Minibus Memories

When does a bus become more than a number? Perhaps when it becomes a vehicle not only to ride in, but transport you back to your past: come for a ride on the 24M

There’s a bus I used to ride. It travelled from Admiralty to the government quarters at Mount Butler, where we lived. The bus was painted a cream color with a green roof, which indicated it was a fixed route minibus, as opposed to the red and cream ones which were more fly-by-night operations (literally, the freewheeling drivers of those vehicles were notorious for midnight speeding). This meant, that there was a set price depending on the distance travelled, and it had a designated start and stop point.

I would board the 24M minibus at Mount Butler, where it parked in a small alcove down a staircase from my block of flats (that’s an apartment building, for North American readers), and when full - or it had waited long enough - it would head out of the complex (more on that, another time), and roar in low gear up a small hill, before hanging right and beginning the decent into the city. Cruising down Mount Butler Road, with the mountain on the left, we’d pass by the homes of the neighborhood’s wealthy residents, and then down Perkins Road and towers with names like Cavendish Heights, Aurora and Monterey Court, and, in the distance, Swiss Towers and Flora Garden - Hong Kong developers have always been pretty creative with their names.

At the foot of the steep incline, just as we joined Tai Hang Road, there was a Mobil petrol station, where we often went to fill up the car. I looked it up - in a sign of the times, it’s now a PetroChina. Adjoining it was a Wellcome supermarket, which also housed a post office, and a basement video rental store, which I used to regularly go to on Thursdays for their two-for-one deals. Passing the French school, the road hugged the contours until joining with the larger Stubbs Road. Somewhat of a crossroads (well, a roundabout), marked by the rotund Adventist Hospital, you could head to the Peak if you continued upwards, cross to the beaches of the south side of the island by switching back up Wong Nai Chung Gap Road, or continue on down to Wan Chai.

The 24M took the latter route, with the vast racetrack of Happy Valley opening up before you, and the hillside in-between occupied by the many venerable graves of the city’s main Protestant, Catholic and Muslim cemeteries. The landmark 1960s AIA Building rises at the foot of the hill, its coffin-shaped windows said by locals to be lucky, next to a marvelous reminder of Hong Kong’s rich cultural heritage, the Khalsa Diwan Sikh Temple - the only one in the city, it was founded by Sikh soldiers in 1901 - painted bright blue and with a courtyard adorned with swirling, kaleidoscopic flags.

Stubbs Road finally ends at Queen’s Road East (this road, which traverses most of the north shore of Hong Kong Island, is so long it was broken up into three parts). Just across the road from here is Queen Elizabeth Stadium, where I once saw INXS in concert (also the wrestlers of WWF, but not at the same time). It’s a little known fact that lead singer of that rock band, Michael Hutchence, went to international school in Hong Kong, attending King George V (KGV) over on Kowloon, where my mum was a teacher. Prior to the 1997 handover, he did a series of Rough Guide videos for MTV.

From here, the 24M heads due west, passing the Ruttonjee Hospital, founded by one of Hong Kong’s small but prominent group of Parsi families (ethnic Persians from India, they are part of a global diaspora that includes Farrokh Bulsara - you may know him better as Freddie Mercury). Just beyond this is the colorful Wan Chai market, with its tightly packed stalls selling a mix of fresh fruit, fish, and meats. The art deco building opposite used to be the main market, but after a bout of redevelopment, just the facade was left, with a huge shiny new tower emerging from the carcass of the entrepôt (I remember once practicing Cantonese here on a school trip - ordering flowers, oddly).

Moving along, the Old Wan Chai Post Office is on your left - the oldest surviving building of its type in Hong Kong, here I would once help my mum post letters - and then you’re gazing up from the minibus windows at the Hopewell Centre, a circular skyscraper with a revolving restaurant at the top, and a swimming pool on the roof that I’ve never seen anyone in, which you can view from the Bowen Road path that cuts above Wan Chai further up the mountainside. Shortly afterwards, the 24M would take a sharp right onto a small lane, which led past old tenement style buildings before emerging next to a century-old pawn house, which later became The Pawn (my dad, through his work for the government’s Lands Department, was involved in preserving this slice of heritage, I remember him telling of visiting it incognito for research).

Crossing over the tram lines on Johnston Road (this once marked the shoreline of the island before the land was reclaimed, the Hong Kong Tramways just never moved) we’d go past Southorn Playground - a concrete open space popular with basketballers - down the less seedy end of nightlife strip Lockhart Road (where I once worked for Time Out Hong Kong), run right up to the door of the Police HQ at 1 Arsenal Street, and finally around the corner into Admiralty and its many office towers (including the Lippo Centre, formerly known as the Bond building, which, aptly given its Australian heritage, somewhat resembles Koalas clinging to a tree) built on what was once the main British army and navy base in Hong Kong. And this is where our journey ends, as the minibus pulled into the depot underneath the neighboring Admiralty Centre.

In many ways, the 24M minibus stop was my gateway into the city, with the MTR station entrance directly ahead, access up an escalator to the mall and nearby Pacific Place retail and hotel complex, and a series of covered, connected walkways which you could take all the way to Central. But those are all other stories, for another time.

You can watch a video of the journey, albeit now with a slightly different end point, here.