Hong Kong Transport!

Hong Kong Transport!

One of the most common themes throughout our stay in Hong Kong has been the transport system. Weather it be bus, train, ferry or tram you are always welcomed with an extremely organized and easy to understand system. Even on the specialty transport like Cable Car, however if you are visiting the Ngong Ping cable car its best to get there first thing in the morning as the line becomes quite a wait later in the day. Being our first stop we had considered thoroughly how hard it would be to get around. Luckily the city of Hong Kong was excited to show us exactly how wrong we were!

Pro Tips:

·      Most signage is bilingual and the English component is easy to understand. Same goes for the terminals to buy tickets, they are easy to operate.

·      There is free Wifi at most railway stations so you can use Google maps ‘public transport’ feature to work out which number service you need to be on and how frequently it arrives.

·      You will need exact change when travelling on Buses as they wont give you change. When travelling by Train or ferry there will be an attendant or a machine to dispense tickets. They will give change but may not accept large notes.

·      If you don’t like being in large crowds avoid the peak hours on weekdays. Weekends are fairly busy throughout.

·      As with anywhere in the world, food in and around the transport centers is at a premium, so don’t travel hungry and pack snacks!

All in all I have found the public transport here to be a very clean and well-organized system. It’s also very cheap. Costing much less than what you would be used to in Australia. Ferries can cost between $4.00-$7.50 HKD for a short trip to Hong Kong Island. Busses we paid $4.00 HKD for a short trip and $8.00 HKD for a longer trip to Tung Chung. Airport busses were a little more to get into the city but nothing crazy ($30-$40 HKD from memory).

Although we didn’t catch any cabs, we noticed like everything else in Hong Kong, they run on an Octopus card. Like any transit card you apply credit (assume in person or on line) and you are then able to use all modes of public transport. Amazingly they also work at many restaurants, and I have seen people using them on the photocopier in the Chinese Embassy when applying for a visa! Truly a very integrated system and a must have if you are spending an extended time in Hong Kong. Fares are slightly discounted if using this service.

Over all I am very impressed, and hope that we have not been to spoilt going into China next where I’m sure it will be a bit more difficult! I hope so long as we give our selves plenty of time and take the right attitude we will get through! I am keen to use ‘Google Translate’ for its picture recognition software and see if that helps us on our way (hopefully it can be used off line)!

- Tom