BESIDE THE BORDER

I wonder aloud if my travel insurance covers hospital visits for severed fingers, hands or limbs

“Standing here is safe; standing there is not safe,” the elderly man in the sawdust-covered puffer jacket warns me, before proceeding to set a rusty belt-driven buzz saw standing about three metres tall into motion. I watch anxiously as the machine, emblazoned with four sets of Chinese characters spelling out lucky slogans about thriving business and good health, slices off the whole side of a log with ease.

As the serrated blade whirs less than a metre away, I wonder aloud if my travel insurance covers sawmill visits, as well as hospital visits for severed fingers, hands or limbs. But before long the brutalised log comes to an undramatic rest, and the push of a button puts the machine back to sleep.

The average business traveller experiences Hong Kong, with its densely packed skyscrapers and frenetic street life, as a city of unparalleled density and verticality. Business travel demands seldom require leaving the compact and highly developed northern sections of Hong Kong Island and southern sections of Kowloon, with their luxury hotels, world-class skyscrapers and almost infinite fine-dining options.

But life is quite different here in the far northern New Territories, just a few kilometres from the border separating Hong Kong’s lush, mountainous countryside from the mainland Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen. And the curious business traveller who is willing to set aside