MRS WALKER'S OBSCURE TOURS - no. 1 - TAP MUN ISLAND, HK

Since the Walker's always seem to do amazing journeys to totally strange places, I've decided to include their trips in this blog. Afterall, this blog is meant to be about travelling, and, really, does it matter who does the travels?

However, I haven't asked them yet, so, just to set the ball rolling - and to see if she notices I've done this and doesn't say I can't - here's a letter I wrote about her back in 2004:

MRS WALKER'S OBSCURE TOURS

Well, Mrs Walker surpassed herself yesterday. MRS WALKER'S OBSCURE TOURS has had a great success you really should try to duplicate one day.

Mrs Walker, you see, is a vastly efficient and organised individual who NEEDS to work but is currently residing downstairs as a dependant spouse. I'm guessing she can't cope with having nothing to do, thus, to give herself an outlet for this stupendous gift, she puts together Sunday afternoon outings. And often she invites us along.

And being who she is, the more difficult and complicated it is to organise, the more she appears to like it.

In the past few months, she's put together some beauties, forever finding out about the most obscure places in the SAR and how to get us there and giving us something interesting to do when we get there and always finding a damn fine restaurant to feed us at the end of the day. They are always wonderful afternoons thus more and more people try to come along. She really needs to think about charging for the service.

Anyway, yesterday she put together a Townsville Reunion Tour and we all went together to Tap Mun Island.

Never heard of it? No? (OK, Gerald, I know you have, but you always know about obscure places everywhere and I have to tell you I find that rather sinister.)

In my attempt to keep you as knowledgable about Hong Kong as I am, here's the very latest discovery.

TAP MUN ISLAND, HK - SAR

In itself this island really isn't anything to write home about ... but when has that stopped me: it's just one of the 230 tiny islands in the ocean immediately around Hong Kong, only notable because it's the furthest out. Beyond this island is only a couple of large grey rocky outcrops and after that ... threatening grey-green ocean all the way to the distant misty horizon.

The island has a tiny fishing village on the leeward side; all small strange-hulled old boats, mounds of fishing gear and crumbling very-Scottish-looking stone buildings all the way from a walled ugly shoreline through a narrow flat coastal strip and then climbing up onto several small hills. Altogether a very picturesque little town full of ruined and decaying terrace houses and lots of important-looking graves - several recent ones with faithful and pining old dogs lying next to them - and drying seaweed and fish everywhere, and a strange little mouldy Christian church alongside a beautiful decaying old Buddhist temple with an exceptionally stunning roof covered in Chinese astrology animals.

The few dozen people who live there are good humoured elderly fisherfolk who seem starved for entertainment since sat around watching and laughing good-naturedly at us - very Fijian-like the laughter was mainly at how similar we were to them and how they totally understood where we were coming from - like, me asking Keith to pay for my purchases was one that
particularly had them slapping their thighs and roaring, with both the men and the women trying to outdo each other as to who found it funnier - and we could see they were going to get many hours of pleasure from discussing us in depth after we left.

Then, when you cross to the other side of the island, it's all bare, bleak, tree-less emptiness with howling winds and stunning very-Scottish views of cliffs and sea and furious ocean waves. And all over the hills, the impressive whitewashed temple-like graves of the dead. Very mournful and very lovely.

We circumnativated the island, which only took an hour, then returned to eat at a very unimpressive-looking restaurant perched over the water. But the food! Oh, the food! We didn't know it had a reputation for being one of the finest seafood restaurants in the South China region, but we do now. Pass it on! Don't need to know its name since it's the only restaurant on the island!

And presiding over all this epicurean wonderfulness is an elegant Chinese lady called Mrs Pesky Lam - don't you love it! - who speaks fluent English and could be running a restaurant anywhere in the world but who chooses to live on Tap Mun and I'm not sure I really blame her.

Sounds like a lovely place? Yes! But it wasn't just all this that made the day so special. It was also the ferry ride. Tap Mun/Tsui Wha Ferry is one of those beautiful old ones from about 1936 that blow me away because they're all so well-maintained. It weaves its way through about two dozen of the SAR's 230 islands, coasting close to the shores - if anyone waves a flag from any of the jetties it pulls in to collect them - so you get lots of close-up views of tiny islands and the fishing villages on them.

The ferry leaves from right next to the University and trip lasts about 90 minutes in each direction and costs HK$35. each way which is astonishing considering the ferry ride makes you feel like you're in a luxurious private pleasure boat - only without the food and drink - and all this beauty is being put on for your private entertainment.

Then, as we approached the city on our return journey, (must get lyrical with this since it totally deserves it) the silver sun sank over the horizon turning the water into a river of silver, with a whole gang of Chinese teenagers doing a Titanic-esque "King of the World" over the prow, I leaned on the upstairs railing and suddenly felt a wave of absurd pleasure in how incredibly beautiful and wonderful the world is ... and really, that's the best prize that any place can give you.

Go go Tap Mun Island.