Day Trip To Lantau Island and Tian Tan Buddha From Hong Kong
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A day trip from Hong Kong to an awe-inspiring hilltop Buddha statue.
Lantau Island and The Tian Tan Buddha Day Trip from Hong Kong: (Jump To)
Lantau Island is the largest island in Hong Kong. The mountains of the island are covered in lush green forests. Originally the island was dominated by small fishing villages, some still exist there today. Recent projects like the construction of the airport and Hong Kong Disneyland have brought change to the island.
Ngong Ping Village is a tourist village constructed around 2005. The village is going to be our central location for the day on the island. The village was built along with a massive cable car to increase tourism to the island.
How To Get To Ngong Ping Village From Hong Kong
Getting to Ngong Ping Village is extremely easy. We took the subway toward the airport getting off at the Tung Chung Station near the center of the island. The station exit is at the base of a midsized mall. From there it’s a short five-minute walk to the cable car station that takes you to the Ngong Ping Village.
Riding the Ngong Ping Cable Car
At the cable car station, you’re presented with several options for the day. We bought the 360 Sky-Land-Sea pass. This included a one-way trip on the cable car, a guided tour of the area, a bus ride to Tai O, a boat ride in Tai O, and a ride back to Hong Kong on a passenger ferry from Tai O.
The cable car ride is pretty legendary. We got a car all to ourselves (which is supposed to cost extra). It’s glass all around with benches on both sides. You can book one with a glass floor for an up-charge too.
The 25-minute journey takes you across the river to the airport station where it turns directions. You then travel high in the sky across the massive Tung Chung Bay. You’re soaring above the water until you hit the lush green land. The cable car travels up as the elevation increases. At the top, you begin to see the Tian Tan Buddha atop the hill. It’s quite a ride.
The journey ends at Ngong Ping Village. This is an inauthentic hilltop village constructed for tourism purposes. There are restaurants, gift shops, and entertainment venues (like a 360 motion simulator). The shops are fun to browse but are by no means anything more than souvenir shops.
Climbing To See The Tian Tan Buddha
At the end of the shopping corridor, the area opens to a wide plaza. Here you can access the Tian Tan Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery. The good stuff.
The Buddha statue was constructed in the early 1990s. It’s an enormous bronze structure that sits on top of an open bronze lotus flower. On the base are six smaller statues that symbolize Pāramitā, the six perfections of generosity.
We were lucky to have been on one of the first cable cars to the village. This made it possible to be one of the first people at the base of the staircase to Tian Tan Buddha. We took the long climb to the top and pretty much had it all to ourselves. Later in the day, it was very crowded.
Visiting Po Lin Monastery
The nearby Po Lin Monastery was constructed in 1906. The building is lavishly decorated with colorfully painted wood carvings and a yellow tiled roof. The hall is surrounded by stone-carved dragons. There are numerous buildings to explore in the complex including a shrine hall, an exhibition hall for Buddhist relics, and a library.
Nearby is a wisdom trail where you can take a secluded walk on a trail past large wooden planks carved with passages from a well-known Confucian prayer arranged in a pattern that represents infinity.
Visiting Tai O from Ngong Ping
If Ngong Ping Village feels inauthentic, Tai O makes up for it. We boarded the bus to the village and took the curvy 30-minute ride to the tiny fishing village in a cove off the South China Sea. The village is filled with tiny open shops selling street food and snacks.
A boat ride was included in our ticket. The small wooden boat held about 15 people. We first ventured out into the open water to try to get a glimpse of the rare pink dolphin. Thinking this was some sort of nonsense rouse to sell tickets I had low expectations. Much to my surprise, not only are pink dolphins a real thing, but we actually saw some too. It doesn’t get much gayer than a pink dolphin. I felt good about it.
We then ventured inland traveling through a channel that passed by stilt homes that looked as though they had been there for generations. Many homes had fishing boats tied outside and the catch of the day drying in the sun on the porch. As tourism increases more and more stilt homes are being converted into cafes and restaurants for visitors.
The boat ride ended by docking at a stilt home, which we walked through before returning to the village on foot. We spent a few more minutes shopping in the village before heading to the dock where we waited for the ferry.
Tai O to Hong Kong Ferry
We watched the sunset over the South China Sea as we waited for the ferry. We boarded the ferry and tried to find a window seat. I wasn’t really aware of how far we had traveled so I was surprised that the ride back to the Hong Kong Central Ferry Pier took nearly 2.5 hours.
If we had it all to do over I would have bought the simple round-trip cable car ticket. After visiting we learned that you can access everything at the terminus of the cable car on foot very easily. If you would also like to visit Tai O you can take the bus there on your own for normal bus fare from Ngong Ping Village, and easily book a scenic boat ride while in town. Returning to Hong Kong via subway would have been much faster than the ferry, which wasn’t a very scenic or comfortable ride.
We also made a mistake when booking our ticket. We thought they asked us when we wanted to book the bus ride to Tai O. I suggested 1 pm thinking that we would get to the island around 10:30 am, so 2.5 hours would be plenty of time to explore. When 1 pm hit we went to the meeting point for the bus. This is when we learned that this was the start of the guided tour. We then spent the next two hours touring everything we had just finished seeing. It would have been fine if it was a true guided tour, but the guide told us a little bit about each place, and then set us free to explore on our own. We ended up spending twice the amount of time there than we needed. We should have requested 11 am. Oops!
Overall, I completely recommend a day on Lantau Island. There is plenty to see and, once you get to Ngong Ping, everything is free to visit. Even possibly skipping Tai O, visiting the Tian Tan Buddha and the monastery makes for a wonderful side trip from Hong Kong.
For another great day trip from Hong Kong think about a day in Macau.
