wanchai. Michael was happy to fly me in on the weekend so that I could catch up with friends before starting work on Monday. My first working day wasn't exactly exhausting. It began with a planning meeting and a leisurely lunch at the exclusive expat Press Club in the Mid-Levels district. 

The company’s headquarters were equally extravagant. They were housed in a high-level office building in Wanchai. The company’s entrance lobby, halfway up the building, was a multi-level atrium with a lush garden wall and Feng Shui water feature. I couldn’t believe I was looking at an indoor waterfall flowing high above the street below. Unsurprisingly, two years later, the company ran out of funding and closed its doors in 2002.

I’d return to Hong Kong regularly for many years on business, particularly after becoming the Regional Director for Asia Pacific in May 2002. I was also in Hong Kong during the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York in September 2001. After leaving Text 100, I continued to visit Hong Kong once a year to attend an industry trade show and meet with some of Artiwood’s Asian-based suppliers. I maintained this routine until January 2020. We stopped attending these events after the COVID pandemic. As of today, the trip I took from 6-8 January 2020 was my last visit to Hong Kong.

This final trip is worth a special note. In the months leading up to this visit, Hong Kong had been racked by increasingly violent and desperate protests. Between March and November 2019, hundreds of thousands of people had been regularly turning out for rallies and marches to express opposition to a bill allowing extrajudicial detention and extradition to Mainland China. As the months passed, the protests became increasingly violent as Mainland-sponsored vigilantes began attacking protesters and the police responded with increasingly aggressive tactics.

These protests reached their most desperate moment in November of that year when protesters took control of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in Kowloon and blockaded the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. The protest siege ended when police eventually stormed the campus. Sadly, these protests were in vain. A revised version of the extradition bill was eventually passed into law in May 2020. I've illustrated these dramatic events using images pulled from Wikipedia.

By chance, I found myself attending a meeting with a supplier at their hotel near PolyU in January 2020. As I exited the station, I found myself standing in the heartland of the student protests that had taken place just seven weeks earlier. Temporary hoarding and residual graffiti were still visible as I walked to my meeting from Hung Hom metro station. It was another of those special moments where I’ve been privileged to experience a headline-making, or historical, location first-hand.

On a more positive note, this final business trip also included a dinner with Angie and Ivan, owners of an organic plush toy brand we distributed. My hosts generously entertained me at VEA, an exclusive, intimate fine dining venue overlooking central Hong Kong. We were treated to a selection of vintage champagne and Kristal caviar, followed by a series of delicate dishes individually curated, prepared and presented by a private chef working in an open kitchen at our table.  It was undoubtedly one of the most decadent evenings I've ever spent in all my years of business travel.

Baby steps

Garry and I have booked two weeks in Bali for late October. We're calling this our first official retirement holiday (or taking baby steps into retirement, as a friend described it). The day before we fly, we’re scheduled to receive the final instalment of payments from our business sale. We’ll then be just weeks away from completing the last of our post-sale obligations. 

We've taken advantage of a Qantas sale and a special all-inclusive promotion with the Sofitel Nusa Dua Beach Resort. We'll spend 11 nights in a luxurious suite with direct pool access. Our booking includes all meals plus cocktails and canapés each night. Our ironing lady just returned from a stay in the same room category at the hotel. She’s raving about the room, the food and the hotel in general.

However, before we settle down by the pool, we're first heading for the islands of Flores for a three-day cruise around Komodo Island. We've booked the best cabin on Andalucia 3, a brand new ironwood and teak Phinisi-style boat. Check out the video of our cabin that opens this post. The owner of the boat sent me this video as all the images currently published online are only 3D renderings.

Our cruise includes a morning tour of Rinca Island where we'll see Komodo Dragons in the wild. We're also being promised a mind-blowing swim with Giant Manta Rays. Finally, the night before we board the boat, I've booked us a sunset dinner at Le Bajo Flores, a superb restaurant overlooking the pristine blue water in Labuan Bajo Flores.  Watch this space!

The bucket list

Having logged so many travel adventures over the years, I’m often asked, where to next? I’m quick to reassure people that there’s plenty left to explore. In fact, I have a five-page bucket list I’ve maintained for more than a decade, which I’m keen to complete. However, it's fair to say that Garry and I have already ticked off most of the world's easy-to-reach and cheap-to-explore destinations. As a result, completing our bucket list is an increasingly expensive proposition.

So what's on the list?  For example, it includes a tour through the “Five Stans” in Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. I’m keen to see the flaming Darvaza Crater; Samarkand, Uzbekistan’s fabled turquoise city; and the marble city of Ashgabat. These days, several Middle Eastern airlines fly there, making this elusive region much easier to reach.

I’m also keen to see the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, explore the Okavango Delta and experience the Serengeti. I’d also like to see Zanzibar, visit the famous Masai-Maji tribes and encounter Gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda. I recently met a man from Ghana, who convinced me to add his home nation to my list. Equally, I’d love to visit Timbuktu. However, the rebels in Mali need to stop kidnapping tourists. 

Garry and I are both keen to visit the Galápagos Islands and see its marine iguanas. Then, while we’re in the region, explore a few Mayan ruins in Central America. Everyone says the birdlife in Costa Rica is unrivalled, so that’s also on the short list. 

A cruise down the Mekong, Vietnam and Angkor Wat top our list of must-see destinations in Asia. I’m still keen to visit North Korea and explore central China. You can only reach the hermit nation via flights from Beijing, so why not see the best of Zhangjiajie on the way? Garry and I have also talked about visiting the Philippines.

On a more conventional note, we’re both keen to explore more of France, including the Atlantic Coast and the Pyrenees, plus a few days in Andorra. Elsewhere in Europe, we’d like to visit Monte Carlo, see Albania and possibly explore the Italian Lake District. Luxembourg is also missing from our list of European countries we’ve visited.

Closer to home, Garry and I want to cross the Nullarbor, visit Southwest WA, the Kimberleys and swim with whale sharks at Ningaloo. Garry hasn’t seen Broken Hill, and we’re both like to tick Birdsville off our bucket list. I’m also keen to visit Cape York, which you can reach from Thursday Island, rather than driving 1000km overland from Cairns.

Finally, there are a few more exotic and remote locations on my shortlist. This includes the dramatic Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic (see the Google Street View screenshot above), St Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic and even further south, the Falkland Islands. Garry and I have also talked about visiting Palau, Tuvalu and Kiribati to round out our Pacific Island adventures.

So next time you ask, “Where to next?”, I’ll refer you to this blog post. Let the fun begin.

Where to from here?

Garry and I will be on the road again later this month. I have three trips planned over five weeks. You could say that every time the diary empties, Garry and I find an excuse to fill it.

On 25 July we’re flying to Ballina to spend four nights staying with Liz and Adam Benson on their hobby farm near Alstonville. When we last caught up with them in Sydney, we decided it would be fun to celebrate Christmas in July together. This will be our second such event this month as Garry has already scheduled a Christmas in July event at our place in two weeks time.

I then fly to Melbourne in early August for an annual industry tradeshow we’ve been attending for more than a decade. I hope to find time to catch up with my niece and her boyfriend, and touch base with a few Melbourne colleagues.

My travel schedule is then rounded out by a long weekend in New Zealand at the end of August. This will be my annual pilgrimage to visit family in the Bay of Plenty. For most of my life, my parents were the primary catalyst for booking a flight to New Zealand. Now they’re gone, I need to make more of an effort to stay connected.

This trans-Tasman trip is one of many subtle and not-so-subtle lifestyle changes unfolding these days. All around me, friends and family are becoming empty-nesters, transitioning into retirement and reinventing the purpose and meaning in their lives. If I’m honest, this change has crept up on me. It’s akin to that classic trope of boiling a frog. Over time, small changes accumulate until one day you wake up and realise the world you once knew has gone.

For more than three decades, my life has been fairly predictable, at least in terms of building a career, saving for retirement and striving for traditional milestones such as debt-free home-ownership. Now, as I approach the final decades of my life, and these milestones are achieved, my priorities are shifting. My life’s purpose is quietly changing, and I’ve yet to work out what it all means for me. It’ll be interesting to see how my blog posts evolve as this journey unfolds.

Last century in Seattle

I first visited Seattle in 1999. I stayed with Michael, a friend originally from Sydney, and his partner, Anthony. Michael had recently relocated to take on a bigger role at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle. I flew into Los Angeles early on the morning of Friday, 9 April, cleared immigration and transferred onto a shuttle flight heading north.

I spent a week with the boys. They were gracious hosts, arranging regular excursions to experience all Seattle’s popular attractions. Anthony wasn’t working at the time, so he was a chauffeur and tour guide whenever Michael was at work. However, Michael took me onto the Microsoft campus one day to give me a taste of Silicon Valley life, including a well-appointed staff cafeteria filled with snacks.

As a seasoned technology public relations consultant and former industry analyst, I certainly wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to visit the headquarters of one of the world’s most formidable tech giants. Michael took me through the Microsoft museum on campus. This was rather special as the building wasn’t open to the public. You needed a security pass to access it.

I vividly remember seeing a Radio Shack TRS-80 personal computer on display. Launched in 1977, it was one of the earliest mass-produced, mass-marketed retail home computers. It was also the same device on which I’d learned to code in BASIC in 1984. At the time, I was an exchange student studying at Syracuse, in upstate New York. My high school had a computer lab set up with dozens of these pioneering desktop computers.

I signed up for a Computer Studies elective and spent a semester creating some nifty applications. This included programming a multiple-choice quiz about my home nation, New Zealand, and its culture. The program also featured a map of New Zealand built using highlighted pixel blocks. According to Wikipedia, the TRS-80 was the bestselling PC line until 1982, outselling the Apple II by a factor of five. It’s hard to believe this simple machine was once leading-edge technology.

Anthony also helped me get my geek on. We took a day trip up to the Boeing factory in Everett, a satellite city 40km north of Seattle. We booked ourselves onto a factory tour that took us through this massive complex. The factory is the world’s largest building by volume, covering 98 acres. Its ceiling stands 32 metres above the floor, with six hangar doors, each more than 100 metres wide. It contains six separate production lines with commercial aircraft standing nose-to-tail in various stages of assembly. You know a building is huge when it’s housing rows of Jumbo Jets but doesn’t feel claustrophobic.

Anthony and I somehow missed the start of the tour. We’d been exploring the Boeing Museum attached to the visitor’s centre and missed the guide calling everyone onto the tour bus. However, a staff member took pity on us and drove us by golf cart to catch up with the group. The fastest way there was across the factory floor.  As a result, we got an unscheduled, close-up, ground-floor view of the assembly line in action. 

For someone who decorated their childhood bedroom with images of commercial airliners, our impromptu drive was a dream come true. At one point, we passed under the wings of a Jumbo, with its engine cowlings splayed to reveal the mind-numbing engineering wizardry inside. It was a Disneyland ride for geeks. We eventually caught up with the rest of the tour on a mezzanine overlooking the factory. However, unlike Anthony and me, the group hadn't been anywhere near the giant aircraft we'd just encountered. 

On Monday, 12 April, Michael and Anthony bought tickets to see the Seattle Thunderbirds, a local team in the junior ice hockey league. The game was played at KeyArena, but to my surprise, it wasn't well attended. Most of the stadium was empty. At best, the attendance was barely 4,000.  No doubt a mid-afternoon start inevitably kept some people away.

The game lived up to Ice Hockey's often thuggish reputation. We witnessed some brutal clashes on the ice, including opposing players being slammed against glass panels surrounding the rink. The Thunderbirds ultimately lost 4-0 to the TriCity Americans, another Washington State team. I still have the souvenir hockey puck I bought after the game.

Fun fact time. The stadium sits in the original 1962 World's Fair grounds, home to the city’s iconic Space Needle. The needle made for a memorable sight as we walked from the car park to the stadium. I can’t recall if we ever ventured up the tower during my time in Seattle.

One afternoon, Anthony took me for a drive into the mountains east of Seattle. We drove an hour or so to Snoqualmie Pass, where winter snow was still deep on the ground. I vividly recall side roads at the ski resorts slicing through surprisingly deep snowbanks. In places, the icy snow walls were three or four metres high. It was more like driving through a tar-sealed canyon of sheer white cliffs. The photo I took of the main highway, above, while less dramatic than the narrow side roads, tells the story.

On another occasion, Anthony took it upon himself to anoint me as his personal shopper. We hit the stores one day and shopped for a whole new wardrobe for me. I eventually came home with a second suitcase filled to the brim. Michael wasn’t impressed; He later commented that his partner sometimes enjoyed spending other people’s money a little too much to his liking.

I also made an impromptu visit to McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, approximately an hour south of Seattle.  I met an armed serviceman from the Deep South at a nightclub.  He invited me back to visit the base. This was years before 9/11. As we approached the base's entrance, the security guards on duty waved us through after a cursory check of my companion's military ID. I wasn't asked for any ID at all. How times have changed! 

The following morning, I recall watching Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo transport aircraft taking off as we drove out. The image above, pulled from the web, shows these massive planes coming in to land at McChord Air Force Base.  At the time, the base was actively supporting NATO peacekeeping efforts in the Balkan states following the Bosnian War.

Towards the end of the week, Michael took me on a road trip to see some of Seattle’s geographic landmarks, including Lake Washington, Lake Union and the Shipping Canal whose locks link the city’s lakes to Puget Sound. The locks also feature a nifty fish ladder that helps spawning salmon make their way upstream. 

At one point, we stopped for coffee at Pike Place Market, the city’s bustling produce and craft market on a hillside overlooking Puget Sound. Although, if truth be told, our itinerary with plenty of outdoor venues was partially an excuse to take Bondi, Michael’s large Malamute dog, for his daily walk.

After an eventful week in Seattle, I packed my bags and flew back to San Francisco for my first-ever visit to the picturesque Bay Area. I share more about this experience in another retrospective post. Garry and I returned to Seattle for my second and last visit in 2012.

Nanggol

That’s another item ticked off the bucket list. This morning, Garry and I visited Pentecost Island to witness its extraordinary Land Diving ritual firsthand. Known locally as Nanggol, this coming-of-age ceremony is renowned for its death-defying daredevil antics. It’s held for three months every year, from April until June. When I realised we’d be in Vanuatu during land diving season, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

It’s an unbelievable sight. Boys and men leap from a hillside tower built from freshly harvested timber with supple lianas tied to their ankles. The vine breaks the diver's initial momentum before a collapsible diving platform brings them to a halt as they hit the ground. Young boys use a platform closest to the ground, approximately 10 metres high, while older men leap from progressively higher platforms. The highest of these is up 30 metres above ground.

 

The ceremonial jump begins with locals singing and dancing to inspire and embolden each diver. They gather in traditional costumes at the top of the hill and proceed to sing, whistle and dance with considerable gusto as the ceremony progresses. A local guide explained that each diver chooses their own motivational song. The diver also ties and tests his own vine before each jump. They then ritually gesture to the sky in prayer, before launching themselves into the air.

The energy on the hillside is almost palpable as each dive begins. The speed at which they fall initially caught everyone by surprise, and the accompanying sounds are unnerving to say the least. This includes a rather solid thud as the diver hits the freshly tilled earth, and the startling crack of timber as the diving platform collapses. You can see the broken platforms dangling in the image above.

We learned that the ritual begins days in advance. The men seclude themselves from the women and refrain from sex. Furthermore, women are not allowed to go near the tower or touch. If they do so, they desecrate it, and the tower must be rebuilt. The construction of the tower typically takes between two and five weeks, so it’s not a task anyone wants to repeat unnecessarily. 

We learned that the divers are also seeking divine intervention for a bountiful yam harvest, rather than just invoking a coming-of-age ritual. In other words, the older men are literally diving for yams, rather than for their manhood. It adds a whole new meaning to the virtue of eating your vegetables when someone's put their life on the line for them.

The core of the tower is made from a lopped tree, while its outer framework is built from pole scaffolding tied together with vines, stabilising it. The final structure is both dramatic, chaotic and somehow robustly reassuring. Before the men dive, they often bring closure to unsettled business and disputes in case they die. The night before the jump, the divers sleep beneath the tower to ward off evil spirits.

These days, Pentecost locals perform dives as much for tourist entertainment as they do for an age-old ritual. Today, two planeloads, including Garry and me, flew in from Port Vila to watch a weekly diving display. The day began early. Garry and I were collected from Eratap Resort shortly before 6:00am. Our flight then departed around 8:30pm.

It took us about an hour and ten minutes to fly 225 kilometres north to Pentecost Island. Along the way, we flew over Cooks Reef (see the end of this post) and skirted the conical summit of Lopevi, an active volcanic island (shown above). Sadly, the summit was shrouded by clouds and steam, so we never saw the crater. However, for most of our flight, the weather was surprisingly sunny. For days now, the forecast had predicted persistent showers and heavy clouds, so this morning’s fine weather was very welcome.

Take off and landing were a little hair-raising as surface winds buffeted our rather well-worn twin-engine Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander. Coming into land at Pentecost was another highlight. Lonocore Airport has clearly seen better days. It was a simple affair. The airfield consisted of a modest concrete block hut and a sealed runway with a well-worn surface coated by a fine pebble sheen.

We were driven to the land diving site, seated in the open tray of a local Ute. The ceremony itself took about 1:45 hours to complete. We then returned to the airport, drove down the runway and onto the nearby beach for a simple picnic lunch. We then returned to Port Vila, landing shortly after 1:30pm.

As we flew south, I couldn't help but note how much of the Vanuatu archipelago has been shaped by volcanic activity. Old craters, ancient cinder cones and smoking summits can be seen from one island to the next. While many tourists are familiar with the spectacular active volcano on Tanna Island, the nation's volcanic heritage is just as dramatic and surprisingly pervasive elsewhere. You're left in no doubt that the Pacific Ring of Fire passes through this geologically active region.

It’s hard to believe this extraordinary feat of courage has been happening on Pentecost for centuries. Christian missionaries successfully convinced the locals to stop diving regularly in the mid-19th Century. For more than a century, ad hoc diving ceremonies occurred from time to time. However, after Vanuatu gained independence in 1980, the ritual was revived by Christian locals as a proud expression of cultural identity.

Perhaps the most infamous ad hoc diving event occurred when Queen Elizabeth II visited and observed the spectacle in 1974. Our local guide explained that the locals were persuaded to dive out of season, at a time of year when the vines aren’t sufficiently elastic. During the Queen’s ceremony, one diver had both lianas broken, broke his back upon hitting the ground, and later died in a hospital.

UPDATE: 14 June

We woke to pouring rain and gusty winds today. It rained relentlessly in a surprisingly heavy deluge until late evening. The Qantas flight from Brisbane even diverted to Noumea as conditions deteriorated (see below). It would appear we got lucky with yesterday’s sunny skies and near-perfect flying conditions.