If you’re planning your Hong Kong itinerary, going to Ngong Ping village on Lantau Island by the 360 cable car is must add to your list!

Hong Kong was our first stop on our travels and we spent three days exploring this amazing city. On the second day we headed out to ride the 360 cable car over to the Big Buddha in Ngong Ping. We left the hostel early and headed straight for the MTR. If you’re coming from Kowloon, it’s super easy as you can get a direct train on the Tung Chung line. If not, just pick up the orange line where you can and travel to the furthest stop; Tung Chung. The MTR is super easy to navigate, all the signs have English translations and its super simple with their colour coding. Also, if you were thinking of heading to Disneyland whilst you’re in Hong Kong, it’s on the orange line so it’s really easy to navigate the way there too. Definitely wish we’d had time to do a day at Disney!

When we reached Tung Chung it was so easy to find the entrance to the 360 cable car. Most of the people on the MTR, if they weren’t getting off at Disneyland then they’re heading to Ngong Ping so if you don’t know where to go follow the crowds and it’ll be easy enough to find. The ticket queues for the cable car can get pretty big so it’s best to head there early, plus you want to get most out of your ticket with a full day of exploring. Our ticket was a combination ticket called the ’360 Sky-Land-Sea Day Pass’ and cost $315 (HKD) working out about £31.50 (GBP) which its so cheap for everything we did and for what was included. The day pass we had included a return trip on the standard cable car, access to Ngong Ping & the Tian Tian Buddha, a return Lantau bus pass, the Tai O boat excursion and a doughnut from the Tai O bakery. It was a little confusing working out what ticket we wanted but we had time in the queue to decide and if this ticket option is available, I’d recommend it as it’s the best for fitting a lot into one day and it’s value for money. 

Once we had our tickets we headed straight to the cable car. The ride lasts about 35 mins and the views are incredible. There is an option for the crystal cable car which is entirely glass including the floor (eek) but to be honest, the standard car still gives you amazing 360 views so unless you want to be looking down at the ground, I wouldn’t bother spending the extra money on the crystal car.  

Once you’ve exited the cable car in Ngong Ping, it’s just a brief walk into the village. There is so much to see and do in the village, it ranges from temples and the big Buddha, to the shopping area with restaurants and souvenirs. The main attraction is the Tian Tian Buddha. You can’t miss it! Everyone heads there so it can be pretty crowded. The steps up to the top level where the buddha sits are split into up & down to try and keep it moving but of course, it’s still very busy. To be honest, the slow moving crowds were kind of a blessing in disguise because it was so warm and there are a LOT of stairs. It did take a fair while to get to the top but the views were just unreal and the Buddha is so impressive. There’s also a restaurant at the top underneath the Tian Tian Buddha which was pretty popular, but I don’t know much more about it as we didn’t bother going in. 

We spent a couple of hours exploring the village before heading for lunch in the shopping area. There was lots of choice for food places but we chose the Zen Noodle Café and the food was ok, but nothing special. It is pretty pricey in the restaurants, there is a Subway but it still seems quite dear, so if you’re wanting to save a few pennies I’d take lunch with you. 

After lunch, we headed to the bus stop area which once we’d actually found out how it worked, the whole trip to Tai O fishing village was really straight forward. Also the day pass ticket was really popular so there are lots of people around to ask if you find yourself a bit confused. We queued for the bus and it took about 45 minutes to reach Tai O. When we arrived we took a note of bus return times and headed in to Tai O to take a look around. 

Tai O is a tiny fishing village on the very edge of Lantau Island. The houses are built on stilts out in the water and it’s made up of narrow streets which feel like a maze. The infrastructure of the whole village is just crazy, how the houses are so secure I don’t know, but everyone lives in them and they’re decorated beautifully with crazy coloured fences and flower pots. It’s such a colourful village decorated with beautiful patterned paper lanterns and it feels like the village’s true authenticity has been so well preserved. I think that’s why it was so impressive to me and is still one of my all-time favourite parts of our six-month trip. Also keep an eye out for the cat sanctuary! 

Included in the day pass was a ticket for a Tai O boat excursion. When we arrived into Tai O, we headed for the stilt house that the boat docked at and to check the departure times. This gave us an idea of how long we had to explore the village as we didn’t want to miss the last bus back to Ngong Ping. If you do the trip to Tai O, I’d say head to the boat first so you don’t get caught out with the return buses! The boat excursion itself was brief but really fun. We headed into the village on the water and saw more of the stilt houses before heading out into the open water to look for pink dolphins. Unfortunately, even though they make regular appearances in this part of the water we didn’t see any. 

I could have spent hours in Tai O looking in the shops at the unique souvenirs and trying more local delicacies but the return buses were limited so we headed back back to Ngong Ping. By the time we were off the bus and walking to the cable car the sun was starting to go down. The views on the return journey were just so amazing. I really don’t know how we timed it so well! With the sunset came the most beaut pink tinged sky and all the lights of the city were starting to come on, it was so glorious. Hans Hint: If you’re still there in the late afternoon, it would be worth heading back for when the sun goes down as its just insane, but be careful of cutting it to close as the queues for the cable car back were extremely long!

If you’ve been to Ngong Ping in the cable car, I’d love to hear what you thought! If you want to know what else we got up to in Hong Kong, check out my ‘3 Days in Hong Kong’ blog for all the best bits that we did, how we got around and where we stayed! 

lots of love, 

Han x