Full-Day Private Tour of Lantau Island including Big Buddha and Tai O
Your Lantau tour lasts 7 hours if you meet your guide at Tung Chung MTR station on Lantau Island or 8 hours if you would like your guide to meet you at your hotel.
On weekdays, your tour guide will meet at Tung Chung MTR station at 9:45am (or in your hotel lobby at 9am). On Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, your tour guide will meet you at Tung Chung at 8:45am (or in your hotel lobby at 8am). This tour will start early to avoid the crowds.
Your Lantau private tour starts with a ride on the Ngong Ping Cable Car. You will be treated to the most wonderful views of Lantau Country Park and the airport as you travel over the back of the island for 25 minutes. Your destination is the famous Big Buddha. Here you will learn about Buddhism, climb the 268 steps to the Buddha, visit the Po Lin Monastery and the new hall of 10,000 Buddhas.
From Ngong Ping, it is a 20-minute bus ride to Tai O, the Venice of Hong Kong. Tai O is one of the very few remaining places in Hong Kong where you can still see stilt houses over the water. Tai O used to be a fairly big community but due to the decline of the fishing industry it, like Venice, is now primarily a tourist destination, for both overseas visitors and Hong Kongers escaping the hustle and bustle of the city. Tai O is still known for its traditional production of shrimp sauce and shrimp paste and for its colourful seafood market.
You will embark on a full exploration of Tai O visiting the beautifully restored Old Police Station, now operating as a heritage hotel. If you are feeling hungry, this is where you can enjoy lunch in the very nice Lookout restaurant. You will visit one of the two remaining shrimp sauce production factories, meander the back streets in and around the stilt houses, visit a temple from the late 1400’s and learn about the religion of Taoism. If you have the energy, you can trek to a lookout point where you can get an excellent view of the construction of the 42km bridge that is being built between Hong Kong and Macau. Will will take a 20 minute boat ride through the stilt village and out into the harbour where, if you are lucky, you will see some of the renowned pink dolphins of Hong Kong!
