Bus to Buddha

What a day!  Ok, surely it was the right decision to fight the jetlag and plough on without much sleep.  It was hardly a surprise that I spent most of the day going in and out of the corridor.  But the rest of it I couldn't have anticipated.

We went back to the food court for breakfast, resisting all temptation to rely on the cryptic maps to guide us there.  We purchased basically one of everything available at the bakery, which in hindsight might have been slightly too much.  This would be regretted later.  The food was nice, though!

Then it was the ferry to Central, and afterwards the ferry to Lantau island.  No problems there.  But to get the Buddha itself (or, more specifically, to the bottom of the massive flight of steps up to the Buddha) it takes a 1 hour bus journey.  Sounds ok, doesn't it?

That's what we thought.  The road between the ferry and the Buddha is of reasonable quality, but very hilly and extremely twisty.  Add to this an old (but paradoxically air-conditioned) bus which has obviously had its suspension retrospectively removed.  Now, load that bus up the max and put a suicide driver in the hot-seat.  What you end up with is something akin to a rollercoaster ride.  That lasts far... too... long.

The Buddha itself is well worth the effort.  So is the monastery.  But in the back of your mind, you've always got that morbid fear of The Bus.

By the time we got off again at the ferry, I was in quite a state.  I wanted to take a photo of the bus to show you but, predictably, it sped off immediately.

 

As usual, there's more photos over on Flickr.