Cheung Chau Island

Cheung Chau is shaped like a dumbbell, two hilly ends joined by a low sandy waist where the town sits, and it remains a working fishing island with a typhoon shelter full of boats, a wet market, temples and lanes too narrow for cars. Its calendar peaks with the Bun Festival in the spring, when bamboo towers over ten metres high are covered in buns outside the Pak Tai temple, children in costume are carried through the streets on hidden supports in the piu sik parade, and a race up the tower is run at midnight. The island also produced Hong Kong's first Olympic gold medallist, in windsurfing, and boards are still rented on the beach.

History

Cheung Chau has been inhabited longer than most places in Hong Kong, settled by Hoklo fishing people, Hakka, Chiu Chau and others from southern China, and in 1898 it was leased to Britain with the New Territories under the Second Convention of Peking. At that time it was mainly a fishing village with more people living on junks than on land, slowly becoming a commercial hub supplying the fishing fleet, and the 1911 census counted 7,686 people on land and boats (Wikipedia, Cheung Chau).

What you'll find

• Bun towers at the spring festival - bamboo structures covered in buns.
• The piu sik floating children parade - costumed children carried above the crowd.
• The typhoon shelter - the working fishing fleet moored in the harbour.
• Narrow car-free lanes - the town between the two hills.

When to go

October to April for walking; the Bun Festival falls in spring on Buddha's Birthday and fills the island completely. Half a day. Festival ferries are packed and queues are long.

Things to know

On festival day the island is overwhelmed and moving through the town is slow. Summer heat and humidity are heavy. The beaches are small and busy at weekends. Cheap seafood is not what it was.

Nearby

Lantau is north; Central is across the water.

Key facts