Tai O

We decided to take a look at the fishing village of Tai O which is known for its houses on stilts. We left Hong Kong Island by taking the ferry to Mui Wo on Lantau island. This is quite a big island to the west of HK. On it you can also find the airport and Disney World. We were heading for the west side of the island and were luckily able to avoid this ‘circus’. We are interested in visiting Disney World one day -for the sake of our kids-but first we wanted to soak up more of the Chinese culture.
The bus ride from Mui Wo to Tai O was really interesting. The first part of the trip brings you through a tiny ‘village’ of container houses. The containers are metal shipping containers but much smaller than the ones we are used to. They are about the size of a shed (or an American bathroom…). Most of them were converted into construction offices but in between you could find some that were actually houses. This is something that amazes me often here…..The Chinese truely have a talent for recycling things. Everything gets used up until it’s absolutely useless.
After container village the bus drives through an area with lots of greenery and sometimes passes little farms with vegetables and banana trees. The people getting on and of the bus were mainly Chinese. Some of them really stared at us, especially at Ella and Eva with their blue eyes and lighter hair. But also at Carl and me since we could not put our legs anywhere and kept our knees up high against the seat.
We really had to laugh at one point because the Chinese seem to instantly fall asleep the minute they are on the bus. When we looked back we could see all these open mouths and heads bobbing in the rhythm of the bus. They even use each others shoulders to lay their heads on but they might have been related…who knows.
Before you actually get to Tai O there is this amazing beach. It goes on for quite a while with beautiful white powdery sand and big rocks sticking out at intervals. The waves looked very inviting and it seems like a good beach for surfing (or getting sand in your swimwear). So we put it on our growing list of things to do.
Tai O was even better than anticipated…. The village starts with a regular center. No houses on stilts yet. But it has a very cute harbor with old wooden boats and a very funny sign. I will include the photo. Past the harbor you land right in the middle of a market of dried fish and shell fish. The wares are spread out on tables or carts outside and are protected from the sun with plastic or cloth canopies. As you can imagine the Chinese are not concerned with the esthetics of the scene but that makes it even more interesting to us. The market is a cacophony of color, sounds and smells. While walking through the market we tried to decipher the dried wares they were selling. Mostly tiny silvery fish, clams, scallops and shrimps in bright colored plastic tubs. Some of it was almost as fine as powder. At some point we even bumped into a basket full of dried seahorses. We couldn’t imagine eating these special sea creatures. The girls were really fascinated by it all and had their little noses right overtop of all the tubs. Little did we know at the time that Eva had inhaled her maximum dose of dried fish. The next two days she spent ‘drinking’ anti-histamine to counteract the swelling of her eyes. But ah well, it was worth it! Even she had to agree…….
The next highlight was a boat ride. We got on one of the 20 seaters assuming we would finally get to see the houses on stilts. The captain first showed us the profile of The General in a rock formation along the coast and then suddenly whisked us out of the harbor onto the wide open sea. It was really stunning…The ocean and the sky were almost the same color pink-white and there was no land to be seen. It felt really open and airy after the busy market place….We had no idea why we were out there though. Everybody else was listening intently to the captain and then seemed to be searching for something in the ocean. They kept on looking and pointing in all directions but nobody could tell us what we were there for since they spoke not ONE word of English. It was actually really funny. It was the first time in our life that we could not communicate with the people around us and we had no idea what we were doing over there on the ocean so far away from it all…Our guess was that the pink dolphin was the attraction but it never got confirmed.
Finally he brought us to the houses on stilts. This is where the fishermen live. Their houses are made from wood but are covered with a kind of metal (tin or aluminum) which makes them look silvery grey. They all have ‘porches’ on the front side where they either work on their nets, airdry their catch on strings or smoke their fish. Sometimes they just relax and look at those bloody tourists passing by with their flashing cameras….The interesting part was that you were actually looking right into their living space and most of them were packed to the brim with pots, pans, plastic stuff (the Chinese love their plastic…), nets, clothes, shoes, bikes and plants. Their boats are ‘parked’ right at the bottom of their house on stilts and you can see the reason why the fishermen came up with this idea. Who needs a car when you have a boat? There was one thing that clashed with the authentic scene….every house had an air-conditioning unit hanging of the back.
Ella and Eva’s highlight of the day was a cat doing a circus act on a string in order to catch the dried fish hanging of it….The Chinese people were giggling at this and kept talking about the ‘mau’ which is the Chinese word for cat. At least we understood one word that day….(thanks to Ella’s Chinese class).