Short stop in Lamma Island – Hong Kong
27th of September saw us back to HK, my travelling partner Stephen – who is a Product Designer and Proprietor in the tent making business, decided to test out one of his pilot project – a hammock and one man tent combo – a test in the real environment. We will set up two such tents on the roof deck of a three story building in Lamma Island. Lamma is one of the many satellite small islands cluttered around the main Hong Kong Island, many foreign guests/workers and those HK locals who crave a quieter environment and cleaner air chose to live on Lamma and commune daily.
The original idea for Steve and myself were to sleep in those tents before we part for our Malaysia trip, for two nights, you got it, before Malaysia’s Shangri-la. The plan was drink bear, count the brilliant stars, and reminisce about the high school days. But it was not to be, HK had a close call with a hurricane which later hit some town in the Canton Province, causing a lot of flooding, water damages, and some lost of life.
HK being so small, was spared, but I stayed with my sister in Aberdeen, Steve ended up in Lamma the whole time, Lamma without the shielding of long concrete buildings on the main island, apparently he had to endure a night long symphony of howling wind and relentless rain hitting his daughter’s apartment window.
The jewel on the crown was, his daughter Mimi has a rather large dog, which her keeps in the apartment, this large dog would just keep an eye on him all night, – literally according to Steve, would not brink an eye all night.
I got a chuckle out of that when he told me. But really this dog gave of a low guttural groan when “it” saw me. I had no doubt that “it” will take a chunk off me, if I ever did anything untoward.
So, it was quite a let down instead of a build up – like from a tent to Shangri-La, so after we got back to HK after 4 days of being pampered and well fed, the first evening back, we had to set up tents on a hard tile floor.
How I yearned for clean linen sheets, a firm bed, TV, hot meals, and Tim Horton coffees.
Anyways, the design of the tent is good, easy to set up, minimum pieces of hardware, I actually would buy one if I am hot on camping. Of course, I didn’t tell Stephen that!
We spent one night in Lamma, next morning was a regular workday, and Mimi had to go to work, her daughter Cici to school, so Steve and I packed up in a hurry, bid them good bye, and off we went. First we took a ferry back to HK, then the super efficient subway system that got us hooked back to the transit system on the Chinese side.
Luckily, HK is not too big at all as compared to China, Canada, or the US in a geographical sense, in one hour and a half, we were crossing back in Chinese territory, in no time, and we were waiting to board our return flight home to Ningbo, China. in Shenzhen International Airport.
The usual hustle and bustle of any large Chinese city, one can also find it very evident in Shenzhen.
I am not beating up on my brothers and fellow travelers in China, men mostly, but we have a lot to learn from other big cities in the world, people here light up anywhere they want, even inside airports; restaurants of course, may be taxation is big business, there are no smoking signs everywhere, there are signs and propagandas banners telling people “smoking is harmful to one’s health”. Sadly there are no bodies to enforce the no smoking regulation in public places.
Two and a half hours later, Steve and I safely touched down Ningbo International; I really don’t know why it is called an International Airport, because the only foreign country airplanes from Ningbo International fly to is Taiwan!
Get this, the highway infrastructures in China are great, the roads are straight, signs are relatively large and clearly marked, but the traffic flow could be chaotic at times. Many large semis are obviously overloaded with cargo, and many of these drivers do not use turn signals when they change lane. It was nerve wrecking if you are in the passenger seats, because you have no way of knowing what your own driver would do in reacting to other drivers’ movies, drivers use their vehicle hones frequently, they are not necessarily be mad at you, it could be simply sending you a message, that he is behind you, or is beside you. Line marker on the road might as well not be there, vehicles frequently riding on the dotted lines that divide the lanes.
I dared not take my eyes off the road when we were being transported from Ningbo Airport back to the factory, it was scary. Even though we took a taxi, and the young driver was pretty proficient.
It would be nice to be sleeping on a firm bed to night!