Adventures in Lamma Island, pt. 1

I left Zhenghzhou in the morning for Istanbul, starting the last phase of the trip. I had a 14 hour layover in Hong Kong, so instead of spending in at the airport being bored, I decided to leave the terminal and take a ferry to Lamma Island for the day.

When we think of "Hong Kong" the picture that pops up in most people's heads is of Hong Kong island with the big buildings and Victoria Harbor in front. However, the actual territory of Hong Kong encompasses a peninsula on the mainland (comprised of the New Territories and Kowloon) and a bunch of outlying islands, Hong Kong island being the biggest and most known. Lamma island is a smaller island to the southwest of the main island that is much more laid back than its bigger brother. There are no cars on Lamma island, and although it is less than a few miles from the bustling financial district on the main island, it might as well be on the other side of the world. Anyways, after the hectic pace at the camp, it seemed like a good idea at the time to take a few hours and go to the island and relax, maybe go to the beach. Little did I know...

A really cool girl that I met on the plane helped me find the connection from the airport, and after running to the ferry from the metro, I managed to get the last spot. After a short ride in the ferry, I arrived on the island, and sought out to find the Bookworm Cafe, which was listed in my Lonely Planet as a good place to get quality food for a decent price and pick up some second-hand books. I found the place after meandering for a while, and when I stepped in, it looked promising. Bob Marley was playing on the stereo, and the ambience was really cool with the hippie decorations and row of bookshelves covering the wall. The food was really good, and relatively inexpensive, which was nice. I started talking with my waiter, Tony, and then with Ken, the owner of the place. They both recommended that I go visit the beach, and Ken said I could leave my bag in the back of the shop while I went exploring, so I went off to find the beach. After walking down a narrow road thick with vegetation on either side, I emerged in a small cove where there was indeed a small beach. Seeing some rocks, Iwent climbing around and found another, even smaller beach, but stayed up on the rocks.

I enjoyed the scenery for a while, wrote in my journal a bit, and watched the clouds go by...and get darker. I thought about how much it would suck to get caught on the rocks if it rained, so I decided it would probably be a good idea to start leaving and started to climb down from my spot up on the rocks. When I was about halfway down, I looked back just in time to see a really thick fog whip around the bay. As the "fog" hit the water, I realized that it was not fog at all, but a solid sheet of water, ETA about 20 seconds. As the wall of impending doom approached, whipping the ocean below it into a frenzy, I scrambled down the rocks as fast as I could, and tried my best to sprint across the rocks on the ground, but it was too late. I managed to find a little bit of refuge under a huge piece of stone that was leaning against the side of the cliff, but it didn't help much. The wall of rain hit like a hammer, and water was swirling everywhere, making a huge racket and reducing visibility to about 30 feet. Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard a voice on a loudspeaker calling to evacuate the beach...