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Cheung Chau
Another great little island where you can spend a couple of hours strolling around and then have dinner, hour-glass-shaped Cheung Chau is just south of Lantau, an hour from Hong Kong by ferry and refreshingly vehicle-free.Despite its minuscule size of just 2.5 square kilometres, Cheung Chau is nevertheless the most crowded of all the outer islands, with a population of some 23,000. Historically, the island is one of the oldest settled parts of HongKong,being notorious as an eighteenth-century base for pirates who enjoyed waylaying the ships that ran between Guangzhou and the Portuguese enclave of Macau. Today, it still gives the impression of being an econonfically independent little unit, with Pak She Praya Road, the narrow strip between its maheadlands, jam-packed with tiny shops, markets and seafront seafood restaurants. As well as romantic dinners and late-night ferry rides home, the island offers some nice walks around the old fishing ports and views of traditional junk building. It also has some interesting temples, the most important being the two-hundredwear-old Pak Tai Temple, a few hundred metres northwest
ofthe ferry pier, along the interesting Pak She Street, lined with old herbalists and shops selling religious trinkets. Fishermen come to the temple to pray for protection, and beside the statue of PakTai, the god of the sea, is an ancient iron sword, discovered by fishermen and supposedly symbolizing good luck.For a few days in late April or early May the temple is the site of one of HongKong’s liveliest and most spectacular festivals, the so-called Tai Chiu (Bun) Festival.The main beach on the island, the scenic but crowded Tung Wan Beach, is due west of the ferry pier. Windsurfers are available for rent at the southern end of the beach, from a centre run by the family of Hong Kong’s Olympic medalwinning windsurf champion, Lee Lai Shan, who won a gold at the 1996 Atlanta games. The centre also serves beer and snacks on a terrace with a nice sea view.The southern headland of Cheung Chau contains more walking possibilities,although it can be quite a scrabble up and down rocks and through bays.You can follow the path around the island, with marked trails to the nearby Tin Hau Temple and then the Cheung Po Tsai Cave, named after Cheung Chau’s most famous pirate who used the cave as a hide-out in the early part of the nineteenth century. Legend aside, however, the cave is nothing special and you’ll need a torch to see pretty much anything. The walk back from the cave area to the main ferry pier is an attractive one that takes about an hour,although it’s not suitable for small children.
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