The New Territories Hong Kong guide!
Usually overlooked for the skyscrapers and star ferry trips across the harbor (and rightly so), the New Territories are nevertheless cruelly overlooked. Hong Kong may be famed as a city state but the stretch of green that spreads out between the end of Kowloon, in the south, and the Chinese border in the north, offers endless opportunities to relax on unexplored beaches, hike over jungle like greenery and explore villages that have changed little since Imperial China.
Where is The New Territories?
The last piece of the puzzle when the Chinese were forced to hand over Hong Kong, the New Territories run from the top of the Kowloon Peninsula to the Chinese border.In the seventies and the eighties the Hong Kong government built a number of new towns in the New Territories, such as Sha Tin, and these have developed in large bedroom communities.Beyond the new towns, the New Territories remain as they always were rural. You’ll still find farmers, ramshackle huts set around ancestral halls and acres of unspoiled countryside.
The coastline is especially inviting, with dozens of small islands scattered just off the coast, while much of the southern New Territories are occupied by country parks.
The New Territories how to get there For the great outback The New Territories are well served by public transport with a couple of MRT lines serving the area.As you step off the beaten track you’ll increasingly need to reply on public minibuses. These are cheap, fast and frequent although they can be a little bit of a challenge to negotiate if you don’t speak Chinese.
The main new towns, such as Tuen Mun (West), Sha Tin (Central) and Sai Kung (East) tend to act as central transport hubs into the rest of the countryside.What to see in the New Territories?
Walled villages Originally built to stop villagers in neighboring villages murdering each other, there are still several walled villages in Hong Kong that are a couple of hundred years old. Still very much based around family clans these villages often have ornate ancestral halls and intact outer walls. The best of the bunch is Kat Hing Wai where, beyond the satellite dishes and luxury cars, you’ll still see women in head to toe traditional black dress and a fantastic ancestral hall Seside towns Sai Kung just around the corner from Kowloon the low rise village of Sai Kung has grown large enough to be worth exploring and alongside the excellent seafood restaurants that made it famous it has a number of other good places to eat.
There is little to do in town apart from stroll along the promenade and watch fisherman haul in their catch and watch luxury yachts parade around but it’s an enjoyable place to while away an easy afternoon.
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