Chungking Mansions on Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui is one of the most improbable places in Hong Kong: a crumbling 17-storey residential block from 1961 that has become a global hub of informal trade, cheap accommodation, and South Asian street food. It is simultaneously tatty, vital, overwhelming, and irreplaceable.
The lower floors are a labyrinth of money-changers, mobile phone traders, African and South Asian restaurants, and stalls selling SIM cards and electronics. Above them, dozens of guesthouses — accessed by two famously slow elevators — offer some of the cheapest beds in Hong Kong. The curry in the ground-floor Indian and Pakistani restaurants is among the best in the city, and the lunch trade particularly is excellent value.
The building is safe to explore, though the crowds and the sensory overload can be disorienting. Come for the food, the people-watching, and the reminder that Hong Kong's tidy exterior conceals a far more complicated and interesting interior life.