NAFTA across Lamma Island

I spent my Saturday hiking on Lamma Island, which is just south of Hong Kong Island. The group was Chase, his friend who was visiting Kalen, Chris, Antonio, and myself. Chase dubbed it the NAFTA hike since he and Caleb are Canadian, Chris and myself are American, and Antonio is Mexican. We left at around 11 to get to the piers in Central in Hong Kong. After we found the pier with the ferry we needed we had about 20 minutes to eat so we grab something quick from the nearby Subway. We then just barely made it back to the ferry in time. The boat was decently fast but the trip still took about 45 minutes. We docked at Sok Kwo Wan, a little village on Lamma Island.

There was one "street" which was more of a very narrow path. All down this walkway were restaurants with the building containing the kitchen on one side of the street and the seating area on the other. Awnings hung from the building across the walkways and connected to the tent like structures making the eating area. It was all very lively with some many people walking up and down the path and all kinds of sea food still alive waiting for someone to pick them for lunch. We did not spend much time in Sok Kwo Wan as we wanted to get our hike underway. Not too far from the village were some Kamikaze caves.

During WWII Japanese soldiers would hide in these caves. We wandered through one but it did not go too far. We then continued on our way. We walked for a while before coming to a point on the path where a smaller trail split off. We decided to go see what was down there. After walking quite away from the main path we eventually came to a beach.

There were only a couple of people on the beach and it was very clean so we rested for a while. Around the beach were squatter huts that the government had posted signs that they were going to remove. This did not stop one man from sitting at the door way and stare out to the sea. Once we realized that we spent too much time on the beach we headed back to the main path. It was not too long before we came to another little village, Hung Shing Ye.

This seemed to be the place people wanted to go. It was a much bigger beach and had lots of trees that provided nice shade. We stayed there long enough for a bathroom break as we were not interested in all the people. The path continued on through a more forested area until ending at Yung She Wan. Yung She Wan was like Sok Kwo Wan but a little bit bigger.

There were a few "roads" but most of type of stores were the same, sea food. There were a couple of bars and the only motorized form of transportation was a golf cart like vehicle so it seemed like the Chinese version of Put-In-Bay. We made it into Yung She Wan just in time to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong. All in all it was a good hike, even if the day was a bit hazy.

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