The Star Ferry

Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!
- Crossing the Bar, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Whilst much of Hong Kong’s attractions are fast, slick and ultra-modern my favourite place is decidedly different. It’s not a skyscraper or a shopping mall, a restaurant or a museum.

Indeed it’s not a place at all. It’s a boat, and a rather modest one at that: the Star Ferry.

This vessel is actually not one but several and together these ferries ship foot passengers short distances over Hong Kong’s waters. And though they several routes, it is only one, that between Central and Kowloon, that people are referring to when they talk of ’The Star Ferry‘.

It is this boat I like, bobbing its way through the harbour.

They bear their names proudly - ‘Shining Star’, ‘Morning Star’ and ‘Northern Star’ - all a variation on the company name, itself inspired by Tennyson.

The boats are old (most of them pushing, if not over, 50 years old) and grubby, slow and noisy.

They have no neon lights, no gizmos and gadgets. Their passengers are probably better kitted out than this transport, since the only satnav on board is probably on the mobile phone in their pocket.

Yet they’re lovingly maintained, a popular ride.

This is not out of sentiment or duty; she still provides a key service, a vital transport link across the water.

Still the ferry seems a bit of an anomaly in this slick, neon, ultra-modern world, and perhaps that is what appeals to many people.

All around is big and loud, quick and glitzy, hastily rushing headlong into the future. The buildings shoot up around her, and new ones rise ever higher.

Yet the Star Ferry remains, a link with the past, a reassuring rock standing solid in the fast river of change.

The Star Ferry has been running, in one form or another, for well over a hundred years, founded by a Parsee merchant, then sold to a British entrepreneur.

She’s an icon of Hong Kong, internationally renowned, up there with the London Route master (RIP) and San Francisco's trams.

She is for anyone and everyone - you’ll rub shoulders with all sorts on board, Rolex-toting bankers, western package tourists.

They’ve all ridden on her, and she’s lived her life through them. She‘s part of their history and part of Hong Kong’s too

At HK$2.20 (about 20p) a ride it was even within our budget - the cheapest ride in town. The locals are rightly proud of this and the authorities meddle with this at their peril.

Back in 1966, a 25% fare increase, pushing tickets up by a whole 5 cents prompted a student to protest and go on hunger strike, and his subsequent arrest to spark riots.

We regularly caught the Star Ferry, leaving Kowloon and our rabbit hutch in the sky to see what life was like on the other side of the harbour.

We went out of our way to make sure our day included a return trip on the ferry, even if it took more time and a lengthy detour through the huge building site they grandly term a ‘land reclamation scheme’ (they must have very long memories).

We head for the terminal, taking our token and squeezing through the turnstiles to await the boat at the end of the pier.

The little boat hoves into view, rounded at bow and stern, with a smart green and cream livery.

A siren sounds and everyone scrambles down the ramp, balancing gingerly on the heavy gangplank as it slid back and forth in the swell.

We ascend onto the wooden deck, the varnish peeling, the timbers worn smooth by a million feet.

It creaks under our feet as we head for the port side and pick a seat, our view uninterrupted by any window.

The benches are wooden and slim, worn soft by decades of passengers before us and with an old-fashioned backrest you could swing over to face the other way.

The air smells of engine oil and fresh paint, salt water and stir fries.

The boisterous crew wear navy blue uniforms, they laugh and chatter, hauling in mooring ropes with long handled hooks.

On the walls stencilled signs read warnings in English and Chinese, whilst in the wheelhose a scrawny chap heaves a heavy wooden wheel, set amongst brass-edged dials and instruments.

By the cabin door a huge curved exhaust vent protrudes out of the deck, like a monstrous ear trumpet, whilst over amidships an open door gushes hot air and the whiff of diesel from the bowels below.

From inside we hear the protests of the old engine, grumbling from below decks.

A siren sounds and an excitable hum rises up amongst the passengers as the vessel noses out into the waters of the harbour.

This soon turns into ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s as they take in the view. A hundred camera shutters click.

The bow churns up a steady white froth as the bobs up and down towards the opposite pier. To an onlooker onshore it might look like a child’s toy, rocking slowly on a central pivot, its rounded ends rising in turn.

The wind breezes through, picking up salty spray and occasionally coating us in fine cloud.

Hong Kong surely doesn’t look finer from the deck of the Star Ferry.

During the day we share the harbour with a whole host of other craft. We weave through them - dredgers and small freighters, tourist junks and huge cruise ships, fishermen and police launches.

They glide and they chug and they scuttle on past, a moving foreground to the fantastical skyscrapers of Central. Like plants in a jungle these giant of concrete and steel seem to compete with each other, fighting for light in a crowded terrain.

At night they continue their tussle with light shows of their own, spectacular displays which blaze in a great riot of colour, yellow cubes, flashing neon, stretching out to us in the waters of the harbour.

It transfixes its appreciative audience, flickering, transforming, as we head over to Kowloon.

We pull into the opposite terminal in the good ol’ fashion way, casually ramming the side, gently bumping into the dock.

The crew hitch her up to barnacle-encrusted moorings, old wooden stakes coated with seaweed, slowly rotting away.

The ramp is soon lowered and the passengers pile off, to business appointments in Tsim Sha Tsui, shop in Mong Kok, homes in the New Territories.

Soon a siren sounds, the gate lifts once more and another swathe of passengers storms down the ramp to her waiting embrace, like a herd of cattle heading home, impatient for dinner.

The ferry’s off again, back into the waters.