23 September 2008

Lost in Tai Tam

Last weekend, we went to see what a tree looks like.

In Hong Kong it's very easy to forget that the world should actually look green, not metallic and shiny, so people go on hikes to immerse themselves in Nature and realise that this city actually has a very diverse landscape.

We started at Wong Nai Chung Gap Reservoir, which was built in 1899, as Caroline told us, brandishing her "Serious Hiker's Guide". We can't have been that "serious" though, as we had stupidly decided to start our hike at midday, not realising that after 10 minutes walking along the trail, we would be drenched in sweat, and feeling like we were walking in a giant sauna. Silly silly.

It didn't matter though - we saw dragonflies of all the colours of the rainbow, streams and lakes (including one in which, urban legend has it, a man got rid of his piranhas, creating a increasing local population of the carnivorous fish...), forests and beaches. It was a lovely break from the jackhammers.

We also met a group of boys who were jumping off all of the bridges they could find, in real Jackass fashion. Completely fearless. In fact, when I mentioned to one of them that the water they were jumping into might be infested with piranhas, the only reply I got was, "coooool". I wish I could be so careless sometimes...

At the end of our hike, we sipped Pimms on South Bay Beach. You can imagine how hard it was to make our way back to dried seafood street after that...








1 comment:

Nupur said...

totally beautiful.