It is amazing the way Hong Kong and Main Land China have found the way to control the huge amount of people crossing the border from side to side, I have already been here for more than 6 months and I have had to cross this “border” more than 20 times. The process is really simple but it takes around 30 minutes to be completed, of course, if it is not Friday morning or Saturday afternoon, at these times it can take you around 1 hour, if you are lucky enough not to get behind a touristic group of people, that usually are of around 20 people led by a not-so-fast tourist guide towards the customs clerk, but we will talk about that later.

There are two main ways to go to Mainland China from Hong Kong, the first one is through Lok Ma Chau (Hong Kong side)-HuangGang (Mainland China side), which is the only way if you are traveling by bus or by car, the second one is through Lo wu(Hong Kong side)-Luohu(Mainland China side) if you are traveling by train, this way is very convenient because there are direct connections between the Metro system (MTR) and the railway system (CTR) and once you cross the border to China Mainland the Shenzhen Metro station is 5 minutes away and this Metro system can take you to up to Shi Jie Zhi Chuang (Window of the world) in Nanshan District. If you go through HuangGang you can take a bus (Number 26) to Shennan Road (The main avenue of Shenzhen) or a Taxi (but be careful do not take a taxi without identification, it can be very dangerous if you take a “Pirate Taxi”) the starting fee of the Taxi is 12,50 Yuan, around 1,5 us$.

But my real story is the Nowhere land between Hong Kong and China Mainland, if you are going HK-PRC direction you have to make customs at the Hong Kong border, this border is really creepy, the customs officer wear surgeons’ masks (most of them) and white gloves, it seems as if you are in a BIOHAZARD area. And by the posters you see on the walls you can see that the main concern of the Hong Kong goverment is to avoid massive tropical epidemic diseases such as Dengue, Malaria and the horrible “Bird Flu” . As a world dweller I really appreciate that the HK authorities take good concern over these issues, but as a traveler you feel not so confortable, and once you have checked out you pass through a temperature inspection post controlled by some white-robe , surgeon/masked, pseudo doctors that really creeps you out. Having fever is a big trouble is you are crossing the border, so if you are not feeling very well, please take a rest and wait until you feel better, otherwise I can tell you that you will have some problems… with the health officers ….. I do not want to imagine what will happen if someone with fever is caught there….. I guess you will be quarantined….. It all sounds like a Sci-fi episode, please take care. Once you are in what I call the “Nowhere-Limbo”, you are nowhere, you are not in HK, you are not in Mainland China, so I wonder, where did I get? if something happens here, who can help? you see no HK police officers nor Chinese ones, so it is really surreal, eventhough you keep seeing the Anti-tropical deseases poster, you really do not know who is in charge here, so if you are robbed, or if you are in the toilet and your passport happened to fall in the toilet, what are you going to do? I think that you will have to make a hut there and live from the fishing, because the geographical gap between HK and PRC is a big river…

But if nothing of what I just said happens to you , you have to take a shuttle bus to go to PRC customs, there you can find some duty free shops, mainly imported cigarette and Liquor shops actually, but I do not recommend the Vietnamese Marlboro s, they taste like carton box…. Then you have to fill up an form stating whether you have felt bad or carry any soil or biological stuff, and sign it, I think you are really in a place where there is a serious health problem, but once you hand over the documents you realize that your word is taken for granted, no one scan you here with I high tech thermometer, and the customs officers here are much more friendly and they say hello to you, something so basic but important when you are so far away from home…..

Then you can enjoy your visit to this wonderful city, Shenzhen……..

In my next blog I will talk about the myths and realities of the Chinese food…… They really enjoy eating frogs and toads…….