Welcome to Cheung Chau Island

Part of our itinerary in Hong Kong is a visit to Cheung Chau Island. I have to mention “Biyahe ni Drew” again because we learned this place from one of his Hong Kong episodes. This place completed our list of things to do to have a laid-back vacation in Hong Kong.  The island is small but definitely has a lot of exciting things to offer. As a matter of fact, I don’t know where to start!

For us, going to Cheung Chau Island is a breeze. Well… the only challenge is the long walking to get to the Central terminal in a very cold afternoon. Cheung Chau’s pier is #5. We rode the fast ferry boat that took us 30 minutes to reach the island.

The interval of ferries is 30 minutes and not all schedules have the fast ferries available.  The fare is HKD19.70 (roughly $2.54 or Php113.63).

Below are photos of the fast ferry boat — outside and inside. This boat, despite of being “somehow” old has a free wifi inside. And I bet you, it’s faster than my PLDT DSL!

Here’s another collage of the port and bike rentals that you can use to roam around the island. There are no vehicles there except those ambulances and fire trucks so people are literally walking and biking. This is one part of Hong Kong where time runs much slower.

The primary source of income of the people in the island is fishing. Evidence of this are the hundreds of fishing boats docked as seen in the photo below. On the dry land, every house has commercial space where they sell various goods like dried seafood, bread and other delicacies. However, this place is known for their famous buns (Siopao) and seafood restaurants. Their bun festival is every Eighth day of the Fourth Moon, in the Chinese calendar (this is usually in early May).

The Tung Wan beach is another attraction in the island. This is one of the popular summer places in Hong Kong where tourists can rent rooms and houses to stay. The island has almost everything that will fill your basic needs. It has convenient stores, lots of restaurants, shopping boutiques and hotels and even Mc Donalds!

At night is when the party begins. Lots of tables are laid on the street for dinner. We find it more lively during this time. Of course, we had our dinner there which will be tackled in another post.

Here are more photos that we took while we are in the island. We have so many halts because of the cold weather but we really enjoyed every minute of our stay here. We can say that it’s a good place to be away from the busy and noisy city of Hong Kong. In just 30 minutes, you’ll have a great hide out to spend the day without rushing.

Going back to Hong Kong island, we were able to ride on the ordinary ferry which took us almost 1 hour to reach the Central pier. It’s already 10:30 PM when we arrived and my hands are freezing already.

The fare is HKD18.40 (roughly $2.37 or PHP 105.86)

We’ve been to Hong Kong four times already and this is by far, our favorite place in Asia during the winter season. And now that we’ve discovered a new place to be away from the city without the need to spend a lot, we have more reasons to come back.

Notes:  (1) The currency conversion is based on the prevailing rate at the time this article was written.

(2) We find the island romantic and good for couples. We went there a day after Valentines, 2014 and saw several couples dating.