tim's experiment

To Lam Sang Wai this weekend, to see it before it disappears. Lam Sang Wai is an area of wetland near Yuen Long. It was certainly wet when I saw it because we had constant rain, but some of it is wet all the time. It is a rare piece of landscape for Hong Kong, being completely flat throughout. Neglected fishponds and paddy fields abound. Some of it looks like the Norfolk Broads, or like the Norfolk Broads before they were tidied up for tourism. Some of it looks a bit like the famous West Lake, with causeways dotted with trees running along the horizon. Few of the traditional residents are still there. The place is very quiet, though parts are within distant earshot of the Yuen Long Industrial Area. Birds chirp, butterflies flutter by.

The place boasts Hong Kong’s only remaining manpowered ferry. You stand on a sampan and a gentleman rows standing up and facing forward, with two rather short oars fitted with handles  on the end to make them easier to feather. I have never seen this arrangement in Hong Kong before – the fishing boatpeople scull over the stern with a single oar. No doubt it’s a good arrangement for a river boat.

There is a long road round the outside of the area, which seems to have been built to provide the Drainage people with access to the river bank. This has been extensively remodelled. We tried to cut through the middle of the peninsula, which was very quiet and spooky, but the path petered out. There are very basic public toilets. Three or four restaurants are run by surviving obstinate inhabitants. The place is a bit awkward to find but well worth a visit and quite out of the ordinary.

I fondly supposed that it was waiting to be engulfed by the Yuen Long New Town, at which point the government would shower money on the local landowners, half of whom would turn out to be Lau Wong Fat. But this is not the case at all. The whole place, apparently, has already been bought up years ago by Henderson Land (owned by the Lee clan which buys its babies in bulk) and there was actually an application to turn most of the wetland into a housing estate, golf club, commercial complex – the usual catastrophe. The application was approved, but for some reason Henderson did not go ahead with the work and a court case last year decided that the permission had now lapsed. The next move from the vandals – I beg your pardon the developers – is now awaited. Knowing the way Hong Kong works one cannot be optimistic about Lam Sang Wai long escaping transition into a golf course, etc, with no doubt a corner reserved for nature somewhere. So enjoy it while it lasts. Map and instructions here: http://www.wetlandpark.com/en/tour/nsw.asp