The trees lining Fan Kam Road provide welcome shade along a route that cuts through the heart of the northern New Territories. Trees were planted by the British along most main roads in the New Territories and add a pleasantly medicinal scent to the fresh air in this green part of Hong Kong.
Fan Kam Road takes its name from its northern starting point in Fanling, and its southern destination, Kam Tin, near Yuen Long. At its northern end, the road cuts through the twin courses of the Hong Kong Golf Club, where privileged players in polo shirts are accompanied by female caddies in Hakka headgear.
Take a left turn as you head south past the courses and you'll enter a different world. Small farmhouses stand along the narrow road, low-slung build- ings of concrete or brick, always with ramshackle additions in corrugated iron - and a pack of barking guard dogs to keep intruders at bay.
You'll also pass the Tai Lung Experimental Station, which has been running organic farming field trials under government auspices since 2000. The four-hectare facility is looking into pest-control techniques to help traditional farmers move away from insecticides to more eco-friendly methods.
A kilometre or so farther down a narrow road, there's a dog-training facility and then signs for Holiday Farm, which is defying the death of agriculture in the New Territories by adding new attractions. Next door, there is another farm, which operates as a refuge for the city's dwindling number of wild cows when the government carries out another of its unnecessary roundups. A large herd stands forlornly in a muddy pen.
Ping Kong Village lies a little beyond the farmland, a cluster of traditional dwellings along the start of Shek Sheung Ho stream. The massive tower blocks of Sheung Shui and Fanling loom on the skyline, a reminder that this bucolic part of Hong Kong is removed more in outlook and activity than in actual distance from the city.