Hong Kong #2: Tai O and Temple Street Night Market

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We had a late start to the day. First stop was breakfast, we headed along to Wan Chai subway station and looked for a place near there. We found a restaurant that had an extensive menu of breakfast and other items. I ordered the pork and pickled vegetables noodles. While the restaurant felt very local, I must admit my meal was crap. I had hoped that they would be fried noodles, but they were instant noodles in a watery broth (one of my least favourite things) with a few bits of pork and some pickled veggies. I tried to salvage it by adding lots of chilli paste and vinegar with marginal success. At least I had my coffee to satisfy my need for caffeine.

Once done we headed to the subway station and took the subway to Tung Chung via a change at Central/Hong Kong stations. While the subway wasn’t too busy, Tung Chung station was heaving. We headed out to find the bus to Tai O. The bus station is near one of the exits by the mall, but not well signposted at all. There were a million different queues, which were for the cable car and we eventually found the bus station and the massive queue for the bus to Tai O. Since it was the weekend and a lot of stuff in the village is only open on the weekends that’s when most people go. I thought we would be standing in the queue for hours as one bus came and left and it was a good fifteen to twenty minutes until the next one turned up. I didn’t have to worry though as soon more and more buses bound for Tai O appeared and we got on one fairly quickly. I think we only had to wait about forty minutes in total. The bus journey to Tai O was uneventful. The road was very steep and I had hoped for more glimpses of the coastline. I think it took us about 45 minutes to an hour to reach Tai O. First stop was the public restroom, which was busy but clean.

I had been wanting to visit Tai O since my last trip to Hong Kong because when we’d took the bus to the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island, I’d seen people heading off on another bus to Tai O and after doing some research it sounded like a good place to visit. I didn’t have time on that trip, so here I am five years later. Tai O is a fishing village, the most famous in Hong Kong, and can date its history back to the Stone Age, due to its salt pans. It used to be known for its salt production in the past, but hat has declined over time. Tai O was the ideal destination for refugees from the Mainland during the Civil War in the 1920s-40s due to its close proximity to Zhuhai. Most of the people living there are Hakka and many moved there from other parts of Hong Kong.

We headed into the village, we passed people waiting for the boat to do a boat trip around the village. We decided that we would do one later and just have a walk around first after spending so long on public transport we wanted to stretch our legs. The first street we walked down was filled with shops selling dried fish and other fishy goods. I didn’t have a clue about what some of them were, but it was nice to walk along and just observe. We came to one shop that was doing brisk business so we had a look and decided to order some stuff. The shop sold dried fish that they seasoned and then grilled on a mini BBQ. We ordered some squid and puffer fish. Although it was busy, we didn’t have to wait too long. The two blokes working there (I presume father and son or grandson) must have been making a killing. Anyway the fish and squid were delicious, a great little snack to chew on as we wandered the streets of Tai O. The streets were quite narrow but the buildings were only about three floors high so it didn’t feel oppressive. As we wandered away from the centre it got quieter. The streets didn’t seem like anything special, it just felt like we were seeing a different side of life in Hong Kong away from the hustle and bustle, grit and glamour of the more central areas.

We came across a little temple/shrine which we had a little nosey around. I was quite surprised to see an old Quality Street tin being used to store some stuff in. The British influence lives on. The shrine had a bright red and green stove/furnace thing outside that was equally striking and scary. I loved the little Buddhas that were on a shelf outside of the shrine. I love seeing all the different styles. We continued walking around the streets walking up some small alleyways that reminded me a little of the urban/handshake villages in Shenzhen but on a smaller, lower scale. We also came across a giant tortoise in a little stroller. I thought it was a bit creepy, but the people who owned it were using it as a draw to get people into their shop. We came to a place where we could see the river that runs through the village and the stilt houses on the other side of it. There were a group of kayakers in the water and their rainbow kayaks really stood out against the whites and greys of the stilt houses. As we walked back through this section of the village we came across a great abandoned house. I loved peeking inside and taking some shots of the interior. We headed out onto a little wooden pathway and into one section of the stilt houses. It was interesting to walk among these structures. They seemed pretty solid and didn’t feel unsafe walking among them. However you couldn’t really see much of what was going on inside and how people lived as most doors were shut, they were probably sick of nosey tourists looking around. Back on the main street, we decided to get some snacks at a small bakery. They didn’t have much of a selection so we just got two biscuity things. When I pulled apart the first one to share with my friend I was rather disgusted to find a hair in it, so took it straight back to the bakery to get it exchanged for a new one. That rather took the shine off wanting to eat them. Neither biscuit was memorable, but filled a little hole.

We headed across the bridge into the other section of the village. I really liked the view from the bridge; the stilt houses in the water, the colonial looking buildings and the mountains in the background. There was a big sign saying ‘Welcome to Tai O’, which seemed a little odd as we had already been in the village, maybe this was the main part of it. This side was a lot busier with people and the main street after crossing the water was chock-a-block with people. We headed up a side street near the market as we saw a huge queue, we thought it might be for the doughnut place we’d read about that was very popular in Tai O, but it wasn’t, I can’t even remember what it was for obviously some food stuff that I had no interest in eating. We had a quick look in the market but since it was late in the day there was very little open. We headed to the main square and I loved the mural that was painted in the side of the building. It added a nice vibrancy to the area. I wish I had been able to get some better photographs of it, but there are seats in front of it and they were filled with people, piles of junk and scaffolding, so I couldn’t. While walking the streets of Tai O, we came across quite a few cats, most were lounging around and it looked like they had a good life. We headed up one of the street, which had quite a few murals on the walls. I loved the dragon boat one. We came across the doughnut shop, but it had already shut, we really should have come earlier. We did get some frozen watermelon from a shop, that was so good. While the weather wasn’t sunny, it was pretty warm and the watermelon cooled me down a notch.

We headed over the Sun Ki Bridge, which led to more stilt houses. The bridge had been funded and built by the local residents. We got some great views of the stilt houses and the surrounding mountains as we walked along. It was rather peaceful and we caught some glimpses of people going about there day to day life. We walked through the village and followed the path to a largish temple. We had a quick look around the temple’s grounds, but there wasn’t really anything of note there. We wandered through the little village, looking in a tiny temple/shrine. We were standing outside of it and a local man gestured that we should head inside. I really liked this little village, there were lots of trees making it nice and shady. The stoone houses were great and in various states of repair, some were immaculate, well cared for and obviously still very much lived in while others were crumbling and abandoned, one was just a doorway. We took the long route back to the main village and got some good views of the boats going up and down the water. We felt like we had seen quite a bit so decided to skip doing the boat tour. We had a little walk along the pier, which gave us some good views. While I enjoyed taking a walk around Tai O, it didn’t wow me. It was nice, but I don’t think I would need to return in the future.

We took the bus back to the subway station. The queue had been impressive, but buses were coming fairly regularly, so we must have only waited about 30 minutes. I preferred the journey back as we were sitting nearer the back of the bus and got some great views when we got to the tops of some of the hills. It also felt like a roller coaster with all the ups and downs, which I enjoyed. We took the subway back and headed to Kowloon as my friend wanted to visit a night market and we’d picked Temple Street Night Market as that was the number one one that came up on google. I had been there before and remember it being busy with lots of stalls selling tourist tat and other stuff. The market was pretty dead, there weren’t many people about and not too many of the stalls were set up. I don’t know if this was due to Covid or we just got there too early at around 7-8 pm. We had a wander up and down the market. There was nothing I wanted to buy. I was surprised at the amount of prostitutes about. There were lots of single ladies loitering in doorways. I never noticed this on my previous visit to the market, probably because it was a lot busier and the women didn’t stand out so much. We were hungry by this point so looked at a few restaurants for dinner. We picked a place and since it was full we waited for a table to become available. When a table became free, it was in the restaurant across the road. The restaurants all seemed to be run by the same people. We ordered crab, sweet and sour king prawns, stir fried vermicelli and rice. We also got some beers to wash it all down with. The food was good, the crab and prawns were especially delicious. I also enjoyed the atmosphere in the restaurant, it was lively with families and groups of friends all enjoying themselves on the eve of the May Day holiday. A good end to a good day.

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