Labor Day Weekend in HK

Well they don't give us labor day off over here obviously! But I figured, if I was back in LA I would likely have either been up at the lake with the Fam, or off on the boat camping trip with the gang, so I decided to get out of the city and go backpacking! Cristina (one of the other people who is here from LA) and I bummed some camping gear off other people in the office and took off for Tai Long Wan.

My Journey Begins

 A remote beach that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful spots in Hong Kong. Originally we had talked a big group of people into going with us, but everyone got scared off by the treat of rain. It was trains, taxis and busses to get to what the little old chinese guy we got directions from kept calling (in a stereotypical asian accent) "the begining of our journey!" I kept thinking of "Search for the Animal Chin" if you get that reference, you will know what I mean. We had little or no idea where we were going let alone what we were getting our selves into and as we left the little man added "weather no look so good for going to Tai Long Wan!" but we went anyway. We walked for a few kilometers using a photo of a map on an Iphone to navigate, and after a while thought this is BS, we are walking on a road! and taxis keep flying past us. So despite our fears of being thought of as lazy americans we hoped in a cab.

Best decision of the weekend! We ended up taking two cabs before we finally ended up at real trail head where vehicles were not permited anymore. That hike was a fairly quick one over a ridge and down into a beautiful remote beach called Sui Mo, and we were already thinking man we really cheated our selves out of a good hike. Sui Mo had no amenities though and since we did no preparation and brought no food we decided to keep hiking to the village we were told would have the best sea food and noodles ever.

Sui Mo Beach

Leaving Sui Mo, we started up hill on a trail that continuously deteriorated, and after over an hour of continuous accent into clouds that looked a lot like they would be raining on us soon. Which was going to be no good on the muddy incline we were already on. But alas we pushed on, climbing over the peak and down into the next village Sai Wan. All in all it was around 14 kilometers, straight up and straight down. By the time we got to the bottom we decided those cabs were well worth the cash! At a fork in the road headed down into the beach we ran into a guy and a chick in a bikini with no shoes on, both of us imediately knew, "there is an easier way to get here!, cause no way that chick is about to do what we just did, in that get-up!"

Cristina waited until it was time to set up camp to tell me she had never been camping before! Nice! Set up on the beach, took a swim and headed to the one restraunt in town for dinner. We ate with the family that ran the place cause there was no one else there. We ate what they were having for dinner, since the cook did not want to cook anything else! It was delicious, beef noodles, and fried squid (which by the way we saw the local ladies wading out into the water with flash lights and nets to catch as we went to dinner). A few big San Miguels with the family and we were ready to turn in.

Home for a night

Slept right on the beach, it was awesome. At breakfast in the morning our host told us, sure enough, there is a paved trail that leads out another way, a 30 minute walk to a bus stop that takes you right into town! Damn it!

We left there around 9:30 and were home by 12:00. As we left the subway station just meters from home, we ran into another friend who said that he and some others were headed to a beach on the opposite side of the island, so of course we just turned around and followed him to the next beach....

Sunrise on Sai Wan Beach