On Lantau Island, up a mountain, lies a large statue of Buddha. The plan of a relatively early ascent were dashed due to a delay at the Tung Chung cable car station. After a fair few fits and starts it eventually started working again, whisking people off to see Buddha. 20 mins inside a gently swaying capsule later, you arrive to find yourself passing gift shops selling overpriced trinkets and souvenirs (including the amusingly titled ‘Chopstick Library’), ignoring these I aimed for the statue – its so big you can hardly miss it. A long flight of steps leads up to the statue itself, a simple enough task you’d think but the pressing heat and humidity ensure you go quite slow, a bonus of the delay on the cable car meant there weren’t hoards of people and you could take your time, and pictures without anyone in them! It is very challenging to take an image of something here and avoid capturing people in someway, you can’t simply wait for a crowd of people to walk by and get a gap because there just wont be one! Amazingly though I got lucky once or twice.

Hoping to find a little bit more about the history of this seemingly ancient and magnificent structure it transpires to have only been in place since – wait for it  – 1989! Still, something certainly worth going to see. After walking around it was time to go back down and not a moment too soon as a mass of people had arrived and were heading up the steps.

These crowds were avoided by taking a walk to Silver Mine Bay, what was not realised was this went via Lantau peak. Lantau peak is the highest of the hills (a mountain!) around Hong Kong and it’s immediate islands, at 935m the hike is not that different to walking in the French alps, what almost kills you though is the heat, at one point noted as 32C! Getting to the top consisted of breaks every 50m or wherever a convenient bit of shade behind a rock or under a tree afforded some relief. A constant updraft provided a very welcome cooling breeze. It became clear why there wasn’t anyone else going up at the same time; “mad dogs and Englishmen” and all that. The heat would have finished off anyone without sufficient water or experience of mountain walking knowing that you will get there eventually. I was exhausted thanks to the energy sapping heat but finally reached the summit. At the peak views were great but not as rewarding as hoped but the rest was, Hong Kong is slightly blighted by an almost constant pollution haze, you just have to live with it but it does make photography a challenge! The descent was fairly straight forwards, long shadows stretched ahead as the sun began to decent, rather than walk all the way to Silver Mine Bay (the map said the path led over another massive Sunrise Peak) a detour was made to catch a bus there, a wise move indeed. The return trip to Hong Kong island was via boat under a lingering sunset thanks largely to the haze, once the sun had gone down to see the buildings lit up as we pulled into port was quite something, I hope the haze clears a little for me to get a good shot of the skyline one evening…

 

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