JUST over a decade ago, the stretch of Hong Kong harbour between Queen's Pier and the old Kowloon-Canton Railway Station was considered clean and safe to swim across. Today, no one would dare.
The sight of plastic bags, polystyrene lunch boxes, dead fish and the smell from the polluted water are enough to deter the keenest swimmer from taking the plunge.
But you don't need to dive into the harbour water to taste the bitter reality that lies behind Hong Kong's glamorous postcard image. While Hong Kong's high-rise skyline is one of the most spectacular in the world, reclamation has meant its days as a beautiful port have long gone.
''Hong Kong has now passed the point where it can preserve the look or natural beauty of its old fishing port. That environment has gone forever,'' said Mr Patrick Lau, a reader in architecture at the University of Hong Kong.
''Places like Sydney, Vancouver, San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro, which also possess beautiful harbours, would not even consider reclamation work on this scale.
''[Their governments] fear that any landfill projects would take away their water which is not only a great natural resource but also an amenity.'' But Mr Lau agrees that, unlike these countries, the territory has a fundamental land shortage problem. ''We have the same problem and arguments over the conservation of old buildings.'' Hong Kong was probably the only city in the world where so much reclamation had been undertaken in so short a time. But the price for creating more land was high, said Mr Lau.
''If you look across to Kowloon East from the Eastern Corridor, you see the ugly scars on the mountains [near Lam Tin] . . . part of the sand was used for reclamation work,'' Mr Lau said.