Hiking: From the Shing Mun Reservoir to the Kowloon Reservoir

I came across the perfect guidebook in a bookstore in Kowloon last week, called Historical Hong Kong Hikes, by David Pickerell. As I really enjoy both hiking and history, I figured I couldn't lose and bought it.

Today I set out on my first hike with the hope that, if it went well, I could do the other hikes in the book at the rate of one each week while I'm here.

First of all, a great percentage of Hong Kong's land area is devoted to country parks, and therefore beautiful walking trails. In this region, everywhere you turn there is either an ocean view or a mountain view: once you get away from the urban areas, these views combine to create a transcendent experience.

I posted on the Lingnan exchange students' Facebook group page to see if anyone else wanted to go, and I was joined by my friend Sarah, an endearing marketing student from Ireland. We left Lingnan at 9 am, early for a Sunday, and took the subway followed by a short bus ride to get to the start of the hike.

 The trail begins on a private road beginning at the right of what's called pineapple dam. Above you can see the grass covered dam behind the country park sign.

After walking a few minutes, we found ourselves walking on top of a different dam. This time, there was a view. 

It was a typical foggy day in HK. There is an unearthly beauty to it.

About a half-mile into the hike are trails that split off towards some ruins from World War 2.

The ruins consist of the remains of tunnels built by the British to defend against the Japanese. According to Historical Hong Kong Hikes, the tunnels were expected to hold the Japanese for a week, but were conquered in one night. Supposedly, the Japanese determined quickly that the tunnels were undermanned and dropped grenades down ventilation holes in the ground to draw out the British soldiers. I don't know if the damage you see in these pictures is from grenades, but the tunnels are certainly a dramatic sight.

The British named some of the tunnels after streets in London. There is a Regent Street and a Piccadilly Street. You can also see carved into the wall below directions to a "Strand Palace Hotel." The main gathering points were called hotels.

After leaving the tunnel remains, we climbed many sets of stairs. Above is just one of the long flights we encountered. It was worth it, though. Below are views from Golden Hill.

From Golden Hill, above the skyscrapers that seem to stretch for miles.

On the other side of Golden Hill, we began to encounter the monkeys. We were excited at first, and tried to get good pictures of them. Sarah got much better pictures than I did, and I'll have to get her to email me some to post later.

Searching for ticks

 After I took this picture, we started to see more and more monkeys. Either because of fatigue or not wanting to aggravate them, we stopped photographing them. While descending the mountain, we counted more than 70 monkeys on one quarter-mile stretch of road. Some were playing, others were searching each other for ticks like the two above, and some were fighting with each other.

As we were surrounded by more monkeys, Sarah began to walk a little faster. She was feeling a little apprehensive about the possibility of being attacked, but I didn't think it was really a possibility.

Naturally, we were attacked.

We didn't notice a baby monkey on our path and walked a little too close to it, setting off the community of monkeys surrounding us. We started to walk a little faster, but the monkeys began to cut us off. Then, we tried to walk calmly, but that didn't seem to be working either.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, four older Chinese women showed up with slingshots. Slingshots. They shot rocks at the monkeys, who immediately fled.  We tried to say thank you, but they spoke only Cantonese. Then they disappeared.

Well, thank you oh wise and superhero-ish Chinese old ladies. You saved the day.

Shortly after the humiliating monkey incident, we came upon the dam overlooking the Kowloon Reservoir and therefore the end of our hike. We were still flustered from the monkey attack and forgot to get good pictures from the near side of the dam. Feeling like we'd missed a great view, we started to turn back, but then we heard the screeching of the evil devil-monkeys and quickly resumed our previous direction. I got a few photos from atop the dam.

Kinda like the Great Wall of Kowloon, eh?

A family picnic in the reservoir

This place really is incredibly beautiful once you stop focusing on the bullshit. Er, monkey shit.