A little fishing village called Tai O

Lantau Island is an island west of Hong Kong Island and it's well known for many things. When you fly into Hong Kong, you will first arrive in Lantau, for the international airport is here. For most tourists, Ngong Ping (where the Big Buddha is) and Disneyland are a must-go. Its City Gate Mall is known to shoppers as the place with the various discounted outlets. Hikers and trail runners will love (and hate) Lantau Peak and Sunset Peak. 

Just as famous as those mentioned before is a little fishing village of Tai O. Tai O means large inlet, referring to the outlet for the waterways of Tai O creek and Tai O river. Legends say that Tai O used to be a hotbed for piracy and smuggling activities. 


For friends who are familiar with Singapore, Tai O is similar to Pulau Ubin, with its quiet, laid-back "kampong" atmosphere.  Once we alighted from the bus ride, we were greeted with the salty smell of the sea and the persistent offer of a boat ride to see Chinese white dolphins. We took the boat ride, but didn't see any dolphin. Nevertheless, it was a unique point of view to see the village from the waters. The boat ride wasn't expensive, and it was a good way to get an introduction of Tai O.

Tourists enjoying a relaxing drink by the balcony above the water

No dolphins but egrets

The streets are where the main action is. The sights and smells bring you back to days gone by, where time seemed to have stood still in this part of the island, while the rest of Hong Kong modernised into a metropolitan city. There were gigantic curry fishballs, much bigger than those found in other parts of Hong Kong. Also lots of dried seafood, which was the traditional way of preserving food for later consumption. 

Queuing for the gigantic curry fishballs 

Lots of dried sea food, especially fish maw

An author promoting her books on the history of Tai O 

Egg yolks left out to dry 

Live fish swimming in the containers

Traditional stilt houses known as pang uk

This big friendly dog came to say hi 

Some of the older buildings had distinctly Chinese architecture

Little house squeezed between 2 big buildings

Scenes from Tai O market

What's the queue for?

Charcoal baked egg waffles

With so much good food we couldn't leave without tasting some. Stopped by a Chinese dessert shop and ordered a beancurd (tau fu fa) and black sesame dessert (zhi ma wu). It's really good, highly recommended! 

Ended the day with delicious beancurd dessert

And black sesame dessert

Tai O residents seem to make up mainly of the older folks. I guess the younger generation is not continuing the old trades, making me wonder what will happen to the future of this nice little village. 

The queue for the bus back to the city was annoyingly long. We started queuing at 5pm, got onto the bus around 6pm. If you visit on a weekend and want to avoid the queue, you gotta leave earlier. Or maybe you can watch the sunset and leave after the crowd. 

This is just 1/4 of the queue, the rest is out of the camera frame

Transport: 

To get there, we took a 40min journey via bus 11 from the big bus terminal outside City Gate mall. You can also take bus 1 from Mui Wo or bus 21 from Ngong Ping.