A Trip to Lamma Island

Last weekend, three friends and I went to Lamma Island, the third largest island in Hong Kong (if you click zoom '+' twice on the map from my last post, Lamma should be visible). The picture to the right is one I took on our hike back from one of Lamma's beaches (I wish I could remember the name). I chose it because this is how I like to think of Lamma-- raw, natural beauty. It's not very often that I see such mass amounts of untamed vegetation (before I came to Hong Kong, at least), which is sad-- it takes my breath away.

Our trip began when we reached the Aberdeen ferry port around 9pm on friday night. It isn't the most obvious of ports, so when the taxi dropped us off we were a little nervous. Upon entering the nearly empty terminal, we were greeted by an older man who only spoke Cantonese. He kept saying something about "9:30", when the next (and last) ferry was scheduled to arrive. Upon sheer and utter confusion, we ended up climbing into an empty taxi boat with this man (consequently paying quite a bit more than if we had taken a ferry).


The ride was satisfying nonetheless-- it was nice to have a little boat to ourselves. When we were about halfway, it looked as if we were heading straight for a large cargo ship. We missed the ship, but we did catch a huge wave that caused our bow to dip under and flood the boat.


A lot of soccer was played on this trip...the soccer court was one of the first places we stopped. After an hour or so, we walked through the dark until we came to a beach (we heard it's okay to camp out on beaches in Lamma).

I think four people was the perfect number for a trip like this. We ate food, played music, istop (a turkish dodgeball game), chicken fight and card games (I even got everyone to learn Euchre!). The water was perfect...I'm pretty sure we were in it for hours.


At 6am, we tried to sleep. Unfortunately, we were attacked by swarms of viscious mosquitos...I still have bruises (yes, bruises) from the encounter. The sun rose within minutes anyway and I soon made it my mission to get a picture of the crabs that skuttled the beach (the gray dot in the picture above is the best I could do).

The people on Lamma Island were more than friendly. Everyone we passed on the walk back greeted us with "jao sun," or "good morning" in Cantonese. We stopped at an open restaurant for coffee, where we met a local named Barry.


This is Barry (playing soccer, of course). His ancestry goes back for hundreds of years on Lamma Island. Although he went to college on Hong Kong Island, he came back when he got his degree to help his family with the seafood restaurants they own and run on Lamma. He told us all about the upcoming Tin Hau festival, which celebrates the goddess of the sea (Lamma is traditionally a fisherman community). It occurs in May, although I believe he said another celebration may take place in late September.