Lamma Lamma Lamma Lamma Lamma Chameleon….you come and go…you come and goooo-oo-ooo-oooo…Lamma would be easy if the island were like my dreams…lik on my sac…lik on my saaa-aa—acc..

Ok, so I took it easy after Friday’s debauch and got up at a reasonable hour on Sunday. I was going to work out, then take some steam, then a little sauna, then back into the steam, then…ok, I’ll stop. I was going to work out, then head to Lamma Island, a little dumbbell-shaped joint just south of Hong Kong Island. It’s 18 bucks (about $2.25) for a 35-minute ferry to a beautiful, rocky isle that’s free of autos and heavy on the butterflies and seafood and shizznickle like that. Taking the advice of the guide, I took the ferry to Sok Kwu Wan and grabbed some lunch at one of the harborside restaurants. There’s a long row of them, right on the water, and they all have big tanks with snapper, garoupa, crabs, prawns, squid, lobster, and other stuff awaiting their fates. I had deep fried squid with black pepper and spicy salts, lobster with ginger and scallion, and some killer fried rice with pork and whole shrimps. Throw in a big Tsingtao and you’re still coming in under 30 bucks – and I’m sure there are better deals that that, believe it or not. Good stuff. I had decided to eat a) after working out but b) before the hike so as to ignite the old afterburn effect, and I was glad I did, because once I started looking at the simple yet delightfully tempting menu, I realized how hungry I really was. I was ‘bout it.

After lunch, I walked to the end of the harbor and across the low tide area, a wide field of wet sand on which people were playing and a solitary black dog was running, seemingly entertaining himself. He would haul ass toward the water, stop short, sort of look around as if he thought someone was watching him, then start off running again. A short way up the path were the kamikaze tunnels, so named because the Japanese were going to hide men and boats in there toward the end of the war, waiting to attack US warships if they sailed close to the island. The caves were probably only wide enough to house a few longtail boats, though, so it surely would have been a suicide attack. Let’s put it this way: no boat made of steel was getting in those caves. You couldn’t explore them, though.

Farther up the trail there lies the Lo So Shing School, this little school (about six classrooms) set into the hillside. Kind of cool. They had a little basketball court and a pingpong table and some gardens off to the side, beyond which was a long field of dense vines and ferns and low shrubs. Butterflies flitted around, doin’ they little pollination thang…really serene. Good stuff. I followed the path to Lo So Shing beach as well, but there’s not much to report. You could already see the massive power station in the background, and it pretty much maintained a presence in every westward view from that point forward. I also walked off the main trail to the To Pagoda (or some shit), a scenic overlook, and had to snap a couple pictures of the power station because it’s just so huge. I mean, it is gargantuan.

The path continues along a grassy, exposed hillside before descending into Yung Shue Wan, the island’s main town. It’s much larger than Sok Kwu Wan, with a long beach, dozens of restaurants and shops, and even some apartments and condos. There’s a fairly sizeable expat community here, though the guide says it has dwindled somewhat after the handover. It’s got something of a hippie feel – very laid-back and groovy, with guys playing drums on their porches, cozy little cafes here and there, restaurants situated under huge banyan trees, and things of that nature. I could definitely see myself getting comfortable in that town. You would have a hell of a commute unless you worked right near the ferry in Central – which, of course, I do. But Liz came by with the baby today, and by all accounts it looks like she is returning, so no super-groovy life in Lamma for me. That’s for another lifetime, I guess.

I had finally reached the far end of Yung Shue Wan, and the ferry terminal lay ahead. All told, a lovely 2- hour breezy stroll up the center of Lamma island and some excellent seafood to boot. I really felt far from the bustle of Central, and that was the goal. That’s the cool thing about these islands (Lamma, parts of Lantau, Cheung Chau) – most of them can be explored in a half-day or, at most, a day, and the great seafood just adds to the experience. Next weekend, I think I’ma go see the Big Buddha on Lantau – that’s more of a hike, so perhaps I’ll enlist someone from the Reuters or Euroweek posse to join me. If you want to get away, but don’t have the time or funds to make it to Macau, Lamma is a quite enjoyable alternative. Very compact and pretty (save for the concrete factory at one end and the power station at the other), and you can even take your folks. In fact, I met some older folks on my walk, some English and Irish women who had lost their companions. I joked about being happy to be far away from Bush and the falling dollar, and we got into a funny conversation about the various presidents and candidates (“Clinton, well, he was a sinner, but he was just so charming!” “Yes, I did like him the most, but I wouldn’t trust him past the front door.” “Oh well, he was certainly a naughty one, but good for the country” and so on).

Ok, that’s it. More later,
Chucky