However, we were sorely disappointed. We had even booked our tickets online to try to make it a faster progress on to the cable car proper. But when we got there, the line was MASSIVE! I was so glad to have my Kindle, as I read a lot of my book and listened to a podcast while we lined up to collect our tickets and then lined up for the cable car itself. All up, we arrived at 10:30 to the queue, and we got on a cable car at 1pm. It was 2.5 hours!!!
The cable car itself was pretty cool though - it’s a 25 minute journey and we had booked the “Crystal Cabin”, which meant the cabin had a glass floor so we could look down as well as out. It was a very cool ride, although I couldn’t look down for long! At the top, there is a whole village of food and touristy places, so we started with lunch given the time. We ended up at Subway purely because it had the shortest queue. We were patiently waiting for someone to serve us when this chubby Chinese kid pushed in front of us, said ‘excuse me’ loudly and repeatedly and then ordered while we stood there, dumbfounded and shocked. We tried to say something, but they didn’t appear to speak English (or were pretending not to), which was frustrating and rude!
After our lunch, we decided to check out the fishing village nearby, as it was a bus to get there which finished running earlier than the cable car. So we waited about 10 minutes for the bus then stood as it swayed and bumped its way down to Tai O. It was gorgeous there, warmer and sunny. People ran shops out of their front rooms selling every kind of dried fish you can imagine as well as trinkets and treats. We got a voucher with our cable car ticket to a boat ride, which took us through the streets (well, canals) of water in between the houses. Almost all the houses in the building are on stilts in the water and we got to really admire them as we went through the village. Then the boat went out into the ocean, in the hopes that we would see a pink dolphin! However, it was about 2pm by then and bright and sunny, so we did not have any luck spotting anything other than seabirds. Then we wandered more through the village, got some delicious donuts to eat as we walked, and generally explored, before heading back to the bus back up to Nyong Ping.
Once back in Nyong Ping, we went to the monastery, which was beautiful. They apparently have a fantastic vegetarian restaurant there, but it was closed, so we just wandered through the temples admiring the buildings. Then we headed right up to the very top of the mountain, to what is probably the main attraction, a giant Buddha statue right on the top of the hill. It was so big and so welcoming, even though it was also closed by then. We were able to walk around though and admire his calm stillness. Despite not being spiritual, I really enjoyed the Buddha. By that time, it was about 6pm and we decided we’d better head back to the cable car to go home for dinner. However, many other people obviously had the same idea because the line was huge! Again, we waited in line while I read my book, and shivered in the cold breeze as the sun went down. I was only wearing a tshirt and shorts, and it was cold and windy. Not a very pleasant time!
This time it was only 90 minutes we were in the queue... Before we headed back to Tung Chung, and Central from there.We stopped at a place there called Tsui Wah (a kind of Chinese fast food place, a restaurant with a very extensive menu including Western food). We both picked noodle dishes, which were so yummy and after so much walking we were both very hungry! We were also tired though, because we then went straight back to the hotel and into our bed.
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