Out of Shenzhen: Sea of people at Louhu/Lo Wu
Guide books warn that the boarder crossing from Hong Kong to Shenzhen at Louhu can be extremely busy. We’ve always sailed through in a couple minutes. Today, after leaving China immigration, we encountered this sea of people in the no mans land bridge to Hong Kong. Still only took about an hour to get through, amazing how efficient immigration is.
This entry was posted in #liveupdates, Global Geek and tagged louhu, Shenzhen, Shenzhen Global Geek Tour 2012.
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A good alternative might be to take the Shekou Line subway in Shenzhen to Shekou Port and then take the ferry from there directly to HKIA. The ride is only 30 minutes…
If I fly to HKIA on my next trip to Shenzhen I’ll make sure to take the ferry in at least on direction. But I’ll probably just go directly from Kuala Lumpur airport to Shenzhen airport. without a stopover in HK.
Actually the way to do it is via the Fu Tian crossing…….
The lo wu boarder is busy because of the baby food smugglers and CNY.
EXACTLY the same railway line… except you get the train to Fu Tian crossing which is visible from the
Lo Wu bridge……
Yup will do next time. I got stuck waiting for bag xray behind a hundred baby formula draggers on Friday night on the way in too.
They drag the stuff to the street right in front of the crap hotel I stay in, a nonstop parade of vans packs in the boxes day and night.
Is it really smuggling? I though importing :) but this time on the way in they were taking all the boxes and taping peoples passports to them. I assumed to asses tax for later pickup.
You know, that was my plan this time but there were some.down sides for my trip this time. In stayed near the market for.the first half of the week to get stuff and also for the tailors :) then I moved to an apartment in shekou for a few days to be closer to Seeed, then back to Louhu for the last day to pick up clothes at the tailors. A taxi back to shekou is only 10 bucks but takes an hour (or 1.5 with the metro) so I couldn’t muster the patience to do it this time ;) I learned that Seeed has some open and available worker dorms next door so next time plan to ask Eric if I can have a bed to crash on for a night or two in one of the dorms. The ferry was my original plan though. The place in shekou was fab- two bedrooms, 3 baths, full chefs kitchen, dining room for 12, 2 decks, huge living room, daily cleaning/laundry/grocery delivery. Its a somerset/ascot serviced residence for long placement ceos and was simply amazing. Less than half the cost if a 3 star business hotel in the us and twice.the.horrid Lushan (which gets.worse every time), but the area is boring and full of Walmart and foriegners.
How do end up there every time? :P
I know where it is, and the quality, while.total crap, is at least consistent ;)
I was happy with the Best Western that’s within spitting distance from Luohu station. Like 450 Yuan per night with a nice breakfast buffet. Really posh in comparison to Lushan.
Will do that next time. Only a buck or two more than loushan after we buy on the us reseller and pay tax.
Just a tip……….
IF you get caught in an unregistered apartment/worker dorms you could very well find yourself in serious trouble……
Foreigners are NOT allowed to say at private houses or apartments unless they have the permission of the local police.
Yep you can get way with it….. until one day they have a raid.
I’m always 100% by the book and know how to register myself.
“Boring area full of foreigners”… I recognize that feeling. :-)
That’s why I settled down in non-expat areas both in Dubai and here in Kuala Lumpur. If I move half way across the world to get away from Sweden I certainly don’t want to rub my shoulders with other westerners all the time…
Plus I hate hearing and understanding all the stupid things coming out of peoples mouths :) Mandarine just tunes out and becomes part of the background.
By the way, any plans to go back? Will probably go in march, depends if we get a PNP that needs time and care. Will be there in April for sure for maker faire first or second weekend. Hoping sjaak comes too.
Nothing really planned, but my wife and I want to see more of Shenzhen and also take the new fast train up to Beijing as one of our sons will be there for 6 months this spring.
Where is the Maker Faire? SZ?
Yes in SZ in the overseas China town where the new hacker space is this year.
Didn’t know you had kids! Thought I asked and you said no. Corrected! But you both seem far too young to have a son who is wheeling around China on his own! Don’t tell my folks I said that lol
Love to come with you to visit makerfaire. You got an exact date, since nothing on their website.
(we still feature in their video ;))
What’s wrong with Sweden Mats? I loved it over there (mind you it was a very short visit).
Boring food. Long winters months with only 3-4 hours of daylight and temperatures at -30C/-22F and a short rainy summer month with +22C/71F if you’re lucky. (Southern Sweden is not that bad though…) And taxes up the wazoo :-) No thanks, I had enough of that.
The last seven years I’ve only been back for 2 days in total. And that was one day too many….
LOL! OK, well I loved the snow, it was a novelty I guess. Perhaps if you spent a few days working in 42C temps like I did last week, you might enjoy a bit of snow ;) I *loved* the Swedish meatballs for breaky, but I must admit I was rather disappointed at the rest of the food O tried, especially coming from my area where gourmet food places are everywhere and the standard is very high.
I found the city quite amazing and the people were great and I met some very nice girls there too ;) But I guess I didn’t have to live there.
First or second weekend if April. It is not set but I said I prefer first weekend again.