On our second day in Hong Kong Phil took us outside of the city to Lantau Island. We took a cab to get there and got very lucky with getting one. One way to get to to the island is to take the Ngong Ping 360 which is a gondola. We were a little slow to get up that morning. Why were we slow? It actually wasn’t because of the street beers we had consumed the night before but instead because we had to get a full american breakfast at the Flying Pan and Starbucks. Yep that was us. Becky and I got the Bloody Bull which was a bloody Mary with beef stock so we thought we were being semi cultural with our breakfast? After our cultural breakfast we got to the spot to get on the Ngong Ping 360 and there was a 45 minute wait so we decided to take the bus instead. We got in line for the bus and it was looking like a two hour wait so we said we can splurge and get a cab; by splurge I mean about $4 a person. We got in line for the blue cabs that specifically go to Lantau Island because the red ones do not (little tip). Slowly we noticed that in the 15 minutes that we stood there only one cab came. At this speed and with the amount of people in front of us we could have been in this line for two hours. We decided to go back to the original plan, Ngong Ping 360. We were in line for about five minutes when a blue cab pulled up to drop some people off. Phil hopped the fence and grabbed the cab. Alas we were on our way. Back to my original point, get there early or stick to one line.
Tai O is a small fishing village known for the traditional stilt houses located on the Western coast of Lantau Island. There is a seafood market selling all things seafood and the traditional shrimp paste. The house style dates back to the 19th century. Tai O used to be one of Hong Kong’s major fishing ports for more than 200 years and also a huge salt industry back in the 30’s and 40’s. It had a population of about 30,000 and now it has about 2,000. Nowadays it is more of a tourist attraction and the actual fishing is not a sustainable as it once was.
The marekt was full of dried and salted fish. I tried the dry shrimp and I hate to ever admit that I don’t like something so all I am going to say is I did not need to have another one. I also had a donut, egg custard tart, barbequed octopus, and salt baked quail eggs. We took a boat ride out to try to get a glimpse of the pink dolphins but we weren’t the lucky ones that day.
Next stop Tian Tan Buddha!
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