We are in the beginning of our great Asian trip that will last for about half of a year!
Yesterday we got to Hong Kong, moved to Lantau Island, and found a good place to spend the night in some park, among tropical bushes.
In the morning, we took the NgonPing360 cable car up to the largest sitting Buddha.
There is also a Buddhist monastery. There are a lot of unusual tropical plants around, some even with some strange fruits.
We are not very lucky with the weather in Hong Kong, if it was just very cloudy on the first day, then on the second day it rained from lunch, or rather a large drizzle sometimes turning into rain. Enough about the weather...
After visiting the sitting Buddha, we went for a walk along the Lantau track. First, we came to the Wisdom Path. This is a small path, which is accompanied by huge wooden columns with hieroglyphs, we could not read them, but probably these are wise sayings.
And then there was the climb to Lantau Peak. This is a peak with a height of 934 meters, it offers a wonderful view, but so far we did not know this yet, but just walked up the stone steps and up and up again. The climb is very steep, but there are stone steps everywhere, sometimes they are 30-40 centimeters high, but still they are steps. And here is the pass over the ridge - we hoped so much that the trail goes further down, but no, it goes to the top of Lantau Peak. Well, we're going there too. There are very beautiful views from Lantau Peak, and at the top there is a small bench under a canopy, if the weather suddenly catches you, you can take shelter.
Then the path goes down and is not so steep, so it was easy to go down, but it was getting late in the evening, and it was still a long way to the free campsites where we planned to spend the night. We went out onto the Tung Chung Road, and went down it to the South Lantau Road. We think well, somewhere we will definitely find a place to spend the night, but we need to buy groceries and here we were "pleased" by the locals - there are grocery stores only in the villages, and they are still about 7-8 km away. In general, without thinking twice, we decided to use the bus, the bus from the village of Muivo costs 4.5 HK$, we sit down and give 20 dollars, they show us to the box for bills and do not give us change. And then I remember that in Hong Kong they don't give change on buses, or let's do it without change or... This case has taught us to save small things for transportation.
In general, we bought groceries and stayed at a free campsite. But today it's 24.12 and there are a lot of tents in the campsite, some are decorated with New Year's garlands, and a lot of people, something similar to our tour package, only in Chinese.
The campsite has a toilet and a shower, although it is cold. There are many places for tents, tables with benches and places for a bonfire. In general, all the conditions.
In the morning we walked to Muivo, where we bought and tasted dragon fruit. Juicy, with a slightly pronounced taste, but very original in appearance. On the way, we met Chinese cows/buffaloes in their natural habitat - bushes. There are regular ferries from Muiwo to Hong Kong Island, where we are going.
From Lantau Island, where we spent the last couple of days, a ferry took us to Hong Kong Island. All the straits between the islands are literally teeming with all sorts of ships, and small boats, and huge container ships, and cruise liners. On the horizon, huge bridges between the islands can be seen in the haze. At first, just tall buildings appeared from behind the hill, then skyscrapers, and then suddenly a building twice as tall as all the others appeared. In a word, it takes your breath away...
From the Pier where the ferry arrives, a covered pedestrian zone begins, which first goes along the ground, and then rises to the overpasses and passes at the 3rd - 4th floor level, and connects shopping malls, you can wander along these pedestrian bridges all day without going outside. The multi-level interchanges are amazing.
Not far from the tram stop on Victoria Peak there is Hong Kong Park, very beautiful, and it has a room under a net for different birds and you can enter it, for free. Wooden bridges are laid almost at the level of the tree crowns and it is very convenient to observe birds.
And then we went to Victoria Peak, it is worth noting that the cash desks do not accept plastic cards, but only cash. A regular one-way ticket costs HK$ 28. Already buying tickets, we realized that it was unlikely that we would see spectacular views - everything was covered in clouds. But we were hoping to see something, but all we saw was fog...
The tram arrives at the upper station - a huge multi-storey shopping center with all sorts of shops and restaurants, and finding a way out among them is also not an easy task. Everything is done to ensure that the tourist spends as much money as possible.
We went along the Morning Trail route to find a place for a tent. After a kilometer, there is a clearing with a gazebo, and steps go down from it to another route, but the path there is narrow, there are a lot of bushes, after walking along it for 100-150 meters you go out into a clearing with benches under canopies where we stayed overnight.
However, in the evening we went to the observation deck again - we hoped to see the lights of skyscrapers, but in vain...
As usual, we woke up at 4 a.m. - the change of time zones affects. At 5 a.m., it got a little clearer, but it was still dark, and the desire to see the glowing skyscrapers did not disappear anywhere, and we went to the observation deck. It turned out that in the morning all the lights on the skyscrapers were turned off...
In general, in the evening we were very worried about where to put up a tent so that no one would notice us, and when we went to look at the city in the morning, we saw an elderly Chinese couple doing morning exercises near their tent, which stood in the most prominent place.
Seeing nothing, we went back to the tent. And only when it was dawn, we had breakfast, packed up and came back to the observation deck. We saw skyscrapers and the harbour, and in the distance in the fog the Kowloon district...
The road down found us by itself and in just 15 minutes we were already in the city center. We walked through the botanical and zoological park, wandered into the colourful narrow streets with a lot of merchants.
We decided to have a snack at some local restaurant, in the first one where we went, some kind of madness was going on - dozens of Chinese were yelling all together, clinking plates, and chaotically fussing between the tables, there was not a single empty seat and it was generally unclear what was going on... The next diner was smaller and more spacious, and a local employee invited us inside, sat us down and brought the menu. We had lunch with traditional noodles with all sorts of additives.
We went down to the ferries and took the Star Ferry to the Tsim Sha Tsui Embankment. We walked along the alley of stars (Star Avenue). Of the entire alley, we know only two actors Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. They also took pictures with the statue of Bruce.
Nathan Road is probably the main tourist street in Hong Kong. There are a lot of shops and boutiques, but it's better to turn into parallel streets after Kowloon Park. It's much more interesting there. Traditional Chinatowns begin, as they are shown in the movies - everyone is selling something, carrying bales, some strange food stinks right there, they sell live fish, oysters, and some other living creatures to cook and devour it right there. Everything is very noisy and colourful.
In the evening we watched the Symphony of Lights laser show - honestly, I was absolutely not impressed, but maybe someone will like it... However, the sky was overcast and the tops of some skyscrapers were hidden in clouds.
There are two buses 21A and 21 going from the center towards the airport. We got 21A. The fare to the airport from the center is HK$ 33. This bus does not stop at Tung Chung, and we did not take it back from the airport to spend the night. We slept well at the airport, covered with sleeping bags, and in the morning we flew to the Philippines.
