Ngong Ping, Lantau

The cable car from Tung Chung (MTR station) will take you from the high-fashion outlets into rhe lungs of Hong Kong. Lantau Island is the largest and greenest of all the islands in Hong Kong. Despite tourist traps (like Ngong Ping village, built around the actual historical attraction of Tian Tan Buddha & Po Lin monastery) it's a place worth visiting.

From Ngong Ping, is rather simple to get to the old fishing village of Tai Po, just by using the public bus that stops at the bottom of the Buddha. If the weather is nice, you can try the hiking routes in the south of the Lantau.

Guess that under the sun, this must feel like a nice climb. However, in the rain it mainly turns into a slippery nightmare of people panicking in odd plastic coats.

Sometimes, I think that the 26m Tian Tan Buddha smiles, because he's laughing at us. Under him, a souvenir store and a small restaurant await the mass tourism. Just like in any other temple of the World.
It's just weird how religion became a huge business of memories, amulets and donations. In Spain we buy candles, in Japan they throw coins and in China, shake the sticks. But at the end of the day, there is not that huge difference between cults. We all fear and try to find hope, through prayer we search the hope to believe and the energy to keep going. We sometimes feel ashamed and buy peace of mind by either donations or souvenir purchase. Ironically, we think about our unicity, when in the end, all of us are the same, instances of the human race.