Hi, Mom! Just a note to let you know that I'm alive and scratching in Hong Kong. This week has been a very busy one. On Monday we went hiking out on Lantau Island. This is the island where the airport is located, as well as home to the Big Buddha. I helped the B's plant two letterboxes over there. Just getting there is half the fun of this outing. We took the shuttle bus to the train and then rode several different ones to Tung Chung. There you can take a cable car ride over to Pnong Ping plateau. Well, the waiting time for that was over two hours, so we decided to take the bus. What a thrill ride! In most places the road is only wide enough for one bus with pull-over sections for when someone is coming in the opposite direction. And the hills you go up and down! At times you don't think the bus is actually going to make it as it grinds its way slowly up the hill. Then you zoom down the other side of the hill - just like a roller coaster and twice as exciting when another bus is headed your way!
After we got to the Po Lin Monastery, we paid brief homage to Big Buddha (no, we didn't climb the 200+ stairs to get to the top, this time anyway), and headed along the path past the Tea Garden Restaurant. There used to be a tea garden in this area (hence the name) but it has grown wild now. As it was a public holiday (Easter Monday), the pathway was p-a-c-k-e-d with visitors. It was like we were all in one big herd walking along this path. After a short while, we came out into an open area where the Lantau Trail sections 3 and 4 converged, the Wisdom Path began, and a neat vegetation trail all came together. The B's were ready for lunch by this time (it took us almost two hours to get there from their house), so we chose the vegetation trail first. We wandered along the trail looking for a good place to pull over and eat our packed lunch. We found some likely boulders and rested for a while. It was funny that so very many people were along the path from the Tea Garden and at the Wisdom Path, but we only saw ten people on the path we were on - the entire time.
We planted a letterbox in this area and then retraced our steps back the convergence and located the trail-head for section four of the Lantau Trail. We completed this 4 km section of trail gladly - it was mainly downhill - hooray! Most of the time we don't believe a hike rating unless it says strenuous hiking. They really mean that one - anything less is suspect since you always seem to be going up hills more than the guidebooks indicate. The trail took us through a rain forest section and a pine tree section. It overlooked a reservoir and if the day were clear we could have had a good view of the South China Sea. Alas, the ever-present smog had not been blown off and the view was iffy - as you can tell from the pictures. We crossed very many streams and saw the warning about flash foods frequently. Good thing the day was sunny!
After hiking, we boarded the next bus headed downhill, and thankfully it took us back to Tung Chung. From there we headed over to Tsim Sha Tsui and a local restaurant for dinner. Boy, we were hungry by then!
On Saturday, we headed in the opposite direction, to Sai Kung, for a hike. I'll write more about that one tomorrow - I'm still recovering from that hike! The weather here is warm, and unfortunately, the humidity has returned, which is why I think that hike was so difficult - 95% humidity is hard to breath in!
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