Daily Times

I had spotted an endless cable car on Lantau Island near the airport during my last visit but was not sure where it went. This time I was determined to conquer my fear of heights and ride in it.

So on one bright Saturday morning I found myself boarding the cable car. I was with a guided tour group, which had arrived there, in a small bus.

Our destination was the Giant Buddha, which was a half-hour ride away.

The ride was slow, long and pure torture. I cursed myself for failing to pack a book. My cell phone refused to pick up a signal. So I just decided to look at the floor.

Finally it ended. We walked over toward the giant Buddha. The bronze statue was nearly 100 feet tall and 20 years old. It had been built in mainland China at Nanjing, disassembled, and shipped piece-by-piece by barge along the Pearl River and then re-assembled at the current site.

The ride was slow, long and pure torture. I cursed myself for failing to pack a book. My cell phone refused to pick up a signal. So I just decided to look at the floor

We went up a flight of concrete steps and soon found ourselves inside the giant Buddha.

Three large paintings hung on the wall. They were drawn in the ancient Chinese style, even though the Buddha had never visited China, being a native of Nepal who had spent almost his entire life in India. We were told he passed away around 500BC.

There was a very tiny relic enclosed in glass. The guide said that when the Buddha died, he was cremated according to Hindu tradition. After cremation, 84,000 tiny fragments were left. Two of these lay in front of us.

After seeing the Buddha, we toured a 500-year old monastery that was in the large courtyard that was adjacent to the Buddha but built at a lower elevation.

Having seen everything the site had to offer, I began to walk back toward the bus.

I encountered an ancient looking, wooden gate to the monastery.

It framed the Buddha on the hill very nicely.

At that point, one of our companions came over to me and asked if I remembered where the tour bus was parked. I said ‘yes’ and was happy to finally have someone to talk to on the tour, other than the guide.

The invisible language and cultural barrier had been lifted.

We began walking toward the bus. Along the way, I said that I was a bit disappointed to learn that the Buddha was only 20 years old but the consolation was that it looked it a lot older. The man responded, “You would also look very old if someone put you on top of that hill for 20 years.”

I said it was hard to believe that the sacred relic belonged to the original Buddha.

He said it was a nice story.

To which I said, “But a story with no credibility.”
Pat came the reply, “Live and let live.”

Seeing that I was startled, he said, “No one knows whether Moses or Jesus or Muhammad existed but millions believe that they did. That too is a nice story.” I did not take the bait. I was not questioning the Buddha’s existence, just the existence of the sacred relics so far from his burial site. My point was not whether the Buddha existed but whether these relics could conceivably be traced back to him. What tests had been performed?

Now we were close to the bus and another woman joined the group. To change the topic, I asked the man if the cable car ride had scared him. He said no. I said it scared me.

And he said, “What could have happened?” And I said, “A lot of unpleasant things.” And he said, “What is the absolute worst?”

When I did not respond, he said: “Well, it could have been flung to the ground by the high winds.” I snapped, “Exactly.”

He said, “Why does that worry you?”

I said, “For obvious reasons.”

He said, “Why should we be afraid of dying? We are but one tiny speck in the infinite spectrum of time. The world would go on without us just as it has been going on before we arrived.”

The new woman could not hold back her amazement. She chimed in, “But I have so many things left to do in my life.”

To which he replied, “Don’t you remember going past that cemetery on the way over. All those people who lie there in eternal repose also had imagined that they had many things still left to do before death overtook them.”

So there I was, in the vicinity of the Giant Buddha, being enlightened by a disciple who had attained nirvana.

Next we went to the fish market. It was ancient and next to the sea.

The sun was beginning to set and the scene was turning into a silhouette.

Our guide took us into the market.

The stalls were smelly and congested except that my eyes could not spot any fish.

Instead, yellow coloured objects were hanging everywhere, waiting for the buyer to put in a bid.

They looked like large potato chips.

I assumed they were some type of local fish and asked the guide as to what type of fish they were. He said, “They are fish bladders.”

Earlier in the day, I had gone on another guided tour.

This time we had been driven to the top of Victoria Peak from which we had seen the high-rise panorama that constitutes the postcard image of Hong Kong.

Immediately beneath us were the high rises of Hong Kong Island. Then there was the bay, which contains the iconic Victoria Harbour.

And beyond that were the high rises of Kowloon Island.

Later the tour took us to the place where fishing boats were parked.

We toured that portion of the harbour in a festively decorated boat.

It was not a sailboat, nor an oar boat but a motorboat.

We were informed that fishing had become a dying industry and only 8,000 fishermen remained of the some 100,000 that used to practice that trade decades ago.

The sea had been overfished.

Fish was now coming in from distant locales such as Korea and Japan and Indonesia and the Philippines.

Our tour gave us yet another view of the high-rises of the city.

They seemed to float on the water. We sailed past a gaily-decorated restaurant called Jumbo’s that billed itself as the world’s largest floating restaurant.

Stanley’s Beach was quite impressive. In an enclosure, a band was playing one of the old Beatle songs.

The crowd was swaying and taking pictures. As I rushed back toward the bus, I lost my way. The stalls all looked alike and there were simply too many of them in such a small place. I thought the bus would leave would leave without me. But I found it with minutes to spare.

Earlier in the week, I had toured the Avenue of the Stars.

It was right next to the water and the views of the Hong Kong skyline were dramatic, especially at sunset.

On the water, you would often see a red junk sail past you. It evoked a long gone era.

The writer has toured 34 countries on six continents and can be reached at ahmad.faruqui@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 27^th 2017.