Hong Kong Travel Bureau Offers Budget Advice

You don’t have to be a student to take advantage of the Hong Kong Student Travel Bureau. At eight offices around the city, employees provide young travelers with suggestions for budget lodgings and help in making economical travel arrangements.

The office offers assistance to travelers who want to join groups or head off independently. It can help travelers arrange visas into China in one or two days.

The HKSTB also has negotiated more than 1,500 Hong Kong discounts for visiting students. Travelers carrying International Student Identity Cards (ISIC) can obtain a free booklet listing cultural and retail reductions.

All of the HKSTB offices are within a five-minute walk of a subway stop. But one of the most convenient locations is the office at 1021 Star House, 3 Salisbury Road, near the Star Ferry dock in Kowloon. This office also has a small travel book library, which can be a helpful reference for planning travel.

There also is a HKSTB service located inside the STB Hostel, one of Hong Kong’s travel hostels. When I visited the STB Hostel, at 255 Reclamation St., near the Mong Kok subway station, I found that it was among the cleanest and most secure budget accommodations in Hong Kong. There were twin, triple and dormitory rooms, with beds for about $7.

When searching for hostels, don’t rely on all of the addresses in most printed guidebooks as correct. Last year two of the HKSTB offices moved.

The Kwun Tong Plaza branch has moved to Shop No. 42, G/F Yue Man Centre, 300-302 Ngau Taub Kok Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon; telephone locally 797-9123. The office at 1227 Nan Fung Centre has moved to 1501A Nan Fung Centre, 264-298 Castle Peak Road, Tsuen Wan, New Territories; telephone 413-0660.

An airport bus route, initiated last year, provides service to the Mong Kok area of Kowloon. The A4 airbus departs from Hong Kong International Airport every 15 minutes, 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. The fare is about $1.10.

The island of Hong Kong has a population of more than 1 million. But the British crown colony of Hong Kong also includes more than 230 outlying islands, and several are only a short, inexpensive ferry ride away.

Lantau, Hong Kong’s largest island, has two youth hostels and a monastery where budget travelers can stay, and is only a one-hour ferry ride from the Central District of Hong Kong. Local bus fares are cheapest on weekdays.

For example, from where the ferry docks at Silvermine Bay on Lantau, you can climb aboard a local bus and visit Hong Kong’s largest Buddhist monastery, Po Lin, for about $1. It’s the island’s most popular tourist site.

Dominating the skyline above Po Lin is the largest outdoor bronze Buddha in Asia. You can arrange to stay at the monastery, in a Spartan four-bedded room (three vegetarian meals included) for about $21. Reservations are not required. To check for space, call locally 5-9855248.

It’s also a one-hour ferry ride from the Central District to the island of Cheung Chau, where no cars are permitted and where one of the country’s most spectacular festivals is held. The six-day Cheung Chau Bun religious festival will begin May 21. It climaxes with an event involving 98-foot towers decorated with thousands of pink-and-white sweet buns, which are thought to ward off bad luck and sickness.

Cheung Chau is one of the Hong Kong islands that can be investigated economically by using a special do-it-yourself booklet and map produced by the Hong Kong Tourist Assn.

Walking-tour publications are sold for about $2.10 at HKTA information and gift centers at Shop 8, Basement, Jardine House, Central District, and at the Star Ferry concourse in Kowloon.

Walking Tour publications are also available for the Central and Western District of Hong Kong, and the Kowloon area between Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, called the Yau Ma Tei walking tour.

For more information on Hong Kong, contact the Hong Kong Tourist Assn., 10940 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1220, Los Angeles 90024, (213) 208-4582.