I'm going to now describe how we made our way to the village. The links below are data points or paths along the way that will open in Google Earth. For the data links (KML and KMZ file types) to work you will need to go and download Google Earth, if you don't have it already. Its free, and fun to play on. Savvy?
The airport is on Lantu Island, west of Hong Kong. There is a light rail/underground system that is efficent and cheap, that can bring you to Kowloon in about an hour. We took the bus, which is easier, but not necessarly faster, and was part of the flight and hotel package.
We stayed at BP International which is in Kowloon, on peninsula of mainland that is North of Hong Kong island. It is close to a park, the jade market, lots of resturants, and the night market. The China ferry terminal is located on the western coastline just a couple of blocks from the hotel off Canton Road opposite from Kowloon Park
The ferry (Qi Jian) is clean and efficient, kind of laid out like sitting in an airplane only with big windows. The trip to mainland took about an hour and forty minutes. The stewardess was trying to explain something to us after checking our tickets, and after much confusion (nobody spoke English, and it was still difficult to understand with different Cantonese dialects), she gave us bus vouchers with our tickets. We finally figured out that the ferry does not go as far up the river as it used to, so in order to get to the same ferry terminal that the last Chin vacationers took, it was necessary to take a bus. On arriving at the terminal in mainland China called Zhong Shan (San Bu), we passed through customs.
The route we took is here.
The bus was one of those large tall tour bus, comfortable. The bus ride took about 1:40, with no bathroom, so be sure to take care of that before boarding. We traveled on the Zhong Jian Expressway and Jiangee Expressway, along with some other freeways/highways that were difficult to identify. The bus carried us to the old terminal building in what I believe is Xinchang, Guangdong (China) (memorable for the bathrooms and the strange organic looking fountain).
Fa Ngyep picked us up from the terminal with two minibuses to take us to Toisan and the villages. The ride was short, maybe 35 minutes to the Hotel. The hotel we stayed at was a little way from the main downtown/market/shop area where the previous trip had stayed.
Traveling from Toisan to the village took about 35 minutes. Following the main road South out of Toisan, the turnoff is located at the pink community center on the left (East) side of the road located here.
Paua Paua's village is only a few kilometers away from Gung Gung's village. It is also the birthplace of Uncle Jim. I marked the location of Pua Pua's home that she grew up in.
We also visited Doctor Lee's home.
If you just want to explore all the locations at once, you can download the data here.
