Lost Horizons

Today is our last full day in Hong Kong. In order to seek spiritual enlightenment and put our trip into perspective, we decided to visit the Ngong Ping Village where the world’s largest Buddha resides.

This was a perilous journey somewhat reminiscent of James Hilton’s Lost Horizons. Only instead of a plane flight to parts unknown in the Himalayas, we had to navigate the underground shopping malls to find our subway station one half mile away. Then, we needed to execute a transfer taking us one stop past Hong Kong Disneyland. Finally, the most perilous part of the journey was upon us – we took a cable car up into the hills. As the cable car disappeared into the clouds we wondered, where would it take us? Cars would appear out of the mist from the other direction, only – there was nobody in them! Was this an episode of the Twilight Zone?



No, in fact everyone was disappearing into a tourist trap located next to a fake Buddhist Monastery. The Buddha itself was cool enough, and we obtained our enlightenment eating gelato while watching paid entertainers bang on drums in unison. Our trip was over and the mysterious cable car returned us to the station – next to the new Hong Kong airport.