The Chinese island that is so close to Hong Kong, yet very different: Wailingding – how to get there and what to see

About 12km south of Lantau Island, the Chinese island of Wailingding is reached by ferry from Zhuhai. Once a haunt of pirates and smugglers, it is enjoying a tourist boom, with its cafes, bars, seafood restaurants and a thriving seafood market

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Wailingding is popular among Chinese tourists and is only 12km from Hong Kong’s Lantau Island. Photo: Martin Williams

Published: 7:45am, 21 Aug 2018Updated: 4:32pm, 21 Aug 2018

There’s something odd about looking at Lantau Island from the south. The grandeur of its hills, including the second highest peak in Hong Kong, is almost lost on you as it blends into the other land masses on the horizon – Hong Kong Island and the Chinese mainland.

That’s just one of the things that make Wailingding different. Just 12km away from Lantau, and with a thriving village, a visit to this island – part of China’s Wanshan archipelago in the South China Sea – makes for an entertaining, out-of-Hong Kong experience.

It may be little more than a stone’s throw away from Hong Kong, but getting there involves travelling across the Pearl River Delta to Zhuhai, then taking a ferry that passes under the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge, and exits the delta to cruise by islands including Lantau.

Viewed from the approaching ferry, Wailingding has an unremarkable profile, with a couple of central main peaks sloping rather gently to the sea. The greenery of the hillsides is dotted with granite outcrops and boulders – rather as on Po Toi, an island just south of Hong Kong Island.

Indeed, Wailingding is rather like a sister island to Po Toi, being likewise very roughly circular and with only small bays and headlands. Both islands are around four square kilometres in area – less than a tenth the size of Kowloon. Both have villages limited to the west coasts, sheltered from northeast monsoons and the major typhoon winds. But while Po Toi is nowadays almost uninhabited, Wailingding is enjoying boom times, fuelled by tourism.

Lantau Island, seen from the ferry from Zhuhai to Wailingding. Photo: Martin Williams

The ferry berths at a pier by a new two-storey building with cafes, bars and a tourist information centre. A narrow road leads past a police station, and a cluster of buildings six storeys high that await their finishing touches.

Wailingding’s buildings are not crammed together, and the village has a relaxed, rural atmosphere. This is helped by the paucity of traffic, with just two cars seen during a recent weekend trip, the main vehicles being small trucks with electric motors, electric scooters, and pedal carts for one or two persons.