Love it or hate it, Hong Kong is an impressive city I have never visited or lived anywhere quite like it. For most people a visit will be either a stop over en route to Europe or Australia/NZ or a business trip which means meetings all day and wining, dining and partying by night. I'm sure I have heard the saying - " you never really know a place until you live there " and having now lived in 4 different countries I think its very true. Hong Kong took me completely by surprise. I agreed to move there with my partner without even visiting once and will never forget the taxi ride from Hong Kong station. I spent the entire journey face squished up against the window with my mouth open wide in shock, partly from the jet lag and lack of sleep but mostly from the towering buildings and the sheer number of people all busy going about their day racing around the streets of central Hong Kong. If you have never visited then its almost difficult to comprehend and on the first day as we walked down from our tiny apartment into the wet markets I really struggled to get my head around the contrast of flash multi million $$ office blocks and fleets of Mercedes limousines, then on the opposite side of the road local Chinese are struggling to scrape a living from what smelt like rotting meat and vegetable stalls.
I spent the next couple of weeks acclimatising to the Hong Kong way of life, a combination of exploring the streets and spending time hiding in the tiny apartment for some relative peace and quiet! I say relative peace and quiet because even inside you can never escape the constant rumble of traffic and people, taxi drivers must wear their horns out before tyres!
After a few months of living in Hong Kong and exploring most of what appeared to be on offer I was starting to feel a little penned in. Whilst its very convenient having everything so accessible and having 100's of bars, shops and restaurants on your doorstep, I'm used to open spaces and clear skies. There are a few places around Hong Kong that you can get away from tower blocks and hustle a
nd bustle but these tend to be tailored towards the rich bankers and pilots whom make up a large majority of the expat population. Being neither rich or a high flying exec this environment didn't appeal much and I was struggling to justify paying over the top for things in flashy bars and shops. I think I have my home town of Boston in Lincolnshire to thank for this attitude and as my Grandfather still reminds me " you don't want to waste your bloody money boy"!!Just as I was losing hope of finding a value for money countryside oasis in Hong Kong, Lamma Island appeared! Well it didn't appear its been there for years but I thought it was fully of pot smoking hippie drop outs and that the huge power station would mean that if the drugs didn't kill you the pollution would. How wrong could I have been? Well as I found out very wrong! Getting off the ferry at Yung Shue Wan ( the main village ) pier the first thing that you notice is bicycles everywhere, the pier is covered in them like a bicycles graveyard. Its not until you find out that there are no cars on Lamma that you realise that the main form of transport on Lamma is your feet closely followed by the bicycle. As the procession of people march from the ferry into the village passing the "cool wall" as I like to call it, the place where most of Lamma's secondhand trading is done. Then past the Chinese seafood restaurants Lamma is famous for, a couple of bars and half a dozen small shops that sell everything from tools to tins of baked beans. Initially I couldn't figure it out - this busy little village full of local Chinese and expats right next door to the raging metropolis that is Hong Kong, yet it felt like walking through a old fishing village on the Mediterranean coast! Everyone was friendly and people had the time to stop and chat even, the restaurants were sensibly priced and the food had a home cooked quality to it but best of all the beer was cheap!! Really cheap!! Oh and 10 minutes walk from the village you have a choice of 2 beaches and the water is clean and warm for swimming. Wow what a find, we couldn't believe our luck we knew we had to live here.
OK so what's the catch?? There must be something wrong with Lamma otherwise everyone would live there and it would just be like the rest of Hong Kong? Lamma is a lifestyle choice by Hong Kong standards, there is the 30 minute ferry trip to get there and the ferries only run until 12.30am so no late night partying in central Hong Kong. The ferry for me though was like a mini adventure on the water and a great time to sit back and relax with a beer and read a
book or listen to my iphone. Although it seems Hong Kongers don't want to live on Lamma, they do like to visit so it can get very busy on the weekends but you soon learn to avoid them and find the places they don't go. I can't honestly think of a lot else apart from one thing that annoyed me - VV's! So what's a VV? Its short for village vehicle, basically they are like mini trucks powered by lawnmower engines and they buzz around the place moving food supplies, building materials etc.. All I can say is watch out as they have a habit of treating the narrow streets as race tracks!All of this is nothing compared to the superb range of places to eat and drink, beautiful walks in the countryside, decent beaches and friendly people. A typical Sunday would start with a great fry up at the Banyan Bay bar, after an hour or so of drinking coffee, reading the paper and watching the tourists down main street its off to the beach. Mid afternoon back home for a shower and a snooze then down to the Deli Lamma for a beer or two and a curry or sunday roast washed down with a jug of sangria!
Its not fake or pretentious and Lamma is great value for money in an overpriced city where if you don't have money you can find it hard to fit in.
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