Giant Buddha and Po Lin Monastery

Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car

Giant Buddha in the distance

Hong Kong has been an amazing trip, it is a vibrant, busy, bustling, hectic, bright lights city and I loved it. I was left to make the itinerary for the week so on the first day we headed to Lantau Island. The weather was overcast but still unusually warm for this time of year.

The main attraction on this island is the Giant Buddha and Po Lin Monastery and the best way to get there is with the Ngong Ping 360 cable care. The views of the South China Seas are great and you also see the airport too.

The cable car ride in its self was fun, the path is almost like a zig-zag and then finally you get a view of the big fellow himself!

Once there you walk through Ngong Ping village which is essentially just shops and restaurants until you walk up the path with the 12 Divine Generals on either side (7th photo) and see the 260 steps you have to climb to get to the Big Buddha or Tian Tan as it is offically known.

It is the largest outdoor seated Buddha statue and is 34m high, very impressive, once up the steps having had a few stops to get our breaths back, the views are lovely.

Then down we came and went to see the monastery which was founded in 1906 by three visiting monks. All the temples we visited were busy with people buying incense sticks, burning them and offering them to various Gods.

The best way to get to Lantau Island is with MTR to Tung Chung then you follow the signs for the Ngong Ping cable car. You may want to buy then online as there was a long queue, we waited for 1 hour to actually get into the cable car. It cost us 135HK return which is only 16ch, if you fancy a cable car with a glass bottom then it is more.

It is well worth a day trip and also to village the fishing village of Tai O which we also did and will post that later.