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Young Hong Kong travellers are going beyond their comfort zone in search of unusual adventures and learning experiences, writes Elaine YauThere’s a small tribe of young Hongkongers who have become bored with conventional travel.存倉 Not for them the usual itinerary of taking in the sights, leavened with foodie expeditions, personal pampering, trawling for curios and, for the more action-oriented, outdoor adventures. Instead, they have devised quirky escapades to see the world from another perspective.This mode of travel certainly isn’t for everyone; it often takes people far out of their comfort zones. But some embrace them as experiences to refresh their spirits and broaden their minds.A group of three friends – illustrator Jacmila Wu, stage manager Ting Yan-hui and graphic design student Fannie Yip Wa-ng – have embarked on a three-month-long tour of Europe that is also a mission. They want to give the people they meet an idea of the enormous contrasts in Hong Kong, in particular, the existence of cage homes and subdivided flats amid skyscrapers and shopping malls.That is why they commissioned a friend here to make a portable cage that they can assemble at each of their stops as part of a show about Hong Kong.“We want to tell foreigners how some people are living in cages in Hong Kong. Such horrible living conditions are a unique feature of the city,” Wu explains.“To go with the cage, we have also developed a campaign called ‘May I travel with your love?’ Passers-by can hang trinkets or other bric-a-brac on the frame and take away souvenirs left by others in exchange.“We opened a Facebook group where participants in the barter can describe what they left with us and what the item means to them so that others know where the things they picked up came from.”It isn’t a leap into the unknown; the trio tested out their “travel with your love” campaign in busy pedestrian areas such as Mong Kok before leaving for their continental tour.Apart from rucksacks, the friends are also taking along props depicting iconic structures such as the Bank of China Tower and old tenement buildings, which they will use to stage street performances.All three will try to earn their keep during their travels – Ting and Yip from their skits and Wu by selling sketches of landmarks that she sees.“Besides trying to sell my drawings to help pay for travel expenses, I want to turn my trip into an arts project,” Wu says. Her illustrations chronicling their travels are going into a 90-page accordion book (one page for every day of the trip) that she plans to publish when they return.Wearing a heavy cage is no fun, but 28-year-old Yip welcomes it as a chance to get to know people, locals as well as other visitors.“I love interactive activities. It’s the first time we have tried busking on a trip. Busking allows us to interact with people from different walks of life and the items they leave with us tell us a small part of their lives. We can accumulate many small stories in this way.“And the Europeans we meet on our trip can get a slice of Hong Kong people’s life, too,” Yip says.Busking is also a big part of the alternative trips being led by Pong Yat-ming. The consumer crusader spent one year boycotting all businesses affiliated with the city’s big property developers, giving up bus services, supermarkets and the like, to protest against their monopoly of so many sectors of Hong Kong life.This summer Pong is taking three groups of 14 people each on a tour through Spain, Germany, France, Poland and the Netherlands.Where others might splurge on designer bags and sampling regional cuisines, his prot�g�es must live on a shoestring budget for much of their 25-day trip. At each city, the group allocates two days for busking, and those earnings must cover all their meals on those days.It isn’t all hard going: the schedule includes two days’ sightseeing and one day of free activity in each city. Each participant pays about HK$24,000 for air fares, transport within cities and tickets to landmarks.The enthusiastic response to Pong’s debut tour last year prompted him to run to more unconventional trips. It’s a way to get young people to re-examine their materialistic approach to life.“Hong Kong youths get used to enjoying a lot of comforts. They take everything for granted. Such a trip can give them an awakening,” he says.“I want to promote an alternative way of travelling. Hong Kong people’s travel schedules are always crammed full of tourist spot visits, with scant time to interact with locals and understand local culture. I want to let people know that travel involves lots of possibilities. You don’t have to save for a year or two before setting off for a tr自存倉p as accommodation and eating can be for free.”The trip certainly tested the mettle of university student Janice Cheung Man-ting, 22, who joined a trip last year.To earn meal money, her group sang, danced and played the ukulele dressed up in costumes representing the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. They also mimicked sculptures to attract attention.“I felt embarrassed in the beginning,” Cheung says. “But later I began having so much fun with teammates and passers-by that performing came naturally.”Earning enough from their street performances for dinner, however, was another matter.“You may raise anything from ?20 [HK$203] to ?100 from one day of busking. That money was used to buy food for the 12 of us. I like hot meals. But on those busking days, we could only afford bread with a piece of cheese and ham.”Although they busked for about seven hours, the earnings were enough for just one meal. “We were hungry for much of the day. By the time we reached the third city, I’d lost several pounds,” Cheung says.Bad weather added to their woes. “It was raining when we busked at a train station in Amsterdam, and we only collected ?2 to ?3 after three hours. So Pong suggested that we try to barter with locals or ask nearby Chinese restaurants for food.“It turned out that the HK$2 coin is unique as there are no other coins with the serrated edge. We exchanged that coin for ?1 to ?2. We eventually got ?10 from bartering the coins.”To earn more, Pong divided them into teams to collect discarded glass bottles from rubbish bins in high-traffic sites and trade them for cash.Despite constant hunger pangs and her embarrassment over scavenging in rubbish bins, Cheung says the trip was an eye-opening experience.“It’s the first time that I had to earn money on a trip. While I’ve backpacked before, I always stayed in hostels. We were couch-surfing during Pong’s trip, which saved us a lot money. After that, I realised travelling does not necessarily cost a lot,” Cheung says.It also gave her valuable lessons in learning how to get along. “The 12 of us often argued over food and how to perform. We didn’t know each other before. Some quibbled over the need to share food and utensils. You can’t be too fussy under difficult circumstances. But we resolved our differences and became good friends in the end.”The experience can be transformative for some, Pong says, citing a 20-year-old who joined last year. He had an artificial limb and was quite shy at first. But gradually, he opened up and took the initiative to find couch-surfing hosts for the rest of the trip.For human resources manager Phoebe Chan Tik-man, a volunteering trip to Turkey last September gave her new perspectives of travel.Organised through Voltra, a group that matches travellers with charities from different countries, she was put up with other foreign travellers at a dilapidated school that they were helping to refurbish in Arapgir, a town in Turkey’s eastern Malatya province.The hospitality of their hosts in Arapgir left a big impression. “Every staff member in the school became a friend,” Chan recalls. “A local artist invited us to his house. We even attended a wedding. We got to taste indigenous food that ordinary travellers miss. We visited the nomadic herders living high in the hills who treated us to an all-sheep meal.”The two weeks in Arapgir meant far more to her, she says, than the subsequent fortnight she spent in Istanbul and Antalya, a popular sea resort. “Although they are popular tourist destinations, I feel everything was too commercial.”Since then, Chan has tried to weave volunteer stints into her travels. Last year, she joined a mission to help subsistence farmers in Songkhla, in southern Thailand, adopt organic methods before going for a more conventional break in Bangkok. The volunteers lived in the village and cooked and ate with farmers. They also picked up a smattering of Thai and taught some English in return.“Although I have visited many places in Thailand, like Phuket and Koh Samui, I didn’t get the chance to see the real Thailand until my trip to Songkhla. Spa treatments in popular destinations only show an affluent side, which is far removed from the actual life of most Thais.”More and more Hongkongers want to venture beyond their comfort zone to learn from their travelling experience, says Voltra co-founder Rita Lai. The organisation has secured volunteer work for 770 people since it was launched in 2009.“While landmarks are still a must-see, [Hong Kong] travellers want to get to know the local way of life through volunteer work. A trip with only play and fine dining no longer satisfies them. They want to get more from a trip.”elaine.yau@scmp.com迷你倉新蒲崗