If you've ever been there, you'll know what I'm talking about...
This was my first visit to Hong Kong. I was staying in urban Kowloon where the lights burned hot and bright and were alien to me. They were alien to my home in Lightwater – A small village in straight laced Surrey. In Kowloon the buildings seemed to grow taller every minute. They flashed and reflected every colour, winking at the tiny ants below. There were so many people. Living on top of one another, spilling out of buildings, squashed together on public transport. They squeezed through the streets like toothpaste out of the tube. Five days in, and I began to feel nauseous. The smell of salty fish and Chinese spices soaked my clothes, my hair and was absorbed by my wet skin. My guide decided to show me a different side to the island…
‘Ocean Park is not busy at this time of year.’ Jen said. The crowds of sticky children I had been expecting were at school. I am afraid of heights, but didn’t want to play it safe. It was Hong Kong and I’d travelled 12 hours to see it. The cable cars whirred as they streamed in from their previous destination. Jen helped me into the glass bubble. Only the top and bottom were glass. The sides were open, but for three metal bars on each side. ‘Why are these things open Jen? I thought you said there was glass all around.’ She giggled at me - Laughed at my obvious discomfort. I squeezed the plastic seat between my slippery fingertips and tried to breathe deeper and longer. The glossy bauble began to move. I closed my eyes and held a long breath.
‘No, no’ she said, ‘You must open your eyes. You’re going to miss everything.’ I opened one eye, then the other just as we were leaving the docking station. The gondola floated noiselessly above the landscape, held by a long looping cable. My palms were moist and my arms, sore from gripping the seat. My shoulders hunched around my goose pimpled neck. I couldn’t help but imagine the scenario of the gondola coming loose from the cable and bouncing down the mountain and finally plopping into the shark infested water below. I didn’t know for sure it was shark infested, but your mind always assumes the worst. ‘Honestly. Stop it. I can see you’re scared. Please relax. You’re going to regret it if you spend the whole ride stuck in that position.’
I finally breathed out. This was silly. Jen was right. For the first time, I let my mouth open. I allowed my chest to fill with the rushing air sweeping in between the protective steel bars. Then I began to look around. The gondola began to make it’s descent into the dark green chasm between these two natural mounds in the earth’s crust.
The peak on Wong Chuck Han and the other on Nam Long Chan were each other’s barrier to the rest of the world. Like two fighters squaring before battle, they were motionless, rigid, life pumping under their surface. I tilted my head back to focus on Wong Chuck Han. In this moment I remember feeling insignificant, minute, and humbled by natural beauty. I was a spec on the globe, about to be squashed by something infinitely bigger than myself. There was no clearer argument for God’s existence – the embellished scene lifted me out of my seat, then it lifted the fear right out of me, so it shattered on the crags below. I had never felt so exhilarated, so pumped with adrenalin, like this. My hands left the seat and clamored to the silvery bars. They no longer provided protection. They were holding me in, holding me back, chaining me to my earthly existence.
We were ascending again. I slithered to the other side of the cage, poking my head between the bars. The sea was on this side. The steel blue water wrinkled over the current like the skin over my purple veins - it pulsed with marine life. The ficus which had germinated over the mountain’s surface, concealed the rock’s less vibrant mottled grey/brown. I could imagine the evergreen, broad leaved, vegetation sucking at the wet air, recycling our exhausted breaths.
