The Island That Stops Eating Meat for Five Days
The first thing you notice stepping off the ferry isn’t the bun towers or the temple banners — it’s the smell. Or rather, the absence of one. Cheung Chau, an island that normally reeks of dried fish and shrimp paste, goes completely vegetarian during the Bun Festival. Every restaurant, every street stall, every dai pai dong switches over. It’s jarring in the best way.
The Cheung Chau Bun Festival (長洲太平清醮) runs May 8–12, 2026, and it’s one of those events that sounds made up when you describe it to someone who hasn’t heard of it. There’s a parade where children float in mid-air. There’s a midnight race to climb a 14-metre tower covered in buns. There are Taoist priests chanting for five days straight. All of this happens on a car-free island you can walk across in twenty minutes.
Getting There Before Everyone Else Does
Ferries leave from Central Pier No. 5 in Hong Kong. Fast ferry: about 30 minutes. Ordinary ferry: 55 minutes, but cheaper and honestly more pleasant if you’re not in a rush. During the festival, extra sailings are added, but here’s the thing — they still fill up. On the final night especially, the queue at Central can stretch back past the Star Ferry terminal.
My advice, for whatever it’s worth: take the first ferry of the day. The island is small enough that you can see the bun towers being assembled, grab breakfast at one of the waterfront noodle shops, and wander the back alleys before the crowds hit. By noon it’s shoulder-to-shoulder in the village centre, and the narrow paths don’t forgive.
If you’re planning to stay for the midnight bun scramble (and you should), either book one of the island’s handful of guesthouses months in advance, or accept that you’ll be catching a very late ferry back. Services run extended hours during the festival, but don’t count on getting a seat.
For accommodation, Booking.com has options near Central Pier if you’d rather base yourself on Hong Kong Island and ferry over — probably the more practical move unless you really want the full island experience.
A Plague Story That Stuck
The festival traces back to the late Qing dynasty. A plague swept through Cheung Chau — the details vary depending on who’s telling the story, but the broad strokes are consistent: islanders organized a multi-day Taoist purification ceremony called a Jiao (醮) to appease the spirits and drive out the sickness. The plague passed. They kept doing it.
That’s the version you’ll hear most often, anyway. Some scholars date the tradition differently, and there’s debate about whether the original ritual was quite the same as what happens today. What’s not debatable is that Cheung Chau has been doing some version of this for well over a century, and the festival is now officially recognized as Hong Kong intangible cultural heritage.
Throughout all five days, Taoist priests conduct ceremonies at Pak Tai Temple, the island’s spiritual anchor. Scripture chanting, offerings to sea gods, readings of names of the island’s deceased. The temple grounds get dressed up with lanterns, banners, and altars stacked with fruit, incense, and paper offerings. It’s not performative — locals are genuinely there to pray.
The Buns and the Tower
Three bamboo towers go up in front of Pak Tai Temple, each about 14 metres tall, covered in thousands of steamed buns stamped with the character 壽 (longevity). They’re conical, impressive, and slightly absurd-looking — like enormous Christmas trees made of bread.
The traditional belief: buns placed higher on the tower bring better fortune. Which naturally led to people climbing the towers to grab the highest ones. Which naturally led to the towers collapsing in 1978, injuring a number of people. The bun scramble was suspended for nearly three decades.
When it came back in 2005, it came back as a proper competition with steel-reinforced structures, climbing harnesses, and a three-minute time limit. Teams race up, grab as many buns as possible, higher buns score more points. It’s athletic, loud, and happens just before midnight on the final night.
The hours leading up to the scramble are probably the best part of the whole festival, if I’m honest. Drums, lanterns, a crowd that’s been building energy all day. Even if you can’t see the actual climbing from where you’re standing (and you probably can’t — it gets packed), the atmosphere carries.
Children Who Float
The Piu Sik Parade (飄色) is the daytime highlight, usually in the afternoon. Young children get dressed up as characters from folklore, Cantonese opera, and occasionally modern pop culture — I’ve seen photos of kids costumed as everything from the Monkey King to what appeared to be a Marvel character.
The trick is that they’re mounted on hidden metal frames, so they appear to hover above the crowd. Some are balanced on the tip of a sword or the edge of a fan. The engineering is clever and the visual effect is genuinely startling the first time you see it — you know it’s a frame, but your brain still does a double-take.
Lion dances, dragon dances, performers in Taoist ceremonial dress, firecrackers. The parade winds through Cheung Chau’s narrow streets, and the combination of confined space and elaborate costumes makes it feel more intimate than a typical city parade. Also more chaotic. Bring patience.
What to Eat When the Island Goes Vegetarian
Cheung Chau is normally a seafood island — fish balls, grilled squid, dried goods hanging in shop doorways. During the festival, the whole place flips. The vegetarian food is surprisingly good, partly because the island’s cooks have been doing this switch for generations.
The thing to get is the festival bun (平安包) — the same steamed buns that cover the towers, sold at bakeries across the island. They’re not fancy. Lotus paste filling, a red stamp on top. But they’re the souvenir, the lucky charm, and a decent snack all in one.
Beyond the buns: cheung fun (rice noodle rolls), mango mochi, and various stir-fried noodle dishes. The dai pai dong stalls along the waterfront are your best bet for a sit-down meal. Don’t expect Michelin-level vegetarian cuisine — expect festival food, which is its own category.
For guided food walks or cultural tours of the island, KLOOK runs Cheung Chau experiences that cover the back-alley temples and food stalls most visitors walk right past. Whether that’s worth the money versus just wandering on your own is a personal call.
The Honest Downsides
The island is tiny and car-free, which is charming until ten thousand extra people show up. The main village path becomes a single-direction human river during peak hours. If you have mobility issues or small children, the final night is probably not the time to visit.
Phone signal gets patchy when the crowd density peaks — don’t rely on Google Maps or messaging apps working smoothly around the temple area during the parade or scramble. Download offline maps before you go.
Toilets are limited. There are public facilities near the ferry pier and the sports ground, but expect queues. The island’s few convenience stores run out of water faster than you’d think.
Also — and this is just a practical note — the bun scramble happens around midnight, which means if you’re not staying on the island, you’re committing to a very late night. The last ferries back are packed, and standing room only is optimistic. Factor this into your planning.
Worth the Logistics
The Cheung Chau Bun Festival is one of those events that doesn’t really have an equivalent anywhere else. It’s not polished, it’s not convenient, and it’s definitely not designed for tourists — which is exactly why it works. A living Taoist tradition on a fishing island where the biggest annual drama involves climbing a tower of bread at midnight.
I took the ordinary ferry back the one time I went, around 1 AM. Half the passengers were asleep within five minutes. Someone had a bag of festival buns balanced on their lap, and one rolled onto the floor when the boat turned. Nobody picked it up. I think everyone was too tired to care.
