Sai Kung, Mr. Wong, and Hong Kong Hospitality

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SAI KUNG

Sai Kung for us was all about unpleasant surprises, pleasant surprises, and of course, eating fish stomach. That is correct. I ate, and did not particularly dislike, random dim-sum fish stomach. Erin decided not to partake of that particular delicacy, but did in fact eat the greater portion of a delectable fish ball. But more on that later....

UNPLEASANT SURPRISES

From Ngong Ping, it took us about 4 hours (using buses and ferries) to get to the final bus stop at the top of the "hill" near Chek Keng village in Sai Kung. As he dropped us off, the friendly bus driver gave us a hand gesture and uttered something wise in Chinese, which in retrospect could only have meant "best of luck to you for now, we'll send a rescue party when we can." Unaware of the sage driver's words, and eager to complete the "5 minute hike" to our youth hostel and take a shower, we threw on our packs and headed down a narrow paved path......

90 minutes later, having hiked STRAIGHT DOWN the backside of a MOUNTAIN and all the way to the far side of a large bay, Erin and I found ourselves completely and utterly drenched in sweat, staring up at our hostel. The hostel itself was completely isolated at the end of this bay, in the middle of dense jungle on the far eastern side of the remote Sai Kung peninsula. And adding ghostly creepiness to the already peachy ambience was Chek Keng village which, as we found out, was completely deserted. So......with our parents words "stay on the beaten path" ringing in our heads, we walked up the stairway to our "lovely hostel." (Sidenote: we later found out that the Chinese translation for "lovely hostel" includes the phrases "surrounded by large snakes", "having rooms with floors covered in various dead insects", and "having bathrooms guarded by hairy spiders the size of human fists")

PLEASANT SURPRISES

Despite these and other unmentioned atrocities of our experience in Sai Kung (and Hong Kong in general), the HOSPITALITY of Mr. Wong (our hostel manager in Sai Kung) and the sheer BEAUTY of Sai Kung and Lantau Island made the trip worthwhile.

Case in point: after the hellish hike to the hostel, Mr. Wong randomly decided to serve Erin and I traditional Chinese Tea, fully equipped with cakes, crackers, dim sum, and slightly unintelligible Chinese banter. All of this as the sun set over the bay and surrounding mountains.

He served us tea and food every morning and evening that we were there, he paid for all our buses and ferries, he treated us to traditional dim sum at a fancy restaurant in Sai Kung (where we ate pig knuckles, fish stomach, fish balls, and various other Chinese delicacies), and shared his interesting knowledge of Hong Kong history. Awesome. No other word for it.

All in all, a good, bad, ugly, pretty, and interesting first leg to our trip.

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Photos

Mr. Wong - Very Nice.
Erin and Mr. Wong at Chek Keng Youth Hostel.

Sunset in Chek Keng
Sunset from Chek Keng Youth Hostel in Sai Kung.

Big Buddha
Big Buddha and Ngong Ping Village on Lantau Island.

Matthew vs. Bruce
Matt D. and Bruce Lee locked in battle on Hong Kong Waterfront.

Comments

[shannon LOPEZ]

great pics
Hi Guys, Looks like your having fun!

[Johnny D]

Sounds like an adventure. Watch out for the huge spiders. Ewww...

[bone]

well done haha. sounds like a good one. atleast u guys are getting a workout climbing mountains and shit. sounds like an episode of fuckin anthony bourdain/ no reservations. good work. try every food possible. x

[Jud]

1st Leg
Well... now that I have cleared the tears from my eyes and completed my laughing ab workout (which are the only ab workouts that I do).... Dingo you were always one to endulge yourself on balls and knuckles. Wish we were there with you (minus your hostel visit...kelly would have lost it with the spiders... I am not so good with snakes either...especially large ones)... keep the stories coming... be safe. JB

[Ryan]

be safe dudes. miss you. matt get me a picture of your sleeve. yesterday.