A Pui-O Sunday!

I know I've already told you how to get to Pui-O Beach but this time I've got photographs so I'll tell you again:

Catch the ferry over to the small town of Mui Wu on Lantau Island.

The Lantau ferry.

Locals always talk about fast ferries and slow ferries - the difference being half an hour and an hour-long ride - however the trip is so pleasant and we're never in a hurry so it makes no difference to us. We just rock up at Central (Pier 6) whenever and get on the next one leaving (they leave every 50 minutes or so) and there's Uncle Russ's Coffee right there, run by the sweetest and most generous Nepali folk (Aussie Christine has a story, but I won't share it with you.) and a newspaper stand too so waiting is never a problem.

Bye bye city!

Once you reach Mui Wu, the bus stand is directly opposite the entrance to the ferry terminal. The buses are linked with the ferry timetable so you have to go immediately or wait and wander around town for 50 minutes until the next ferry arrives.

As for getting to Ham Tin Village, catch the Number 1 bus and ask for Pui O Village. And remember that it costs HK$5.00 to Pui O on a Sunday ($3.20 on other days), and if you don't pay that with a coin - say, if you use your Octopus Card as per usual - you have to fork out for the entire ride to the end of the line, so plan to have the money on you.

The only difficult bit of this venture is actually getting off at Pui O, because there's no sign or anything. Look out for a petrol station on your left, and get off the bus in the middle of the village you are just entering. The stop you need is opposite a shop called La Isla. You can also try asking the driver - and good luck with that because they all seem to be a passive-aggressive bunch - or just look out for a village which looks like this ...

... only in close-up.

... then, once off, wander around the village until you see this, probably about 50 metres from where you got off:

Go down those steps and, at the bottom, you can see the path crossing the swamp and buffalo paddocks:

The path!

Remember to ignore the buffalo because they'll ignore you.

Then go along the walkway till you see this:

... and that's when you know you've come to Pui-O Village:

Pui-O Village is officially
also part of Ham Tin Village
and thus actually shares that name,
but let's just ignore that fact.

And voila! Even before you're through the village, you've come to the entrance to the beach, which I've already shown you below so I won't show you again.

It's all so lovely and the moment you hit the village you feel yourself unwind so it's worth all the trouble of getting there.

Keith and I were trying to figure why our souls craves this place, because they do, and decided it's because we aren't natural city folk and thus need NATURE!

Nature!
Actually an Australian she-oak
which are Queensland pests/weeds
and hideously invasive
but so pretty let's not mention it.

And, at Ham Tin, it helps that they have dalo and beagan growing wild in the swamp ...

... so it's a little piece of Fiji and thus a lovely piece of nostalgia.

But mostly we need it as an antidote to the endless noise and movement of the city. Pui-O's clean and quiet and there are actually breezes and birdsong and buffaloes, which are just so gosh darn cute.

Tried to get a shot of a buffalo racing down the road next to a sign saying "Please use the opposite walkway" but the bloody animal simply wouldn't stop:

Felt very Paloma, by the way, running with the bulls. However, these buffaloes, all descended from the beasts who used to work on these villagers' rice paddies, are all very people-friendly. In fact, they're friendly-plus! I've already told you how they always come out of the paddocks whenever they smell barbecue, so they can scare away the campers and thus eat everything on the salad bar.

And, here at the beach, there's dirt and swamp and all kinds of natural stuff and you can get dirty so easily and both of us now realise we don't feel right always being so clean and dressed up, day after day after day.

And it seems we're not the only ones who feel this way. Yes, even in HK there are the odd people who want to camp so so the Government has set up Pui-O Camp Site (with toilets and showers etc,) and rent out the beach frontage to these campers, but, being Hong Kongers, they don't really grasp the concept of camping so it's all too well-organised and fussy, but still, for a city full of bio-phobes, this oxymoron is undoubtedly all they can handle.

Fenced-in camping!
There's a new concept for you!

And apropos nothing, there's a house for sale right there in the village:

Three floors and a roof garden!

And everyone has dogs ...

... serious big dogs,
not those fussy, dainty things
HKers usually have ...

... and they get to walk their dogs leachless on the beach at sunset ...

A Pui-O Sunset.

Dogs! Beach! Sunset! Three things god always intended to go together ... and it's what I grew up with so I know that nothing is more pleasant or makes life seem more perfect.

Anyway, the house above is over-priced for the market but no one's looking at it so I guess the price will tumble to 'reasonable' soon enough. Threw a longing glance with Keith but then he snapped "I work. I'm not prepared to deal with those ferries every day." so I guess it's not happening ... yet!

But still, until that day, there's always Sundays!