As soon we booked our Hong Kong trip, we knew we wanted to visit the Tian Tan Buddha. Situated at the top of a mountain on Lantau Island, it’s not the easiest place to get to or a quick thing to tick off your Hong Kong bucket list, but the Big Buddha is a big deal in Hong Kong. We knew we wanted to dedicate one of our 7 days in the city to seeing him, Ngong Ping village and the Po Lon monastery, and that we wanted to take the cable car up the mountain too.
We’d booked in advance via Klook, as we got 5% off our booking for being a new customer. Tickets booked directly from the Ngong Ping 360 website cost 195 Hong Kong dollars each, around £20, or if you’d rather do the bus that’s 120 Hong Kong dollars, £12. We got a deal on Klook as we booked multiple different activities all in one go, making a small saving.
I highly recommend booking everything you want to do in Hong Kong in advance, as this often lets you skip the queues when you arrive. Hong Kong has a lot of queues. Sadly for us, the cable car queue was not skippable (but we didn’t have to queue separately to buy tickets before joining the main queue) and we queued for around two hours to get onto the cable car. Top tip-if there’s more than one of you, take it in turns to leave the queue, head to the Starbucks at the other side of the main square and use their toilet and grab a drink. Coffee powered us through the queue.
The cable car journey was absolutely worth the wait. I would do it all again tomorrow for another trip on that cable car. The route starts just outside the MTR station at Tung Chung, which is easy to get to from Central Hong Kong. If you don’t fancy the cost or the queue, though, you can take the bus up instead, from the bus station at Tung Chung, NLB no 23. You can also cut out going to Tung Chung altogether and take a bus direct from Mui Wo, NLB no 2. You’ll see another part of Hong Kong if you take the bus, but if you can manage to get the cable car up in daylight and back at dusk, do that.
At the top, there’s a little village that’s more touristy than I expected, with gift shops and various food options. We bought ice cream, took a photo on the rainbow stairs and set off walking towards the rest of Ngong Ping. We walked round a corner, saw a sign that there were loose cows wandering and not to feed them, spotted a cow and I lost my shit. I just wasn’t expecting a cow up a mountain, alright?
We walked for about 15 minutes to the Po Lin monastery, taking lots of photos of the burning incense sticks, the lanterns and all of the beautiful buildings before having a proper look inside. It’s important to be respectful so my photos were all taken outside but trust me, the inside is just as beautiful as the outside. I’m not sure if it’s usually as full on as it was when we were there, as we were there around Lunar New Year, but it’s absolutely going to be worth a trip whenever you visit Hong Kong.
The star of the show, the Big Buddha himself, is about a ten minute walk from the monastery. You do have to climb A LOT of steps, and it’s likely to be busy, but the views all the way up are amazing. We took so many photos and enjoyed walking all around the Buddha, and the little museum underneath him, once we got to the top.
We ended up staying at the top of the mountain until not long before it closed, before joining the (thankfully much shorter) queue for a cable car back down again. I’d highly recommend a visit here to anyone going to Hong Kong, although I’m not sure I’d feel the need to go a second time-I think the Big Buddha is amazing but once you’ve been, you’re done.
Have you been to Hong Kong? Would you visit the Big Buddha?
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