Date: 30th June 2012

Saturday morning, I decided to take the ferry over to Kowloon.

At the time of booking rooms, I saw that many of Hong Kong’s hostels are located in this one building. But the user feedback on hostels.com about Chungking Mansion made it sound as though it was a rather shady place to be. The other problem was that it is a very cramped fourteen-storey tower with not enough elevators. Meaning you would have to wait rather long to get to your hostel or guesthouse.

There are numerous restaurants in Chungking serving South Asian cuisine, with many Indian staff welcoming you to try their menu. After looking around quite a bit, I sat down at one on the ground floor itself.

Although my meal cost close to HK$80 (Rs. 570/$10/€8), I was really full and quite satisfied. I guess nothing like a heavy Indian meal to stuff your tummy. The feeling of content couldn’t have been more complete thanks to the music. The restaurant was playing Bollywood songs from the mid-to-late 90s, songs like “Pardesi, Pardesi” from ‘Raja Hindustani’ and “Meri Mehmooba” from ‘Pardes’ (meaning “foreign land”). Songs from a period which were to be my last few years in Bahrain. I don’t know if the restaurant owners were just going with the whole ‘non-resident Indian’ theme but I kid you not, this was the soundtrack as I munched on my tandoori chicken. I’m no huge fan of Bollywood, but I enjoyed this lunch experience a lot 🙂

I wondered why ‘Ip Man’ Donnie Yen hasn’t gotten a star yet, or maybe I failed to spot it.

I freshened up at the public restrooms and then sat down to drink a lot of water. It was really calm inside here, and I wanted to give my feet some rest!

Needless to say, I was a bit tired, and needed to give my feet some rest!

Previous posts in this series:

Hong Kong 2012: Gurudwara, and walking around Wan Chai

Hong Kong 2012: Views from Victoria Peak, day to night

Hong Kong 2012: Getting there