Jan. 3 – In Which We Hike a Peak and Attempt to Navigate Hong Kong’s Subway

Pollo had seen tiny figures of hikers on the slope up to the peak closest to Mui Wo (on the easternmost side of Silvermine Bay) every morning. Uncharacteristically (like most cyclists I know, he’s not much of a walker), he had suggested finding the path and following it up. So, after breakfast, we headed off on the road skirting the beach. It wasn’t hard at all to find the path up, which was actually paved. It quickly led to some steep stairs, which made my ex-athlete lungs work pretty hard! We were even passed on the way by a work crew carrying supplies to erect a sign (one had the metal stakes, another had the plywood, another carried a pickax, and the other carried a plastic tank on his back full of water.)

There was some interesting vegetation, including some flowering camellias. I looked for wild azaleas, which my mom had said flower in the late winter, and thought I saw some (no flowers, though). Alerted to their presence by signs warning against letting gravesite burnt offerings set the countryside alight, we saw some grave or shrine sites. These looked like small terraces on the hill, with a small altar made of rocks and sometimes a photo or vase set into the concrete of the base. We also saw bamboo poles with what looked like cut-up hoses attached; we finally figured out (from a sign) that they were fire beaters. So apparently it gets even drier than this here.

After lots and lots of narrow stairs, we arrived at the top of the hill to a great view. To the west was Silvermine Bay and Mui Wo, possibly even more charming in miniature. To the east was Discovery Bay, which is the more developed part of Lantau: it boasts a large golf course (visible from our vantage point) and a Disneyland (fortunately not in our view). There was also a large white building topped with a cross that I guessed (correctly) was the Trappist monastery I’d read about. We could have continued our hike down the other side, but both of us felt we’d better quit while we were ahead.

I collected some shells on the beach when we got back down, and then we stopped by our room to collect some stuff. I discovered a short cut from the eastern end of the beach, and along this small path there were several abandoned houses and shacks. We later read that it was a dangerous area for sinkage during the monsoon season, and many residents had been evacuated.

I had succeeded in getting in touch with Fasi this morning, our friend from Bici Racing, to try and connect with him to get my bike (which had been stored in the team’s storage area near Sha Tin since the beginning of the race). I was beginning to think I’d have to change the name of the blog, for all the cycling I’ve actually succeeded in doing while here. He arranged to have someone meet us at a train station in the New Territories. All we had to do – simple, right? – was to take the ferry to Central, and catch the MTR (HK’s super modern, high-tech subway) to the arranged station. Well, it turned into a major undertaking, and it’s a good thing we left as early as we did.

First, the thing with the ferries is that there are 2 different types: the ordinary (which accepts “freight,” including bicycles), and the fast (which prohibits freight and charges twice as much. Oh, and the trip takes half an hour as opposed to the ordinary’s 45 min.). Anyway, the next ferry to leave Mui Wo would be a fast one, and so Pollo’s bike, which he had with him (so that we could possibly ride together after fetching mine) was verboten. I just barely had time to ride Pollo’s bike back to our room, leave it, and run the 12 minutes or so to the pier. Whew.

Then, the MTR (modern and efficient as it may be to those who know it) was an intimidating beast to us. In Central station we couldn’t buy our tickets directly to our destination station; we had to buy them to the transfer point to the other line, at which point we had to buy the other tickets. Also, we had to walk about 2 kilometers (I swear I’m not exaggerating) underground to get to the right line. All in all, it took us green travelers about 2 hours to make a trip that’s about 10 miles as the crow flies.

Then long-suffering Lam (the Bici truck driver) took us to the storage room, where we quickly put my little track bike together. Thanking him profusely, we accepted a ride back to the train station. There, we commenced the backward journey. Pollo simply lifted the bike up and over the turnstile as he passed his ticket through, and there were no problems. We even got a ferry back to Mui Wo without too much waiting.

On this trip, the movie screen at the front of the boat was showing an informational film about the dangers of smoking. This I was very glad to see, because there are a LOT of smokers in China. We learned from the film (featuring Jackie Chan and another Chinese movie star) that smoking has been prohibited in a lot of common areas; however the ban seems poorly enforced. We’ve endured a lot of choking cigarette smoke on this trip. I guess in my limited and possibly skewed view, the practice seems more popular amongst the older (middle-aged) generation than amongst the young, which hopefully is a good sign of its diminishing appeal.

I had planned to spend some time in the evening researching trains to China from my pierside wifi base, but we arrived so tired from the MTR adventure that I allowed myself a pass and we went straight “home” to bed.