My visit to Lantau Island and Ngong Ping Village

The cable cars at the foothill station of Lantau Island.  Each cable car can seat 8 adults plus some standing room.  But the wait in the queue to ride them takes around half an hour!

An early aerial view that greets the passengers soon after the cable car ’launches’ into the air from the foothill station (see blue portion)!

One of the green mountain tops covered by clouds in the late afternoon!

A nice view of the first waterway covered by the cable car.

The muddy banks below are dotted with people wading on the shallows to collect mollucs and shellfish!

That flat island with buildings is the Hong Kong International Airport.  You can watch outgoing planes line up to take off and incoming planes land about every 3 minutes, clearly from the cable car!

After a 20 minutes ascending ride, the cable car reaches the station at Ngong Ping Village.  You can see the giant Buddha statue up on a distant mountain from here.  That’s where visitors will proceed to on foot.   

The entry point of Ngong Ping Village.  The traditional Chinese village buildings are now used as souvenir shops.

The village main street that leads straight to the giant Buddha statue in the distance.  The place was bustling with visitors and tourists on a late Monday afternoon. 

A popular wishing tree that is richly adorned with the wishes of countless visitors!

A trio of bovines showed up unexpectedly by the street side.  The actual village houses where rural people are really living in, are just a stone’s throw away from the main village street.

Finally after about 15 minutes of walking, the village arch and the open space at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the giant Buddha statue are reached!

There are 100 over steps to climb before you can reach to the top where the giant Buddha statue is residing.  I climbed those steps all the way up there.  Due to my lack of fitness, my legs were rather tired at about 3/4 of the way though my breathing rate was fine… but I persevered!

The scenic view from up there was simply breathtaking, especially at the angles that had both the mountains and sea views together!  The tiring climb up here was definitely worth the effort!

There are some smaller statues situated by the side, that look to be paying homage to the giant Buddha statue. 

After several minutes of taking in the beautiful mountain top sights, I retraced my steps to the cable car station where I queued for an astonishing 1 hour to take the cable car ride down to the foothills station. 

Needless to say, it was already quite dark when I left Lautau Island and headed back to the New Territories.  However on the same evening, I had a date with Hong Kong’s Avenue of Stars!  Be back tomorrow to view those photos!