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Published: September 19th 2006
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Great Buddha
At Po Lin Monastery With a 20+ hour slog from London->Sydney not appealing to me, I once again decided to break up the journey with a stopover. Hong Kong was my destination of choice - the other options were either places I'll see in more detail next year (e.g. Bali) or places I don't particularly want to see again (e.g. Singapore). Plus I genuinely like Hong Kong, in particular the numerous opportunities it gives me to stuff my face with dim sum. After factoring in the cost of the hotel and transport, it turns out to be highly expensive dim sum but you only live once.
The flight arrived in Hong Kong at ~8AM so, with several hours to kill before I could check in, I dumped my rucksack at left luggage at Chek Lap Kok airport then took a taxi through the misty morning to Po Lin Monastery, situated on the Ngong Ping plateau on Lantau Island. The drive there reminded me of Corsica - a narrow, winding road with blind corners and cow hazards, and a driver prone to slinging the car around. Even at 9AM, it was already uncomfortably humid though "only" 25 C.
I'd come to the monastery to
Great Buddha
On a lotus, with eclat see its adjacent Great Buddha, aka the Tian Tan Buddha, rather than the monastery itself. The Buddha sits on a lotus flower at the top of 268 gratuitous steps - the figure 268 has some meaning which was lost on me as I hyperventilated somewhere around step 173. It's apparently the tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha in the world - though this long list of qualifications is necessary in order to give it number one status (it's less than half the height of the tallest Buddha statue in the world), it's more than twice the height of the previous big Buddhas I've seen in Japan (Nara and Kamakura) and India (Bodhgaya). With the mist not having yet burned off, the Buddha's serene countenance came in and out of view in a ghostly fashion made more unnerving by its size. I circumambulated a couple of times then realised I was knackered and decided to head for the hotel.
Unfortunately my chosen mode of transport for returning to the airport to pick up my luggage - namely the Ngong Ping 360 cable car - was not due to start running for another 3 days. This despite an advert from a Daily
Telegraph supplement earlier in the year clearly showing cable cars zinging around, not to mention the evidence of my own eyes in the cab up to the monastery. Seems as though they were still in a testing phase, the duration of which I would clearly have never encountered before, given my background in financial IT. OK, I guess I should have checked the web first.
The hotel didn't create a good first impression. They asked me to take a seat while they sorted out my key - 30 minutes later, I requested an update on the situation, and it was obvious they'd completely forgotten me. I treated the reception guy to one of the hardest stares in my repertoire but he didn't flinch. The room is good but the Hotel Cosmo (on my last stay) was better.
An afternoon nap helped put a bit of spring back into my step, and a dim sum face-stuffing duly ensued in the evening. With an early rise required tomorrow, and sleep not having been particularly abundant over the last couple of days, I turned my back on the delights of Wan Chai and Lan Kwai Fong and had a quiet end
to the evening in my room with two cans of Tsing Tao.
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Frothster
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Travelling again huh?
I'll try to read a few more of these this time. Andy