Fragrant Hong Kong harbor is a steal

HONG KONG — "Your hands are like clouds," said tai chi master William Ng. "You are a bird showing its wings. . . . You are holding the cosmos."

As I waved my limbs with the other tourists, that last image didn't seem too far off. In front of us was breezy Victoria Harbour, the skyline of the Kowloon peninsula a backdrop to blue-green waters dotted with ferries, cruise-liners and container ships. Beyond Kowloon was vast mainland China. Behind us, sunlight gleamed off ultramodern lines of glass and steel.

Hong Kong is pure energy, an epicenter of East meets West. Incredibly orderly, amazingly litter-free and impossibly packed, its skyscrapers stretch tall and thin from terraced slopes. Its waterfront bustles and flows out to numerous beaches, island restaurants, and across the bay to Kowloon and the suburban "New Territories" that are growing up with clusters of skyscrapers amid the traditional villages.

Not long ago, a trip here from the United States would have required a cash sacrifice along the lines of half a small car. But after SARS, and with new concerns about avian flu, that's changed, with drastically discounted airfare and hotel rates. When I traveled to Hong Kong in December, fear of SARS hadn't disappeared — the lobby of the Newton Hotel where I stayed still had a hand-sanitizing machine, and some people still covered their faces with handkerchiefs and surgical masks. But travelers were filling the city from around the world, reveling in the cheap deals.

"To get a ticket to Asia for under $1,000 usually is just a feat," said Lucas Bittick, a 27-year-old fellow traveler from St. Louis, Mo. "All my friends were worried about SARS. Whatever. I say, hey, you only live once."

I found my deal after the mounting tally of a Midwestern ski vacation sent me clicking around the Internet for Plan B.

On my first click, gotoday.com, I saw it — a $699 package, including round-trip airfare from New York, five nights in a hotel with a rooftop pool, and a half-day city tour — and booked it. I added about $200 to the cost by signing up for activities from the tour group's Web site, but some — like the tai chi class — were free, offered by the Hong Kong Tourism Board.

My first day there, I joined a friendly group of Americans and Europeans for the daily parade of tour buses to the top of 1,800-foot-high Victoria Peak, its name a lasting tribute to Hong Kong's 156 years of British rule. That ended when Hong Kong was handed back to China on July 1, 1997.