Acting on a recommendation from our tour guide, we decided to give the hotel breakfast a miss this morning, opting instead for a traditional Dim Sum place. Dim Sum translates as ‘touch the heart’ and consists of small pre-cooked dishes that are traditionally served in the morning. The venue for this morning’s breakfast has been trading for 100 years. You sit anywhere, usually with strangers and choose small meals from the trolley that ladies push around. We had some steamed red bean buns, some pork buns and some pork dumplings. A couple of young women sitting at the table also offered us some radish cake… which tastes a lot nicer than it sounds.
The main goal of today was to visit the ‘Big Buddha’ on Lantau Island. This involved a 30 metro ride from Hong Kong station, but that was where the plan started to come unstuck. We were supposed to meet up with a tour, that was included in our hop on / hop off bus ticket, in the Cable Car pavilion. By the time we arrived, the cable car had been shut down due to high winds coming off a nearby typhoon. The subsequent discussion with the security guard went along the lines of:
“We need to meet our tour at counter number 15”
“Sorry sir, the pavilion is closed”
“So where should we meet our tour?
“Yes sir, meet your tour … Sorry sir, the pavilion is closed”
We decided that it was time to invoke a contingency plan. We took a look at the queue for the bus, which looked hours long, so opted to take a taxi. We met a couple from Poland in the queue and agree to split the fare at about $20AUD each. Interestingly there were 2 cab ranks, one with red cabs and one with blue cabs. Apparently the red ones can only go to the airport, so although there were 3 of them just sitting there, they could not take anyone to the Big Buddha. We waited about 15 minutes until we were first in the queue. The driver shouted ‘Buddha!’ we nodded and 30 minutes later we were there. There are quite a few steps up to the Buddha.
And up a bit closer.
Big Buddha was completed in 1993 and he faces north, whereas all other buddha statues face south. There are a number of accompanying statues on the platform.
The adjacent Po Lin Monastery was opened in 1906 and is quite stunning is its use of bright colours and gold.
There is also a whole accompanying compound of tacky souvenir and food shops that I’m not convinced support the true values of Buddhism. You can’t take a photo inside the monastery, you can’t fly a drone near Buddha, but you can pay money for the Virtual Reality ‘Walk with Buddha’. Anyway, Big Buddha ticked off, it was time to join the cab queue for our return to the metro station. This time we shared the ride with a couple of Irish lads, so that was pretty entertaining.
At the metro station there is a shopping centre of supposed factory outlets, that are meant to be good for a bargain. For me, there were two problems… there wasn’t a size 13 shoe, an XL shirt or pants bigger that a 34 inch waist to be found. It may surprise some of you, but that meant there was nothing for me to buy. Secondly, the prices were no better than we get in Australia. With that, we popped on back to the hotel for a little rest before heading out to one of the local BBQ places for dinner.
Debbie is now fighting off something like the ‘man cold’ I had, but of course it is nowhere near as severe, so an early night for us tonight as we wrap up the trip with our last full day on holiday tomorrow.
Until tomorrow!
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