Hong Kong Holiday: Day Four

Richard was up early this morning to go on a bike ride with Rapha in the morning, so I was able to get a good sleep and do some knitting and such before he returned around half 11. He cycled around most of the island and reported that it was fantastic, if rather muggy. After he was ready, we headed into Central, caught the train out to Prince Edward station and then the no. 81 bus up to Kam Shan Country Park. This area is also known as Monkey Hill! A long time ago, people in the area had pet monkeys which they let go. Now... A hill full of wild monkeys! From the bus stop, there is an access road which also serves as the walking path. We took a detour off the path to the ‘family’ walking trail, which basically took us up a massive flight of stairs to the top of the hill. It was all quiet for a while, then you turn a corner and there are monkeys lying in the path! Mostly they were hanging out in pairs, picking off bugs, or just chilling around and in the path.

They have some rules when it comes to seeing these monkeys - firstly, do not bring plastic bags! The monkeys have been conditioned to recognise plastic bags and the sound they make and they associate this with food. So if they hear a plastic bag noise, they will run at you and try to get it away from you. We saw this happening to people up near the bus stop, and the monkeys were much more aggressive than I expected with those people. I actually had a little bit of food in a plastic bag, but I kept it tucked away inside my handbag and I didn’t have any troubles.

The monkeys are safest when they are relaxed, so another thing to avoid is staring at the monkeys. Of course, we were there to see them so that was hard, but there were certainly times where I just pointed the GoPro at the monkeys as I studiously avoided their gaze as I walked by. You could look at them, but at one point we stared a touch too long at a cute little one, only to have another monkey (presumbly its Mummy) start screaming at us, which made us jump and walk away very quickly! You can definitely look though. There were some splashing in the water, lots of grooming, babies playing in the trees, some of which seemed to have diseases, and even one old monkey who had lost an eye! It was so interesting to be so close although a little intimidating. But they’re clearly used to having humans around so there wasn’t much to worry about. 

After the family trail rejoined the main path, we turned back and headed back to the bus stop, the train and the hotel. We had just enough time to shower and change out of our sweaty things (it’s warming up now and quite humid during the days), before going back down to Central and catching the train down to Causeway Bay to meet up with my cousin Ben. He’s from Wagga Wagga in NSW but currently living in HK (and used to live in London too), and we catch up whenever we get a chance. He’s excellent to chat to and despite living overseas for years, has never lost his Aussie attitude. He picked an all you can eat hotpot place on the 29th floor, which also featured all you can drink! So we ate, and drank, and drank, and chatted, and went onto the terrace to drink and chat some more. It was so fantastic to catch up, and we were there until closing (6 hours all up!) before we headed home to flop into bed.