Hiking Down Ngong Ping – Lo Hon

Hotels.com and Cheaptickets helped me to organise the trip.

After seeing the Tian Tan Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery we decided to hike down back to the MTR Sation (mostly because we didn’t want to experience an other bus hell ride)

Ready for the 4 Mile hike down? Ok, when standing in front the Buddha there is a path towards the left of it. You will first pass a teahouse and shortly after the S.G.Davis Youthoustel and when you see this gate you are on the right track:

Mike being all ready …

Nice view from while hiking down:

Here some weird stone ornaments close to Tian Tan:

It was extremely hot and we were sweating like waterfalls so when we saw this:

we just could not resist to jump in. That river pool is half way down and it is on the left hand site right next the trail. You can’t miss it. While floating in it you have an awesome view:

This was maybe the coolest thing I have done. A little later on I was thinking how clean the water might have been (or not) considering that we passed small monasteries and houses on the way. Did we swim in mon poop? And if yes, is that good? Well .. jump in that pool on your own health risk . We survived it just fine.

And right before the Lo Hon Monastery (3/4 down the hike) we saw some Buddhist whips:

Weird .. And then shortly after we made it to the Monastery. By that time we were starving. This monastery welcomes everyone being hungry (the other smaller ones on the way don’t) and serve a delicious and very filling vegetarian meal for 4 bucks. Yumm!

The entrance to the Lo Hon is on the right site and looks like this:

Don’t be shy … come on in.

First thing we did .. was eating:

The open kitchen. The women there were extremely friendly and helpful.

Our Meal:

At first we thought the meal was only soup … but they kept bringing more and more stuff out. Try to get there around lunch time because you might have the chance to have lunch with the monks. We got there around 3pm and we were the only ones eating. This was 10.000 times more authentic then having that meal up on the Po Lin Monastery with all the other tourists.

After dinner we walked around the monastery and I was fascinated by those Buddhist Symbols. There are really all over the place:

RGS reader Tony did some research after the Tian Tan Budda post:

Swastika – Chinese called it, “WAN” Zi, Japanese named it “MAN” Ji, Tibetan read it as “GYUNG-DRUNG” or GEG-GSANG. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit means, “conducive to well- being”. S-vasti in Sanskrit is “It’s well”

Swastika is a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and is widely dispersed in both the ancient and modern world. It originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The swastika was widely utilized in ancient Mesopotamian coinage as well as appearing in early Christian and Byzantium art, where it was known as the gammadion cross. The swastika also appeared in South and Central America, widely used in Mayan art during that time period.

And much more information on the use of the swastika in religion and culture at http://web.singnet.com/~sidneys/Swastika.htm.

Thank you very much Tony. What is noticed is that the Nazi’s swastika is in reverse… I mean flipped the other way around.

This is the Ho Lon Temple:

More Snaphots:

I really hope you like my Vacation Stories …