I took the bus to Aberdeen, on the south side of Hong Kong island, to take a sampan tour through the fishing village in the typhoon shelters. The fishing village is what remains of the Tanka boat dwellers. Historically, they lived on their boats, but I don’t think many of them do anymore. They certainly work there, though. There are fishing boats, sampans, rowboats, and floating platforms, all anchored in the middle of the bay.

The sampan tour was just supposed to be a standard tour operation. One was just pulling out as I got to the dock.

So I waited for the next one. While I was waiting, another sampan pulled up to the dock and a couple of people got on. The boat driver* said something to me, but I couldn’t understand him, and this obviously wasn’t the tour boat, so I just waved him off. He left, then immediately came back again as an old woman walked up to the dock. She asked me if I wanted a tour, so I said sure. it was HK$100, which was a little more than the price in the guide book, but the guide book has been fairly consistently wrong, so I just went with it.

This guy basically just ferries people to and from their boats, and picks up the odd tourist here and there when they happen to be standing at the dock. And I was his odd tourist for the day. All of the other passengers were going to their boats. For more than half of the trip, I was the only passenger. He would occasionally point something out, but he spoke no English, so I wasn’t always sure what he was referring to. Overall, I think it was better than the tourist boat would have been.

* Captain? Skipper? What do you call a guy who runs a sampan with his foot?