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The cargo had to be discharged, particularly that which now had to be
transhipped for Taiwan, and then an army of men came aboard for a mass
chipping and painting of every rust-spot on the ship. It being almost intolerable
to remain aboard, I decided to take in the sights and sounds of what was reputedly
the most interesting port on the entire run.

Hong Kong: Junk in rain squall

The press of humanity was perhaps the first impression. The second was the
traffic. The primary mode of transportation was the tram, a mode of carriage that
in London had disappeared in the early 1950s, largely because of their inflexibility,
noise and discomfort. I remembered having ridden on many in my youth, but by
1962, they were a dim and distant memory. I clearly remembered their demise,
for they had been replaced by double-decker trolleys, large, imposing and rather
elegant machines, the better for being almost completely silent. They, in their turn,
had been replaced by Routemasters and their forebears, more flexible indeed, but
noisy and polluting. Walking around the colony felt like being in another era.

One of my purposes in going ashore was to relieve the silence (a comparative
term) of the daily on-board activities.

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