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Today I awoke to a fairly sunny day with a few clouds around in the sky. Visibility across the harbour was quite bad and you couldn't really see too much of Kowloon. After our normal breakfast of cereal and buns (today I had hotdog sausage, tartar sauce and gherkins - nicer than I expected!), we set off with Polly and Andrew to go visit Lamma Island. Lamma Island is the third largest island that makes up Hong Kong (after Hong Kong and Lantau Island) and is one of only five islands that are inhabited. The island is located about 2 miles south west of Hong Kong Island and to get there we have to take a ferry. We caught the number 12 bus down the hill and to the outlying island piers in central, where we had been before to get the ferry to Lantau. Today we had to take the ferry from pier 4 to Lamma Island. There are two places that you can take the ferry to, as well as two types of ferry, both fast and slow. We were out of luck when we got there and the next ferry didn't leave for 45 minutes, so we sat down and waited for it to arrive. Luckily it was a fast ferry, which costs a little extra ($16) but only takes 20-30 minutes to get to Lamma Island.
While we waited in the ferry pier, quite a few people started to gather and the ferry looked as though it would be fuller than when we went to Lantau Island. The ferry piers are strange places, quite dingy and full of everone from locals to tourists, all of whom use the only method of transport to get to Lamma. We got on board the ferry, which was smaller than we had been on before, and also a bit older, there were also no TV's inside, which is rare for Hong Kong transport! The journey lasted 30 minutes and was quite bumpy at times as the ferry seemed to be smaller and much more susceptible to the waves in the harbour. The ferry goes close to Hong Kong Island and turns around the western tip and then goes across the Western Appraoch to Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island. When we got off the ferry it was already possible to see this island was much smaller and quieter than Hong Kong Island. Andrew told me that houses here can only be a maximum of 700 square feet in size and up to 2 stories high, in order to try and keep some of the character of the island. This seems to have worked slightly but Andrew also told me that the island used to have many fields that were worked by local farmers, but now most of these are just left more like jungle as the owners wait for a developer to offer to buy the land from them for houses. The other strange thing about Lamma Island is that there are no cars (or very few) on the island so instead locals use a mixture of bicycles and small vans that the locals call VV vans (due to them all having number plates starting with VV). These are basically small vans with a lawnmower engine and seem to do everything from transporting goods to moving people. The ferry pier in Yung Shue Wan sticks out quite far into the water as the bay has a shallow area where smaller boats are moored. We walked through the small town which has now mostly become touristy, aparently during the weekends this area is busy with Hong Kongers who come for the weekend to eat in the seafood restaurants! The town seemed quite run down apart from some restaurants and many of them have fish outside for you to pick and then eat. On getting to the other end of town we exited and were immediately brought into the countryside. Like every other part of Hong Kong, Lamma Island is also very hilly and so leaving the town requires you to start going up hill. The whole island has a number of concrete paths - which act like roads - and are good to walk along. Although it seems like countryside there are fire hydrants and bins along most of the paths and you really don't feel like you are in the country. We walked for a while along the path and passed a number of overgrown field with banana trees and other plants. A little way along we passed a small road that had a car on it. This road leads to the power station on one side of the island. The power station can be seen from most of the island (or at least the three chimneys can) and it looks like it has been placed here as there is more room. Continuing along further we passed a number of houses, some of which had small cafes outside which are full at weekends, but today were empty. We also passed a police post - complete with police bikes - the police use bikes as this is the quickest way around the island. After about 30 minutes we arrived in another small village and walking to the other side we came out on a small beach, complete with shark net and lifeguard. The beach looked very nice and the sea looked cool but we hadn't brought any swimming things. Climbing some steep steps from the beach we reached a small restaurant with a view over the bay where we were going to have lunch. The speciality of the restaurant is pigeon which was served to us roasted complete with heads! The pigeon was nice (Andrew ate the heads) and we also had some pork chops with onions (a bit like sausage and onion to be honest) and some friend rice and vegetables. This restaurant has been around for about 40 years and Polly's mum and dad used to live on the island, so Clara has been here when she was young with her grandparents. After lunch we walked back down the stairs and back to the concrete path. We took the same path back towards the ferry for a while and then went up a hill. We were going for a walk to find Clara's grandparents old house. When we eventually got there we had walked up to the top of some hills, many new houses had been built in the area. We also passed a fire station complete with very small fire engines and ambulance (see the pictures). When we got to the area, we could no longer find the house as so many new houses had been built it was difficult to find our way around. We went for a short detour (courtesy of Andrew tours) and saw some more banana trees, complete with green bananas, some papaya trees and also some pomegrantate trees. Also on the floor in the middle of the path we saw a praying mantis (a female according to a local westerner who lived here). It didn't really seem scared of us and let me take some pictures whilst sitting on the path. By now we were very hot and we walked back down the hill and eventually found our way back to Yung Shue Wan where we had a cold drink. Just outside the town there are still some fields that are tended by locals and we saw spring onions, chinese leaves and sweet potatoes growing in the soil. This area seemed to be treated more like an allotment and wasn't on a scale much above providing for themselves. We had another quick look around Yung Shue Wan and to be honest its not very pretty. The bay is quite nice to look at, but the houses are in disrepair and some look as though they are falling down! We got back on the 3.45pm ferry back to Central, this time the journey only took 20 minutes as we had a larger (and faster) ferry. After getting off at the Central piers we took a taxi back home for a quick rest before going out again this evening... |
Travel Diaries 