The half-hour walk between the two takes you past neighbourhood restaurants that haven’t changed since the 1960s, through 400-year-old villages fortified against pirates, and into back alleys down which you’ll find the best priced Korean cosmetics this side of Seoul.

Shek Wu Hui was established in the late 18th or early 19th century; the first record of it appears in the 1819 edition of the Xin’an County Gazette.

Luen Wo Hui was a latecomer, having been established by villagers in 1949 specifically to compete with the town up the road, according to the Hong Kong government’s heritage website. A permanent market hall, built in the streamlined style of modernism that was fashionable at the time, opened in 1951.

The market operated according to a “one, four, seven” model, with hawkers and farmers doing business on the first, fourth and seventh days of the lunar month, and every three days thereafter – the same schedule used in the market up in Shek Wu Hui.

In 1988, South China Morning Post correspondent Luisa Tam described a boisterous scene at Luen Wo Hui’s market. Herbalists sold dried seahorses and tiger bone powder; farmers hawked locally grown flowers and vegetables; a vast array of goldfish was on display; and merchants tallied things up with abacuses rather than calculators.

The area around Luen Wo Hui and Shek Wu Hui had been designated as a new town in 1976, and tower blocks sprouted in what journalist Kevin Sinclair described as “warm mud pools [where] placid water buffaloes lazed”.

The surrounding streets are lined by three-storey walk-up tenement buildings, or tong lau, that are home to vintage restaurants – many of which remained open while larger establishments closed because of the coronavirus – such as Kwan Kee, known for its beef balls and pork knuckles.

The pace here is unhurried, almost sleepy; a five-minute walk from the old market will deposit you right in the middle of fields in which gai lan (Chinese broccoli) grows in the cool winter months.

Jockey Club Road, a boulevard lined with paperbark trees, leads to Fanling Wai, a walled village established, according to the Antiquities and Monuments Office, by the Pang clan during the early Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty (1573-1580). Although it is surrounded by the messy modern reality of New Territories life – car parks and junk yards – the village still looks out onto a feng shui pond, and cannon still protect its gate from marauders.

The village’s forecourt was spruced up with the opening of North District Park in 1990. Built around a pond and well endowed with Chinese-style pavilions, the park’s sinuous paths lead directly to Luen Wo Hui’s much busier counterpart.

If it were not for concerns over the coronavirus, the streets around Shek Wu Hui would be heaving. Hawkers would spill out the doors of its wet market, selling fresh vegetables and household knick-knacks on the pavement, eyes scanning the crowd for hawker control officers.

It wasn’t always that way, though. “This used to be a country town,” recalls Yuen.

A century ago, Shek Wu Hui made headlines only when it hosted its annual agricultural fair. In 1929, the Post advised readers to expect “an exhibit of honey”, stalls selling local “vegetables, fruits, cereals and sugar”, and plenty of entertainment: “Chinese boxing”, martial arts, singing and a performance by officers from the British military's 15th Punjab Regiment.

Large parts of the town were razed by fires in 1955 and 1957. It was redeveloped with government assistance and, by the end of the decade, was one of the fastest-growing settlements in the New Territories.

In more recent years, peace in Shek Wu Hui has been shattered by disturbances related to the cross-border trade, activists having staged demonstrations against traders they claim are pushing out businesses that serve residents. It’s hard to deny those changes are happening.

Shek Wu Hui is less than 3.5 kilometres (2 miles) from the Chinese border post at Lo Wu. In 1988, Post reporter Kenneth Ho described a scene that would be familiar to anyone who visits the town today: “More than 100 people, mostly housewives, had gathered, but they were certainly not there for morning exercise,” he wrote. “Many crowded in a corner where two people were distributing jeans and T-shirts. Other women were seen stuffing cigarettes into their bags, as their children, with school bags on their shoulders, looked on.

“They take the train to Lo Wu, cross the border and sell their goods to mainland buyers at Shenzhen railway station, then use the proceeds to buy cheap meat, fruit and vegetables to bring back.”

Just a few blocks from the cafe is Sheung Shui Wai, another centuries-old walled village. This one sits in the middle of a dense cluster of modern village houses dotted by historic landmarks such as the Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall, built in 1751.

Tucked into a quiet corner of the village is a surprisingly contemporary attraction: ATMA, a speciality coffee shop and event space that opened last year and hosts craft markets and workshops on soap making, pottery and more.

By the 1980s, it had gone upscale and moved to Luen Wo Hui; branches in Tai Po and Shek Wu Hui followed. These days, only the Shek Wu Hui location remains, but it is packed with old photos and memorabilia. For decades, colonial-era police officers patronised the Better ’Ole, and many left behind their cap badges when they retired.

Since the coronavirus hit Hong Kong, fewer people have been coming in for dinner, but Yuen says the pub still sees regular customers. “There’s a lot more new people coming in after going for a hike,” he adds. “I guess they need to get out.”