Yesterday (a few days late) we celebrated the 4th of July with a barbecue on one of Lamma’s public beaches. Besty and Neils, from Seattle and Holland, helped us roast chicken/pineapple ka-bobs, and we finished the night with a game of scrabble. By the way, a “hank” is a string of beads…compliments of Betsy.
So today was one of those “I can’t get out of bed/off the couch” days. But Aaron suggested that we take a walk to the beach. Along the way we stopped at Mama’s Tofu for silky tofu dessert with a honey/herb sauce. Then we decided to check out the beach farther down the path. Farther means an hour walk from our flat, compared to the ten minute walk to the beach we frequent.
The beach turned out to be a smaller version of the one that’s closer to our flat. The view was even the same…tropical paradise.
When we finished swimming it was around 6pm. The sun sets here at 7pm. We had to decide between walking farther down to path to eat or a hungry walk home without mosquitos. We decided to eat and see how our night proceeded.
The village we live in, Yung Shue Wan, is like New York City while the rest of Lamma is like New Jersey. Outside of Yung Shue Wan the buildings are more broken down and shack like. Old Chinese ladies are selling peanuts out of dusty glass jars. The jungle takes over the path. It starts to feel like an adventure.
We ended up in So Ku Wan, which is the second largest village on Lamma. It’s completely on the other side of the island from where we live.
The Rainbow Seafood Restaurant, in So Ku Wan is the only famous restaurant on Lamma. It’s so popular that they offer a free ferry service to and from Central Hong Kong. Otherwise, the regular ferry is under 3 USD. At The Rainbow Restaurant we treated ourselves to sweet and sour fish, a scallop dish, crab soup, stir fried rice, and fresh fruit for dessert. It was one of the best Chinese meals I’ve had since we’ve been in Asia.
In the end, we decided to forego the hour walk home in the dark with a million mosquitos. We caught the ferry to Central, had some ice-cream at Ben and Jerrys while we waited for the ferry back to Lamma. It was a very odd way to get home, but there are no direct ferries from So Ku Wan to Yung Shue Wan. And to rent a Sampan was out of our price-range, especially since we left the house with nothing more than some bathing suits, thinking that we’d be back in an hour or two.
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Thanks for the great adventure, Jenny! It reminded me of being on your island, and I sure wish I could have made it to the other side…maybe next time!!! By the way, that was a great way to get home. I especially liked the part about the ice cream. Great pic, Aaron! Love you, mom