Outside the city

  Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Friday, December 16, 2005

After the bright lights of the big city of our first couple of days here, Dad and I decided that a more sedate pace should be sought for our last full day in town.

It's often overlooked that there is a lot of open space and scenery once you get out into the territories and neighbouring islands that form a part of greater Hong Kong, so we decided to go explore the south of Lantau Island - despite the city's airport located in its north. Transportation to outlying territories is dead easy and in total the day cost about $US10 each, after the tour desk at the hotel had quoted us $HK520 or over $US60 each (so do it yourself if you're thinking of going).

In the end we had a great day so highly recommend a trip down to Lantau.



As you can see the day was fine for a 40 minute ferry ride on the water. Hong Kong has a large amount of port activity and boat traffic so there's always something to see as you glide by. Tugs pulling huge barges along, hydrofoiling ferries and large container ships moving and unloading are just some of the things happening. Anyway, the ride went quickly and not long after arriving at Mui Wo we were on a bus into the rugged hills.



The main attraction on Lantau is the big Bronze Buddha, monastery and temple located in the hilly centre of the island at a place called Ngong Ping. The Buddha is huge, rising 34 metres into the air atop a prominent hill with a staircase all the way up to the statue himself. Note that the statue was completed in 1989 so it's not an antique, but it's still imposing and impressive anyway.



Statues of six maidens bearing gifts ring the feet of the big guy which is a nice touch. To the east and south there are vast expanses of forest below steeply rising cliff-sides, with a small temple or two dotting what must be a pretty natural environment for the island. Unfortunately at the base of the Buddha and to its west and north, some sort of disruptive construction is going on and the atmosphere is pretty rowdy and carnival like, so unless you get there early and miss the busloads of gabbling tour groups, you won't get much peaceful contemplation in.



We also checked out the temple which had some of the largest sticks of incense I've ever seen burning happily on the entry path - they must have been a metre long and 10cm in diameter. Huge! As Dad's father was Buddhist at the end of his life, we lit some slightly more modest incense sticks ourselves and said a quiet prayer or two for the memory of a guy neither of us really knew. He was the Tin miner mentioned in the Ranong/Thailand entry a while ago so it was good to reflect what might have been his life at this holy place.



Back down to sea level, but on the other side of the island at Tai O, we had a walk around a stilt village whilst waiting for our bus. The houses were unusual metal places, lined up neatly in rows and the water-frontages hovered over the water on stilts in their own unique manner.



In general Tai O was an unusual place with a distinctly fishy smell about it - probably due to the various sea life hanging around drying in the sunshine. The beach that is apparently local to the area wasn't obvious once we walked to the other side of town, so back we went to the bus stop. En route to the ferry port, we did see some nice beaches on the south of the island which we probably should have stopped at, but didn't. Oh well, there's something to do next time we're in the neighbourhood.

Not long after this I said adieu to Dad for another year. Once again pop, thanks for coming up and treating me to a wonderful four days. I'm looking forward to when you and Mum come over to see us in Europe this time next year.

Next entry -> Beijing

Great Brands of the World - Hong Kong

Hong Kong has far too many Chinese character brands and marketing messages for me to try and comprehend, so I won't bother. What I will do is slip in the interesting graphic design that adorned the buffet of our Hotel's foyer restaurant. (Apologies for the dodgy pics - got them as I rushed out to catch my taxi to the railway station).



Look carefully at the leaves in the purple section of the picture - hemp leaves surrounded by round bubble graphics. I must admit I didn't notice until the last day of my stay but hotel management must have been really stoned to let that design through! Sheesh.