Hong Kong Hotels
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Worst bus ride - ever!
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Hong Kong bears many similarities to London; its crowded, noisey and polluted but everything is also very quick, clean and efficient. The last couple of days we ventured down onto the underground. At first the thought of riding the subway filled both myself and Nick with much dread...surprisingly we found that the underground trains were air-conditioned, very clean (they don't allow food or drink down there), very spacious and quickly transported us from island to island. So getting to Lantau Island was very easy and quite pleasant!
Lantau Island is home to 'Giant Buddha'. He sits atop a hill in Ngong ping village, home to the Po Lin monks. To get there we had 2 options: Sky rail cable car with breath-taking views through the mountains OR bus ride up the mountainside for an hour up some winding dirt roads...unfortunately the cable car was suspended (much to Nick's ON-GOING disappointment) and a bumpy bus ride was the only way to go.
So we got on the bus (sick bags at the ready) and held on tight for the scariest bus ride I think I have ever had. Up and down the mountainside on ever-winding roads was not good and the fumes as the engine strained up the next steep angle was not encouraging. After kissing the ground when we got off, we made our way up the 250 steps to see the man we had all been waiting for...the icecream man. Oh and Giant Buddha. The pictures do NOT do him justice. Like his name suggests he is massive! and according to my information pamphlet, he is the largest bronze outdoor seated statue in the world at 38m tall - pretty cool. At this point Nick did crack a few jokes about the buddha bearing a striking resemblance to his dad - sorry David.
Having had our fill of buddha, we strayed into the monastery and saw some buddist monks doing their daily rituals - we didn't join in like Ben did but we have posted a short video for your enjoyment. They all seemed to be very keen on incense sticks as they had giant ones everywhere!! We encounted our first cockroach which was crawling on the side of Nicks bag in our room, needless to say I screamed like a girl and made Nick kill it. Tomorrow sees us head off into main land china, (Guilin, River Li) for a few days before heading off to VietNAM! Not sure we will be watching the rugby so can someone please let Nick now the score
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Latest Comments (3)
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Nicks bum (reply)
Oct 19, 2007 18:15 EST by emndan
Bev
U should've volunteered Nick's bottom services to power the bus up the mountainside, you would've got up there a helluva lot quicker - would've been like a rocket especially after those chillis!!!
Em n Dan xxx
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Scariest bus ride (reply)
Oct 19, 2007 11:07 EST by mjwright
Check clothes and bags everytime in or out, they are everywhere, otherwise youll be taking them along for the ride and that could get scary when they hatch out and youve more friends along rfor the ride.
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What the? (reply)
Oct 18, 2007 15:00 EST by benm
You went all the way there, saw monks praying, and didn't join in and mock their ideas and beliefs?! Not very British of you!
Wait until you get tuk tuks around Thailand, then you really will be scared of the roads!
Glad you're having fun,
Ben
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4 votes 
