Thing That Cannot Be Hidden

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”    -Buddha

Make that four things: the sun, the moon, truth, and the honking huge statue of the Amitabha Buddha on Lantau Island.

I went to the island thinking that the statue was some grand masterpiece of ancient Chinese engineering. Why, I wondered, was this 110 foot, 280 ton Buddha not listed among the wonders of the ancient world, alongside the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse at Alexandria? Looking at the picture to the right, you have to admit that it is a remarkable creation of human hands.

Sort of.

I actually found out later that is was not made by human hands, but rather by mechinized claws. The Tiantan Buddha(it's official name) was actually constructed from 1990-1993. Hardly an ancient wonder. I feel so disillusioned... though perhaps the environment around the statue should have clued me in...

Ah, well. It was a good time anyway. Getting to the statue is a bit of a trip, though. I started on a ferry from Central Hong Kong to Mui Wo on Lantau Island. Upon arrival at Mui Wo, I discovered that the only real modes of transportation on the island were the buses- which only ran once per hour. It took another 2-odd-hours to get from Mui Wo to Tai O, and from Tai O to the Po Lin Monastery near the statue. 

There were a surprising number of expats on the buses, most of them living on Lantau. One girl who worked at the local bookstore (succinctly named "Bookstore") said it was the perfect place for people who want to get away from the insanity of Hong Kong and just chill on a beach. Sitting around on a beach all day would probably drive me battier than any of the crackpots working in Hong Kong, but that's just me.

In addition to seeing the Tiantan Buddha, I was also looking forward to taking a cable car across the island; it's supposed to have some amazing views of the national parkland and the ocean. Of course, the day I choose to go to an island is the day Cyclone Soudelor decides to whistle through China's southeast, so I had to settle for the view at the top of the Buddha statue. Not bad, really.

   

                               

Comments

[Taekwonweirdo.wordpress.com]

I went to the Giant Buddha twice, and I think in both instances on foot. I hiked all the way from Mui Wo once (it took a good part of the day) and followed the most dangerous (non-)trails in Hong Kong (dotted by scary names such as 狗牙嶺，一線生機，閻王璧), and once from Tung Chung (2 hours), across a modest nunnery where the nuns grew their own vegetables.