Tai O is one of the best day trips in Hong Kong if you have young kids, or actually even if you don’t have any kids. I’ve been visiting quite a few Islands lately and this is one of the best times we’ve had. Not really a hike, but there’s some hiking trails to/from and around Tai O so we’ll definitely cover that in the next few weeks hopefully.
To get to Tai O, we drove out to Tung Chung, parked at the CityGate Mall parking (you can get MTR or bus from central), then it’s about a 10-15 minute walk over to the Tung Chung-Tai O ferry. They don’t come that often, so have a look here for the schedule.
The 8:55a.m on Sunday only allowed about 3 people on because it starts at Tuen Mun, the next ferry was 10 minutes later and we managed to get on that. The ferry ride across to Tai O is nice, you’ll go past the airport, and the new Hong Kong-Macau Bridge being built, and nice views up to Lantau Peak. It’s about 30 minutes. There’s not that many seats on the ferry so be aware of alternative options to get there from Tung Chung. You can get there by taxi, probably quite expensive, maybe $200-$300, or there’s a bus but that takes 50 minutes. Failing that you’re shit out of luck.
When we reached Tai O, walk down the Pier to the town, in the way there’s a Dolphin watch operator, it’s only $20 or $30 per person (can’t remember the exact cost), they make you wait until there’s 6 people on the boat but I just paid the guy the remaining 4 people and my son and I headed out. First you’ll go down the Tai O village, very short, only a few hundred metres, nice to see the stilted houses. Then you head out to sea and try to spot the dolphins. We saw a few pop out of the water, stayed still for a few mins then headed back. In all the trip is only about 20 minutes. When you get back we headed over the bridge into the village, which is quite interesting. Because we were relatively early, there were bugger all people around, which made the visit much more relaxing. There’s a few shops, and we walked over another bridge and had a good look around.
Around 11 we decided to take another boat (different one than the first), this time there were 3 people on board already, we had to wait 15 minutes before one of the passengers asked for us to leave as they’d obviously been waiting longer. This time we saw no dolphins so bit of a disappointment. Take the first operator at the end of the pier, nearest the town, they’re a bit friendlier. After that we had some god fried rice in a local shop. About $25 I think and one of the better fried rices we’ve had. By 1p.m, Tai O gets very busy so we headed to the pier and played around there while we waited for the ferry back.
Like anywhere in Hong Kong, if you’re going to Tai O avoid the afternoons during weekends if you don’t like crowds. It’s almost difficult to walk and much noisier, a different experience really. Go weekdays if you really want to have the place to yourself. Overall this is a really pleasant day, until the crowds arrive. Bit of a mission to get there if you’re coming from HK Island, so probably not somewhere you’d go every week, but definitely worth another visit.
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