Tai O is a small fishing village on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. It is a very popular place to visit for both locals and tourists, and you can buy guided excursions to the village almost everywhere. The tours usually include a visit to Big Buddha, the Ngong Ping cable car and Tai O, but I decided to visit the places on my own due to my tourist group allergy.
I took the ferry to Lantau and then a local bus to Tai O. I arrived in the morning and except for a couple of tour groups it was really quiet. In some parts of the village, it almost felt like we were walking through a ghost town, as the tiny streets were almost empty.
I purchased a boat trip to see the village from the waterside, and it also included pink dolphin spotting. I really regretted that I went on that trip, because even though it was nice to ride through the canal and look at the stilt houses, the dolphin spotting was more like a dolphin chase. I felt sorry for those poor, stressed out animals and I didn’t want to take any pictures. I just wanted the boat to go back and leave the dolphins alone.
Tai O is known for excellent seafood so for lunch we went to one of the small restaurants near the water. I had a seafood omelette on rice, which was really tasty, but after eating half of it, I discovered that it was almost raw. After that meal my stomach started acting strange. I’ll spare you the details, but it lasted throughout the rest of the trip:(
Tai O is famous for beautiful sunsets, but I left before it got dark and took the bus to Tung Chung metro station and then the metro the rest of the way back to Tsim Sha Tsui. The bus trip was actually really nice, and I passed by some really small villages and saw cattle grazing along the road.
Visiting Tai O was a nice break from the hustle and bustle at Tsim Sha Tsui. It was also a great introduction to a different kind of Hong Kong, and I think it would have been really nice to spend a night there, so you could see the sunset in the evening and the sunrise in the morning.
